In Memory of The Milne Ice Shelf

“Look up, young ones.”

Their eyes popped open at the urgency in old Mr. Drybones’ voice.

Over their heads the aurora danced and shed its magical light, this time a dazzling curtain of red, green and yellow. It seemed to blow gently in an unseen wind. It was so quiet—not a sound, just the faint sighs and crackles of the dying fire. 

Spirits are walking...

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Ellesmere Island, part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region in Nunuvut, is about as far north as you can go in Canada. The Island provided the stony shoulders upon which a Pleistocene glacier rested. The Milne Ice Shelf--and once upon a time, many others--extended from the island into the Arctic Ocean.  These ice barrens were once hunting grounds for polar bear, resting places for seals and birds, and traversed by foxes and men, locked in an endless search for the next meal.

The Milne Ice Shelf contained a rarity too, the northern hemisphere's only Epishelf lake--a freshwater lake that floats atop and exists behind a dam of  sea ice. As such, it contained it's own precious world of plants and animals--creatures who lived in the freshwater trenches--had only recently begun to be studied by scientists.

The Inuktitut People had a descriptive name for the area long before Europeans came. Their name, "Tuvaijuittuq" means "The place which never melts." 

Ellesmere Island hasn't been this hot for 115,000 years, centuries before the Inuktitut arrived. Today the Canadian Arctic temperature is a distressing 9 F (5 C) above the thirty year average. Sea ice this year was the lowest it's been since records have been kept. 

2020 summer brought even higher temperatures, resulting in more open, warmer water. The Milne no longer had the thick buffer of sea ice it had once possessed. In August, strong off-shore winds began to blow. Satellite images showed startled scientists that forty percent of the ice shelf had broken up in just two days.  

Due to the pandemic, the scientists who are usually on the ice at this time of year were absent. They kept their lives, but lost $90,000 worth of monitoring equipment when their base camp went into the sea. All those unique freshwater worlds so recently discovered by scientists have probably vanished as well.


...The Milne Ice Shelf--and once upon a time, many others--extended from the island into the Arctic Ocean.  These ice barrens were once hunting grounds for polar bear, resting places for seal and bird, and traversed by fox and man, all in an endless struggle for survival...



Juliet Waldron

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Covid Tales For July

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#1 The Rite A**** Husband 

Her husband has to go to Rite A****.  He needs to drive his car more than he actually needs get something. There is a (bitchy?) micro- manager voice in her head wondering why he didn’t use that trip he undertook earlier today into the feral space (anywhere beyond this house) to get the whatever X or Y he believes he needs now. She feels as if every jaunt into the world of shopping—out there in those wide macadam spaces—will bring home Armageddon, which would certainly be more than he bargained for.

And her auto-immune system was an on-again, off-again proposition these days, so she’s got a reason to be a bit on edge, doesn’t she?  And of course, after he comes in, she has to say "Please remember to wash your hands," even though it's going to annoy him.

#2 Pet Conversation 
  With Anthony

"Tony stop!"

"Stop! Tony!"

"Ow! Tony! Stop!"
(Inside my p.j.'s again)

"Quit that, Tony! It hurts."

"Tony, get down from there."

"No mice in the refrigerator! I told you before."

"Out! Out of the refrigerator!"

"Tony! Off the table.

"Get your tail out of the butter."

"Tony! Those are my toes you're biting..."

Pet Conversation 
With ~Willeford

Willeford obsessively scratches an ear. He looks like a cat in a George Booth cartoon, a non-descript tiger with outsize paws.

“Stop that! Hey!”

With some justification, my rude approach is ignored, but slowly he does stop scratching.

“C’mere you.” I pick him up carefully. The windowsill is a good place to get natural daylight. 

Our 1940’s owner-built house has little windows. It’s a local habit. These days I’d hesitate to call them, as my mother did, “German windows,” but if you don’t think that’s fair, take a look at pictures of the local Ephrata cloisters. They sure as heck didn't want any cold air to get in.

Willy’s fluff and bone body was stepped on before we rescued him. His back end has a permanent sag. He wants to escape because he knows what’s next—me grabbing him—no, no that’s not right—I’m taking a firm hold because I need to take a look inside that ear.

“Hold still; lemme look.”

Fold the ear back and sure enough, it needs cleaning.

“Wait a minute, Willyum. Gotta get a tissue.”

And strangely, he does,

Hunkered down on the sill,

Big feet forward in a full Sphinx, patiently waiting for me to take care of him.

***

And a poem -- Instead of a blog, these keep coming out of my head today.

Regain your faith, sky watcher

The rain must come today--

I hope so, anyway.

I’ve been watering, watering, gardens &

Husband’s new little patch of grass where

The hedge has been uprooted.

I’m usually careful with water, but now, this year,

I’ll take what comes bountifully from the hose,

It's the last dance for Nature

in this

Gasoline alley.

To neighbors I am “the weed lady”

Who allows the chicory, Queen’s Anne’s Lace, milkweed,

Echinacea, Fleabane, grow, who cultivates purslane,

Miner’s lettuce, iron weed, wild anemone and Lamb’s quarters.  

I fertilize them too.

And this year my garden is wilder than ever,

Oregano turning into bushes frequented by bees and

One small rabbit--the culprit who ate the beans.

Sage a flowering shrub in spring,

Nasturtiums, lettuce and off-beat kale

Tomatoes, horseradish, random potato plants

Burrow in the compost heap.
I'll get to them later.

Conversation with P.J. 

One of my grandgirls is autistic. Although she is twenty now, we cannot really talk to her, as in holding a conversation. It's a bridge too far to connect with P.J. face to face, much less on the phone where we cannot see one another. While on the telephone with her Dad yesterday, I overheard her singing. I often hear her talking and singing during our conversations. I have a feeling this is a way she has of participating in the world around her.

This time she sang "The Sound of Silence." She knew all the words. It felt profound, that she should like this song and know it so well, shining a little light into her submerged mind. I am always grateful to learn more about her, and perhaps to know her just a little better, our family's Trans Neptunian object.

 

Stay safe, everyone.

~~Juliet Waldron

  

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Fly Away Snow Goose--Dreams

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Fly Away Snow Goose, Canadian Historical Brides Novel

An Excerpt from Fly Away Snow Goose-The runaways have braved the wilderness together, hunting, evading capture, often hungry, often footsore. Now, after an entire summer of traveling, and encountering many dangers, they have entered the Tlicho homeland. Here they've found safety and a delicious supper at the campfire of an old man and his wife.  Falling asleep in one another's arms, the young couple experience powerful dreams. 

***

They walked among the stars, she and Sascho. They went hand in hand, their feet upon a shining path that led across the night. As one, they gazed downward, and Yaot’l saw all the paths they had walked, all the way from Dehcho, following the Horn River until it turned west, and then their wandering through the little groves, the bush and the muskeg, where the animals had watched them pass. 

The beautiful deer lifted his head, leapt across their path and vanished among the stars. He too, was now a soul, wandering the sky. He would travel there until he faded into the body of the Great Spirit, which contained earth and all its creatures, both two-legged and four.

Then, Sascho’s hand was gone and she was alone. For a moment, Yaot’l was afraid, but now she was winged, flying. And although his hand was gone, she saw that, there, flashing beside hers was another wing, tipped in black, bravely sculling the heavens! A pure joy welled inside, for she knew that she and her husband were but two among a great flock of others, flying just below the stars, as she and her tribe went soaring toward True North…

* * *

And Sascho dreamed...

He was a bear, a young brown bear, lying down, hips up and belly flat down on earth, paws extended toward a central fire. Fire—a strange companion for a bear—but in this case it was blue and cool and it barely flickered at all.

Across the fire sat another bear, very large, and back on his haunches. He was bluish in color and his great muzzle was speckled with white. He was big, broad shouldered and old.

A long silence lay between them. The strange cool fire set the shadows dancing. Sascho wanted to hang his head, but it was soothing to stare into the light. The great bear slowly eased his front legs down until his belly too rested on the ground. Then he curled his paws against his chest and settled with a deep sigh.

“Now you feel the burden of leadership. You and all your friends might have died in that flood. Never forget; as you walk through the Tłı̨chǫ dèè, trials of life and death are always waiting.”

Another long pause followed. A shower of small glowing objects fell all around him. They reminded Sascho of hail, except for the glitter. They hissed as they landed, and when Sascho reached a curious paw to touch one, it was cool. As he gazed at it in wonder, the old one spoke again.

“You are a young bear with much to learn, before the gift of ink’on is given. You are fortunate to have found a hard-working, wise mate who will help you.”

Ink’on! The old bear had said it would be his—the gift that had come to his Uncle John, the gift which had made him a fortunate hunter, the gift that had given him power to see what others did not, to be a fount of giving to his tribe….

And Yaot’l too—the old one had said that Yaot’l would ever walk at his side! The weight upon his young heart lifted.

* * *

~~Juliet Waldron
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