The House & other Arctic musings

Thirteen ways

A poet I follow, mostly on his channel (stack?) Poetry Unbound on Substack, is Pádraig Ó Tuama. In his latest post he speaks about Wallace Stevens' excellent poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and the entire genre of poetry it inspired. If you are unfamiliar with the poem you really should search it out. 

In his post Pádraig asks: What it is that you feel the need to have 13 ways of looking at? 

No need, but it did inspire me to pick a topic and write my own Thirteen Ways poem.  Many topics it could be but it might not be a surprise that near the end of the journey of building a cabin I wrote... Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Cabin

I

Tent rings border this cabin
Ancient lives
Also knew the beauty of this place

II

Sawdust coats my face
And slivers hide in my skin
A sore back belies
How much joy building a cabin brings

III

A cabin looks small
Against this land

IV

When the saw stops
Silence begins appropriating
This space
In answer, out before the cabin,
Narwhal exhale
Stars wink on

V

I see the flaws I made
The joint not tight
The moulding covering a mistake
Phoenician flaws
Because the cabin’s beauty
Lies not in perfection

VI

Crossing the river
Ravens circle me
My blackbirds
So stopping on the far side
They also pause
Raucously giving me news
Telling me it wasn’t them
That shit on the cabin’s window

VII

He paddled here,
Nuvumiutaq.
In a qajaq
Made of skin.
Eight hundred years
Before I sought his ghost
Looking out
from a cabin
Made of wood

VIII

Avingaq is my son
And a lemming.
It wonders why
I built a cabin
On it’s meadows.
The lemming. 
My son knows.

IX

An iceberg
Blocks the view
The blue
Lights the cabin
And dances.

X

Time slows
On the cabin deck
You can see it in the light

XI

Bare rafters bathed in gold
The entire coast in colour
Pipit calls from the peak
Air is cold but the cabin
Covered in warmth

XII

Hare knows
There is no danger
In my footsteps
On the snowy climb up
He stands stoic
As I reach the cabin
Closing his eyes
As I pass

XIII

The bones of this place
Run deep
To the beginning of time
And the first
To sit where sits the cabin
And watch whales play

Eulogy

It has been over five years since my dad passed away. He has always been the man I most wish I was. And, as is often the case when we lose people, I think of the history that is lost when they go, like a library disappearing. I still find myself to this day thinking "I should call dad, he'd know that... oh". 

The other day I came across the words I spoke at his funeral and I thought I'd share them on here. In part so there is another place they can be found, when my internal book of history is lost.

Two things.

First of all, I will not make it through this without breaking down.

Secondly, my dad was a teacher.

All parents are really. And I don’t mean the stuff they set out to show you, like how to change a tire, make soup, drive a car. How to cast your hook just under those overhanging willows where the big fish lie. But the stuff they teach you by being. By living.
About the time I became a father I learned of a passage written by Umberto Eco.

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom. Well, hopefully wisdom. And dad taught me much by living his life as I believe it should be lived. He remains the man I most wish I was. Today I want to share with you two of his most important lessons.

Live life with humour. Live so you can ignite that same twinkle in your eye that always seemed to reside in his. I honestly don’t think that dad loved anything more in this world than to make someone smile, even if that smile took the shape of a groan. And that twinkle would rise even when times were dark. Because making someone smile is important work. Life can be dark, facing life with humour and grace keeps the light going. It eases the weight of others. And just as importantly, eases your own.

Dad jokes are a noble calling.

The other lesson is this, be kind. Even when it isn’t easy. Especially when it isn’t easy. It’s easy to be kind to those we love, our neighbours, those who look like us, those who hold our views. Be kind when it’s hard. Dad would. Because it matters.

We had a relative who could be difficult to love. Ornery. Liked his drink. I found him down right mean. And at the end of his days, in care, when it would be easy to leave him to others dad would visit, and care for him, and show him love. I remember well dad’s anger at a doctor who treated this man as something less. Because dad knew that everyone, everyone, deserves our kindness.

There’s a series of books by Terry Pratchett, fantasy novels. The one called Reaper Man is about Death. Not dying death, but Death, the Grim Reaper. So I guess it’s about death. It contains a line that has resonated with me.

“...no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away...”

Ripples. We all leave ripples behind. The people we touch, the deeds we do. Some of us leave the water almost still, but they are there. Others send their ripples far into this world.

I want my dad’s ripples to last, to not die away. To last beyond me. Beyond my children. So here’s a challenge for you. You’re here, I assume, to honour dad, remember him. When you leave this place do two things. Make someone smile. But more importantly be kind to someone. Not someone easy, but someone who challenges you. Someone who struggles. Someone who looks different than you. Someone whose idea of love is different than yours, but maybe not really so different. Someone who sees this world from a different place, who might not have had the same ladder to stand on. Someone you’ve grown estranged to. Someone without a home of their own.

Be kind.

Ripples. Make some ripples.

 

Jungle memories

It's been a long time since I travelled.  Really travelled. Flights out of here are expensive, and Leah has a strong fear of flying. But this story harkens back to a trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Most people think of the jungle as impenetrable. A tangle of growth, vines, thick with green.That’s only the edges, a stream bank, or a tree fall, a clearing.The canopy, a hundred feet up or more, is thick. Trees competing for light, filling every available inch with greenery, it blocks the light from reaching the jungle floor.  So there’s not much growth below. Huge tree trunks, shadow loving shrubs and plants make it park like below.Tree falls are important. Imagine a one, two hundred foot tall tree falling, crashing to the ground taking out other trees, ripping a hole in the canopy, spilling light to the jungle floor. Plants, seeds and seedlings wait for this moment and grow, racing for the sun. Trying to race each other, too be taller, to out compete their neighbours to eat sunlight.Sit quietly in a shaft of light in a tree fall, with red on your T-shirt, and a hummingbird might visit, flying inches from you, as a Hermit did me, eventually flying up to my face washing wind from its wings over me, trying to figure out what strange manner of flower I was.

So one day, one of our group wanted to check out some bats.  Our guide had told her there were some bats roosting in a hollow tree trunk nearby.This lady was in her 70s, and wanted a close look at the bats to try and identify the species. I tagged along because, well, nature.The plan was to hike to the tree as it was getting dark, put a butterfly net over the entrance, catch the bats, ID them, and then release them.

Darkness comes quicker near the equator. The Sun approaches the horizon straight up and down, not on an angle as it does here. Sunsets are short. As we walked to the bat tree darkness was falling. In the twilight, in this parklike setting, an orange glow blinked on, drifted, and off. Then another. And another. Fireflies, larger than ours, and orange not green, they drifted amongst huge tree trunks. More and more until they were everywhere. Little ethereal lanterns winking in and out of the world, weaving through the trees as far as you could see before the jungle faded. It was, quite simply, one of the most magical scenes I’ve ever faced. Forever seared into my mind’s eye.

There are ants everywhere in the jungle. Insects of every sort, filling every niche you could imagine, and niches you can’t imagine. Butterflies of neon blue the size of your palm, the size of my palm, that shimmer in dappled light. Moths, day flying, and those that like the dark, colourful or camouflaged, some with clear wings and bodies bright with colour. And the social insects... bees that, given the chance, would drink your sweat, seeking the salt it hides. Wasps that make tunnels on trees, staying inside for the safety of being out sight. Wasps that drum on their hive, together, in a building rhythm warning intruders that they will suffer their anger if they continue to press. And ants. Tiny ones, the size of these letters you read. Ants that taste of bursts of lemons if you pop them into your mouth, an effect of their chemical defence, citric acid, useless against your tastebuds. Those that farm fungus, growing on gardens of a mulch of leaves that they harvest from high above the ground, moving them along on highways painstakingly cleared on the forest floor. Their colony of thousands upon thousands sometimes eight feet deep, a city of sisters, genetically identical but sometimes with several different castes wildly different sizes and features each with its own role. Army ants, so relentless in their hunting that whole species of birds have evolved to take advantage of them, following the swarm, making their living catching insects and others fleeing the relentless colony. A family constantly on the move that is it’s own nest, forming a ball each night around it’s queen, her eggs and their pupal family. A bivouac in which they are their own shelter. And the largest of the ants, the Bullet Ant, sometimes called 24 hour ants because that’s how long the pain from their sting lasts. They are an inch or more long, unmistakable among the many species of ant. A fearsome reputation, not of aggression but born of the efficacious nature of their defence. A sting described as searing, burning, intense.  Not only that but chemicals the ant releases when it stings, induce other Bullet Ants nearby to do the same thing. 

And this story is about Bullet Ants as much as it is about bats. 

Once we had gotten to the hollow tree we got set up.  The opening in the tree was shaped like an inverted "V" with the base on the ground about as wide as my shoulders, and the point about two feet high.  We set up the net over the opening, covered the parts that the net couldn't and waited. And waited. Nocturnal insects began coming out of the hole, huge green katydids, beetles, moths, but no bats.  After awhile we figured that the bats were probably aware of us, and would stay inside. So a new plan was hatched. I would lie on the ground, shimmy my head and shoulders inside the tree and shine a light up. Hopefully that would allow me to get a photo of the bats with a small digital camera of the bat enthusiast. 

But as I was about to lay down on the ground, I notice a large ant crawling about in the space. And another. And another.  Bullet Ants! About an inch long.  So I did what any scaredy cat would do, I began trying to hit them with the flashlight I was holding. 

"What are you doing?" cried the woman. "Don't hurt them." But... I replied, those are bullet ants, their sting is incapacitating. "Give me that", and with that she grabbed the flashlight, laid on her back amongst the Bullet Ants, and shimmied into the opening, while the others in the group shrugged and waited for the screaming. 

After a bit she shimmied out, brushed herself off and said that there were about four bats, but she was unable to tell what species they might be. Not one sting, and my reputation as the brave Mountie, unafraid of the Tarantulas and other creatures in the jungle, in tatters.  Brought down by a few ants. 

Postscript: I did, on this trip, get bitten, or stung by ants. Little tiny ones, that left me dancing in the dining room shedding my shirt after I'd leaned on a railing that formed a highway for them. 

That Iceberg is blocking my view

At the end of August that year, I arrived at the cabin one afternoon to discover that a large iceberg was grounded offshore in front of it.  Distances and such can be hard to judge here, things seem a lot closer than they are.  But to give you an idea this iceberg was 80 feet high above the water line.

And the damned thing was blocking my view.

This view from the drone give a better idea of the size of this iceberg, which would be a medium sized one.  In case its not obvious you can see the cabin on shore.

The iceberg moved around Victor Bay for a long while, eventually heading out into Admiralty Inlet just before freezeup.