Mother Nature the drama queen
During a Yukon summer it’s easy to just sit back and enjoy the benign Nature that surrounds us, and even that is easily overshadowed by the rush of “things to do” that most of us have. This time of year, though, Nature is tough to ignore – she bites, she screams and sometimes she gets crazy and sings really loudly! Reminds me of a woman I used to know… but that’s not where this post is going 🙂
I went to Skagway yesterday to pick up some stuff from the post office and UPS, and it was one of Mother’s beautiful-but-crazy days. It started out to be a perfectly normal day, though the forecast was for it to get very windy. I stopped at Emerald Lake for a telephoto shot of last night’s dusting of snow on Montana Mountain, then went to the cabin to check on it.
Just after heading south from Carcross, I passed a coyote standing on the side of the road. Coyotes are common enough that I usually just keep going, but for some reason I passed her then turned around and came back. Not only did the coyote not run away, she came towards the car a bit, then when Kayla started howling at her, she howled back!
This silliness went on for a very long time, with Kayla howling, screaming and barking at the coyote and the coyote howling, screaming and barking right back at her. I was laughing so hard I was crying, and for the rest of the day every time I looked at Kayla I started laughing again!
Eventually I pulled away from this show and continued south. By the time I reached Log Cabin it had started to snow and the wind was picking up speed dramatically. I thought about turning back, because this is the sort of weather that can close the highway. A forced overnight in Skagway with 2 dogs was not something I would be able to enjoy.
I didn’t check to see what the winds did reach at Skagway. It was certainly nowhere close to the 100-mph winds that hit Anchorage, but it sure made the car rock when I parked at the shore, and the surf hitting the rocks at Yakutania Point was quite impressive.
While I was having lunch I got into a conversation with a couple from Fort St. John who are up on an anniversary trip. They’re surprised that tourist season is long over, but seem to be enjoying the trip anyway. While there are more businesses than ever before still open, most of the stores on Broadway are closed (most of them are cruise-oriented). Skagway closes up shop differently than we do in the Yukon, though. While most of the shops are empty and dark, they aren’t boarded up. In Carcross, when shops close, they are CLOSED (the same is true in Whitehorse, though it’s not as obvious). At Christmas, much of Skagway’s downtown is decked out with lights, making it not look abandoned at all.
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