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snow tunnel

Let us all gather around the fire for this one dear readers, I shall tell you a recent tale. 

Being from the Great North, the people I grew up with survived many winters. We made all sorts of snow shelters, lakeside igloos, trench pits, quinzes, and on occasion my siblings and I would take mattresses out onto the driveway and watch the aurora borealis in the dead of winter. The wolves and I have an agreement: they do not bother me as I do not bother them. We know cold and we know snow, as one can imagine. 

Photographs have surfaced of my eldest kin standing with berms high overhead for the record breaking snow of around 12 feet in south-central Alaska. The “unending snow,” as it was called, drifted all year.

There is something special about the first snow of the year and that is what fell upon me during my travels south this fall season–the first snow of the Yukon.

The hour was late and the sun had long been gone. The dark green forests along the river brought strong wafts of pine as the wind picked up, carrying them south-east along the surface of the frigid waters. There were small flecks of snowdust coming down already, and I had to keep on trucking. As you see, dear readers, I was racing not only the winter but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They had allowed me 24 hours to leave the Yukon territory as per agreement of my in-transit visa, and therefore I had no choice but to press on through the storms. It turned from dust to thick flakes as 200 miles of blizzard went on to what seemed like forever. Perilous winds and steep inclines, cliffs and frost heaves, ice and trenches. My vision was limited to only 50 feet before me. The entire road was covered and the snow was piling higher. There was an immense calm that comes with the snow, as I was driving no faster than 40 miles an hour. 

Sound hardly travels through a blizzard, and the silence was deafening. I was listening to a 25 hour video series about the origins of Europe through my cell phone, until something inside me turned it off to listen to the road for a little while. Glued to the seat, I was staring down at the hypnotic snow arcing across my windshield, bright and yellow from my headlights. The scene resembled a hundreds-of-miles long tunnel where I was slowly gliding through. No road noise, no engine noise, no music. No audio to be found, as though in a soundbooth. There were fewer and fewer cars driving around me even though it was merely 6 or 7 in the afternoon. Soon I was the only one driving south, and the northbound traffic thinned to only one or two semi-trucks passing me northbound every 20 minutes or so.

Was I the only one brave enough to navigate the storm? Or was I the only one dense enough to try?

Man, alone in the first Yukon blizzard of 2020

I was grateful for these trucks, as they were leaving large ruts behind for me to drive in for there were no tire tracks on my side of the road. Almost as soon as their tracks were covered by the pounding snow, they were blazed again by another tractor-trailer heading north.There was no sense of ‘correct lanes’ as the entire road was white and limited to such a tight visual, as though wandering in a cavern equipped only with an oil lantern.

Times like these are cherished, for they make your options few in a world filled with options tugging you off course. ‘Go’ or ‘stay’, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a world of gray areas and maybes. “Do I stay and hope the road clearing crews come in the morning, or do I keep inertia until the task is done?” Circumstance rendered it most appropriate to keep on. Once committed, it’s easy to keep with it, and I am glad that I did.

When I reached beyond the checkpoint on just the edge of British Columbia, I pulled off the road and slept till morning in my driver’s seat only to wake up to well-formed icicles and a plot of snow burying my car under a blue sky. That was a proud sleep, and much deserved. It’s quite funny to note that when nature takes its turn, rules of the road are off the table and you’re on your own.

We can make systems and manage them well, until the first metaphorical snow. Be prepared to face hardships and unknowns in the coming ‘winters’ of our lives, as there is much out of our control aside from how we handle ourselves. Sliding off a ledge from driving carelessly fast? Waiting under the snows for someone else to pull you out? Perhaps driving through it by faith?

Take care in your preparations, for in many ways, the snow is already here.

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