You Had To Be There...

One of the blogs I follow is “The House and Other Arctic Musings” by Clare up in Arctic Bay. He recently posted an entry entitled “They’re not all worth a thousand words” and I agree with him completely.

What he was saying is that there are some sights that just cannot be captured in a photograph. You know what I mean… every so often you spot something that just makes you stop in your tracks and try to absorb what you are seeing before it all disappears. Those little things that just cannot be captured by a camera but must exist only in your mind forever.

… dawn over Smith Bay with the mist is rising, the loons with their young are making their way down the shoreline heading out for breakfast… deer stepping hesitantly out into the fields, their white flag tails twitching, searching and alert for hidden dangers behind every bush… snow shoeing through the woods at night or through a silent falling of lazy snowflakes, not a sound around you… drifting in a rowboat in the afternoon sun with the dragonflies landing on your idle fishing pole, no place to be other than right where you are at… the moment.

The best however is one I can never explain or communicate in any way you could possible understand if you weren’t there with me. I was doing an overnight computer program and equipment update at our store in Pangnirtung several years ago. Finishing up about 3:00am I set the alarms, locked up and headed out the back door of the store towards the house that had been loaned to me for the night. It was the dead of winter and about -45c with perfectly clear skies, not a breath of wind… and a full moon. I picked my way down the icy walkway and as I was about to climb the stairs to the door I looked around… The snow, the mountains, even the air and my drifting, frosted breath was a shade of blue I had never seen before… since… or ever will again. I have no idea how long I stood there but it was a magic moment in time never again to be experienced by me I’m certain. A sight such as this was surely a once in a lifetime experience and one that should have been shared, not just imprinted in my own memory. It seems “wrong” to have been the only witness to such a thing.


These photos of Pangnirtung were not taken by me, but you may be able to imagine a little bit of what I’m trying to say about the magic of the community. The way it hugs the mountains and cliffs and the way it clings to life even when the 100+kph winds are blowing the length of that fantastic fjord. If there is any way you can ever get there at any time of the year by all means, GO!