Musings about Winter Solstice

 Flat light. Gray skies. Shapeless. Shadowless. Yet, not lifeless. Mother Nature still breathes, exhaling slowly as the night never quite leaves this place, preparing for her insatiable six-month inhale. It’s as if her own breath controls the seasons, everything growing dark and cold as she empties her primordial lungs and closes her eyes from the emptiness. Yet, just before life itself leaves her, instinct forces her last respire to turn inward, becoming the beginning of a new season as she draws in the very life force she expelled only moments earlier. Her very inhalation causes her eyes to open with fresh fervor. The wider they open, the more the daylight streams back into our lives.

Winter has always been my favorite season. With it comes the comforting layers of clothing and blankets that make me feel safe and protected. I understand the new fad of weighted blankets. I’ve known all my life that there is security in blankets. They cause a sense of wellbeing that is unmatched. It is the same way with heavy sweaters, fuzzy socks, and warm hats.

Darkness is also the same way. Not the kind of darkness that is forceful and feared, but the soft absence of light – that kind of darkness is tranquil and soothing. The noise that sunlight brings is absent, replaced with a sort of restful quiet. The need to go-go-go that summer presses upon me dissipates into the blanket on my lap as I curl up with my little, brown lab on the couch that camouflages her completely except for her glow-in-the-dark pink collar.

There is time. Time for thoughts that lead to written words. Time for music that fills the cabin and makes me sing along. Time for planning rather than doing. It seems strange to me, but I seem to have more time when there is less daylight. Maybe I just get more done in a shorter amount of time because of the feeling that the days are shorter. That is a definite misnomer, “The days are shorter.” There is less daylight, yes, but the days are, in fact, still 24 hours long. The nights are not longer; there is simply more darkness.

People on the outside (that’s what Alaskans call folks in the lower 48) often ask me how I can handle the long hours of darkness. My response is always, “The long hours of daylight are much worse.” I can put on a headlamp, light a kerosene lantern, or even fire up the generator for light, but there is no escaping the daylight of summer. Sure, there are blackout curtains in the bedroom, but have you ever tried to go to sleep when you were in the sunlight just five minutes prior? Human circadian rhythms don’t work that way, and the most important cue for these is daylight.

Outside. Now, there’s an interesting term. In Alaska, it generally refers to everything outside of Alaska. It sounds like prison terminology to me, and perhaps Alaska is a form of self-imposed imprisonment. Inversely, the term inside is seldom, if ever, used. One isn’t inside when they are in Alaska, but they are most certainly outside when they are not, thus the old Alaskan aphorism, “Where do Alaskans go in the winter? – Outside!”

Which leads me back to Mother Nature and the changes she has in store right outside of the window beside which I sit at this very moment watching a ground blizzard on the flats between the river and the mountains to the south of our cabin. There is no sun today, just the gray of the remaining winter solstice daylight coming from somewhere beyond those peaks in the distance. At the end of her exhale, she will begin fresh in the morning. It is fitting that this turning point every year happens just ten days before a new year begins. New life. New chances. A new breath.

Saturday Market

Unalakleet. “Where the East wind blows.” And blows. And blows. And blows. We are located on an isolated stretch of western Alaska coastline along the Norton Sound, the waters of the Bering Sea. Population 750, roughly. It changes more than one might think. Babies are everywhere, but funerals come too often. It is largely a native Alaskan community, but there are a number of Norwegians here as well as a few other ethnicities. Primarily a fishing village, subsistence is a way of life. However, modern civilization displays it’s hold here through smart phones, laptops, satellite TV and internet. Teens can often be seen sitting on the steps of the school after hours with their phones and laptops, making use of the free internet, their jet black hair blowing in the wind, huddled close in their parkas.

Two stores supply a variety of groceries, furniture, toys, and an odd assortment of clothing. There is one gas pump in the village. The one, gravel road leading out of town heads past a few homes before climbing into the hills and out across the tundra where, after 12 miles, it narrows to a snowmachine trail and continues on into the vast wilderness of western Alaska. Even so, there are cars and trucks everywhere, despite the hundreds or even thousands of dollars it takes to ship them here via barge or cargo plane. One cannot drive to Unalakleet from anywhere, except Unalakleet. Gregg and I do just fine with our assortment of snowmachines, 4-wheelers, and a boat. However, it is a real treat on that rare occasion when we get use of someone else’s vehicle while they are out of town.

Two restaurants… yes, restaurants… and I use that term loosely as there is no waitstaff and very limited seating… provide a place for an occasional meal out. The Igloo is your typical not-so-fast-food café, serving up burgers, burritos, fish and chips, and the like. Peace on Earth is mainly a pizza place that also serves hot and cold sandwiches and fresh salads. For a town with such a small population, having two restaurants is quite an indulgence.

Several churches, a small clinic and even smaller hotel, a fish processing plant and a state patrol outpost, and the school and post office pretty much round out the town. However, Unalakleet has a regular Saturday Market – regular meaning it happens ever other Saturday, most of the time – at the Community Hall that really makes village life special. Anyone is welcome to come set up a table (or three) and sell their wares, usually homemade and always different. It’s a wonderful way to see what folks’ talents are, get to know people, chat about the latest goings on around town, grab a cup of coffee and a bowl of moose chili, shop for a birthday present, or grab a fresh loaf of bread and some cookies to take home.

I have had a regular table (or three) at the Market for a couple of years now. Starting with cupcakes and sourdough bread loaves, my offerings have expanded over time to the point where I now pull three tables together to display my freshly baked goods along with custom designed potholders, placemats, jellies, and candles in addition to bath and body products from Perfectly Posh and pet supplies from pawTree.

Living at the cabin, eight miles upriver, Saturday Market is my only reason to come to town, and it’s a good one. It also gives me a reason to shop, online of course. After spending a few hours shopping for fabric, notions, beeswax, and baking ingredients that will not show up for as long as six weeks, I dive into my latest deliveries and spend a week and a half matching fabrics, sewing, pouring mason jar candles spiked with assorted essential oils, and collecting new recipes for sweet breads, cakes and cookies, all while keeping up with daily cabin cleaning, cooking, and hauling water, as well as carving out time for my love of reading and writing. Then, on Thursday, two days before Market, my focus shifts, the big bake begins and I turn out loaves, rolls, and baguettes of savory breads made with homeground wheat berries with flavors like Rosemary Garlic, Tarragon Olive, and Jalapeno Cheese in addition to pans of sweet breads and coffee cakes including Cinnamon Swirl, Lemon Poppyseed, and Apple Spice, not to mention the dozens of giant (I portion the dough with an ice cream scoop.) chocolate chip cookies – always a favorite.

Friday night, after everything has been carefully wrapped and labeled, I pack it all carefully and snugly into large plastic totes that are finally zip-tied shut and loaded into the bright blue sled towed behind Gregg’s snowmachine on Saturday morning, while it’s still dark out. Then, we head to town.

Winter life at the cabin definitely brings challenges with it, one of those being the luxury of a shower. Thankfully, we have a good relationship with the folks who own the Unalakleet River Lodge, and even though they are only here for a couple of months in the summer, their workshop in town is next door to Gregg’s shop and he keeps a key year round to check on it. In the back, there is a small bathroom with a shower stall. Hot and cold running water have never felt so good as they do on a zero-degree day when I haven’t bathed in five days. I truly enjoy our outside shower on the porch at the cabin, but that is unavailable in the throws of winter, and six months of bird baths in a two-gallon washtub on the kitchen floor just don’t do the trick. That is one of the things I most look forward to every Market day; I know I’ll get to shower in town, don fresh clothes, and wear makeup. This cabin-woman does like to show her girlie-girl side once in a while.

After one last check to make sure everything has a price on it and my cashbox has change, we load everything – usually four totes and a box or two – into a borrowed trailer hooked to the back of Gregg’s four-wheeler and make the short, about a mile, trek to the other side of town where the Community Hall is beginning to hum with activity as people carry totes in, holding the door for one another, and begin setting up their table displays. Beautiful kuspuks and school-team t-shirts. Beaded earrings and sea glass zipper pulls. Postcards and calendars featuring local photography. Seal skin slippers and pin cushions. Moose chili and Agutak (Eskimo ice cream).  Fresh bread and cookies. Crochetted and knitted hats and mittens. Some Saturdays, other local direct sales folks even set up tables with LulaRoe, LipSense, Young Living essential oils, and more. It’s truly amazing what you can find in this small, seaside village.

There is a flurry of activity as folks start arriving to shop at noon while vendors are still setting up their wares. Familiar hugs and greetings abound as cash is exchanged and smiles are everywhere. Small children who can barely see over the tables chase each other in a frantic game of tag, in and out, around and around, occasionally stumbling and falling hard on the tile floor only to pick themselves up and begin the game again, their falls softened because of the snow pants they haven’t had time to slow down and take off.

As the two-hour market ensues, small, elderly ladies, with their round, dark, wrinkled faces and bright eyes, cluster together in chairs behind tables and in the corners of the room, dressed in their colorful, homemade kuspuk parkas trimmed with wolverine, wolf, and beaver furs, chatting about ice fishing and family members while teenage boys collect at the basketball t-shirt table sharing stories of water-skipping with their snowmachines and selling t-shirts to make money for an upcoming tournament in Anchorage; travel expenses for sports teams in rural Alaska are magnanimous because every trip requires plane fare. Their fathers stand near the door discussing the safety of the river ice and upriver travel conditions as well as the lack of sea ice causing a poor seal harvest this year.

“How you like it upriver?” asks a sweet-faced elderly woman whose name I can’t recall.

“It’s great!” is always my response. “Nice and quiet.”

“You make all this up there?”

“Yep. Right at the cabin. I turn the generator on to sew.”

“Wow! You keep busy!” she exclaims as she takes a long look down my three tables all pulled together and overflowing with goods. “You make this bread?”

“Sure did. Yesterday. They’re even made with fresh-ground wheat berries. I grind them myself just before I make the bread. It makes a real difference when you make bread with warm, freshly ground, flour.”

“My J.R. and I used to live up Little North when we first married. No water. No power. Those were simple times. Good times,” she remembers, “You there all winter?”

“Yes ma’am. Year round.”

“Wow. You tough woman. Busy woman. Good for you,” she compliments me as she reaches for two loaves, one cinnamon swirl and one rosemary garlic, and hands me a ten dollar bill.

This conversation repeats itself several times at every Market. To have the esteem of the elders in the community is an unmatched stamp of approval. I treasure it as she hobbles away, the years of kneeling in tundra berry patches having taken their toll.

Two o’clock nears and the Market begins to thin out. I won’t need the two cardboard boxes packing up, because I’ve sold so much, so I break them down and lean them against the wall behind the trash barrel, putting everything else back in the totes, with room to spare. It was a good Market. I sold all of the baked goods except for one coffee cake, which I’ll take home, and a few cookies, which will keep in the freezer at Gregg’s shop, next to the one pound freezer bags of ground moose, until the next Market. Gregg arrives right at two and we load the trailer back up and scoot across town to unload at the shop, pack up the snowmachines and head back upriver to the cabin, hoping to get home before dark, which comes early this time of the year, around three-thirty.

The drive home gives me time to reflect.

“Good for you,” echoes in my head, bouncing around like those kids chasing each other around the tables.

Yes, good for me.