Everything is winding down here, or winding up.  Soon I'll be leaving the subarctic and return to the temperate rainforest.

This repurposed car, built into a retaining wall, is parked in front of  the car in the photo "the use of refuse" but it was impossible to get them both in the same picture.  In fact there are at least three cars built into that wall, and probably other repurposed junk as well.

There are many things still to do, and I have more or less given up trying to do everything, facing the realization that not everything can be done.  One local specialty which only recently caught my eye is carvings made from mammoth ivory.  Mammoth bones come up out of the ground from mining or from melting and the ivory is used for jewelry and ornamental carvings.  I was drawn into the store by a spectacular flying bear x-ray carving, a combination of living and dead, a shamanic transformation depiction carved from antler.  That however was pricy.

Can you imagine?  Consumer products made from mammoth ivory.  Everything is recycled in one way or another.

Here is a shot of Berton House in Dawson City where I have lived for three months.  The days are short now but nowhere near as dark as I had anticipated for this time of year.

Above the roof of the house you can see the edge of  winter sun hitting the Midnight Dome.  On sunny days, some of the mountain slopes are lit for a couple of hours but the sunlight does not reach into the valley.

The house looks isolated here but actually there are other houses all around.

The trail today through the woods to this look off was coated in fresh white fluffy snow, marked only by the passage of  fox and rabbit.  This point overlooks the Yukon River crossing to West Dawson and the Top of the World Highway to Alaska.  In the summer there is a car ferry; now there is an ice road.

I was wishing for some cars to cross to indicate the scale and along came five.  That's practically rush hour in this neck of the woods.  You can see the five vehicles as the spots in an irregular line almost at the far side of the river.  There is another vehicle parked on the near bank but it is white and hard to see.

The ice road is two lanes wide and the ice is thickened by pumping out river water.  This year there is open water both up and down river (just out of view in this shot).  Open water in the depth of winter is most unusual, but then, everything is unusual now.

It is mandatory for a log cabin to have at least one set of moose antlers as exterior decor.   If there are many sets of antlers, they may be distributed whimsically, but if there is only the one moose available for mounting it must be set at the peak of the roof over the front entrance.

I've been taking more night-time shots because the window of opportunity is much larger.  Daylight now is about five hours, but already, just one week past the solstice, the days seem noticeably longer.

Tonight I went for a walk and ended up shooting this moose, just across the street from here.  This cabin is preserved as a tourist shrine because Robert Service lived in it for a couple of years, circa 1909 (another glimpse of it here in my blog).  Robert Service's enormously successful poetry collection, Songs of a Sourdough, was written before he ever set foot in the Klondike.  While he lived in this cabin he wrote a novel about the Gold Rush called The Trail of '98 which also sold well and was made into a movie, but is described today as practically unreadable.  Robert Service published highly fictional autobiographies and freely indulged in personal myth-making throughout his long and varied life, so much so that biographers today still have difficulty separating truth from fiction.

Last night's post, "Moose Decor," unexpectedly hit the hot list on zaadz.  Moose antlers are very versatile.  They can be used to decorate your log cabin or to illustrate your blog.

Today I heard some memorable sentences:  "What are you going to do with the bear's head?"; and "Tastes like moose"; and (my favorite) "What's facebook?"

Also, "This trapper guy gave me some lynx claws.  Would you like to see them?"

Well, gulp, yes I would.  Lynx have great furry paws, to cope with deep snow.  The fur is very soft, and the claws large.  The lynx population numbers vary widely, following the cycle of the rabbit population, their chief prey.

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my overwhelming fondness for cats (see, for example, Scruffy's Story).   However, given the opportunity, yes I wanted to see the lynx claws (a collection from several animals), touch the soft fur (the reason they are trapped), arrange them on a slab and take a picture to illustrate the ultimate pointlessness of sentimentality.


UPDATE 2 days later:  This post has attracted a lot of criticism.  I regret not being clearer in my original words.  I said I was overwhelming fond of cats, and the truth is I'm known to be a bit ga-ga in that regard.  I would like to emphasize that I do not endorse the killing or harming of any animal.  I love cats and cannot bear to think about them being harmed in any way.  I am totally against cruelty to other beings, including people and animals.

I am asking that if people continue to post here they respect my feelings and my attitude of non-violence and reverence.  Please do not continue to accuse me of endorsing cruelty.  Please be respectful of others who post here.   Posts which cannot follow these simple guidelines should refer to the Terms of Use for this site.

In terms of background, for those interested in facts, there are about 400 licensed trappers in the Yukon and lynx is one of the animals which are legally trapped (okay, let me say again, I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS).  According to the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board, "approximately 50% of Yukon trappers are First Nations, for which trapping is a way of life with strong social and cultural traditions."

It is somehow very satisfying to bundle up to go out into the cold, even though once you get one mitt on and tucked in, you can't get the other one on properly.  The mitts have to come off anyway to operate the camera, which has a metal casing, and let me tell you that is not pleasant to handle at 30 below (minus 20 Fahrenheit, in case you aren't bilingual).  I don't dawdle, and try to only leave one hand exposed, and use a wrist strap so I don't drop the camera when the hand become thick and stupid in the cold.

Cold clear nights are the best to see the northern lights and so I bundle up and head out.  A couple of nights ago was the first time in three months that I saw an aurora.  At first it was just a pale green band across the entire sky, which slowly shifted and dissolved and reformed.  Then there was a breakaway formation like a horse's tail that flipped off to one side.  I was surprised how rapidly it could move.  You can see it taking shape and moving across and it feels like you can glimpse the workings of the universe, that you can actually observe rays of energy coming in from the faraway heavens and interacting with our planet.

Of course I tried to get a picture but when it was spectacular it moved quickly and was gone before I could get the camera out from beneath all the layers.  In any event, I think I would need a tripod to do a longer exposure.  Perhaps I'll just buy a postcard and take a picture of that, and say look, ain't it pretty?  In the meantime, here is the shadow of a tree cast by a streetlight onto the tire tread texture of an icy winter street.