Out for a photography wander at -40C

Posted On December 20, 2022

I finally got out yesterday for some photography – a 2-hour wandering drive with no plan except to take pictures of whatever caught my attention. It felt great, and I’ve posted 24 of the photos here as well as 3 short videos.

I’ve been pecking away at the 3 cords of firewood we got delivered, and it’s coming along quite well. The wood shed and wood room in the basement are now well stocked, and the timing is perfect.

We’re in a bit of a deep-freeze in Whitehorse now, with temperatures in the -35 to -40°C range for the next few days. This is a long way off the record, though – the record low for this day was set in 1942, at -47.8°C (-54°F).

Here in Mary Lake, 15 km south of the airport, we’re often colder than town, and that’s the case now. When I screenshot the weather report above, we were at -45°C (-49°F). Our digital thermometers (our weather station and the thermometer in the car) quit at -40 so I need to use my old-time thermometers hanging outside to know what’s actually happening. The propane had gelled and the furnace wouldn’t fire so I knew it was well below 40.

Despite the fog in the report above, we’re above the ice fog that forms in the valley bottoms at these temperatures. It was when I started paying attention to the beautiful light coming through the trees, visible from my desk, that I decided I needed to get out.

I didn’t get away from the house until 2:20 – that’s only 2 hours and 27 minutes before sunset now. I took Cathy’s Jeep, which was in the garage, rather than mess with the Tracker.

I shot the next photo as I was a block from the Alaska Highway, about to drop into the ice fog, though a breeze was now dispersing it quite a bit rather than being a pretty solid layer as it is when it’s calm.

My first stop was at the SS Klondike, partly because it’s easy, always looking great in the fog – or the sunshine, or the rain… 🙂

My next stop was the power dam. At the dam it looks like no water is available to produce power and I was surprised to see when I got home that about 65% of our electricity is still being produced by water (see Yukon Energy’s Current Energy Consumption page).

A bike at the dam, waiting for better riding weather 🙂

The weir in the next photo has a massive flow of water going over it in the summer – this is where the fish ladder around the dam begins.

Thinking about it now, the entire flow of the Yukon River is going through the third turbine, exiting back into the channel at this point.

Next I went up to my grand city-view spot on Wickstrom Road, but the city was invisible and even the Yukon River directly below could barely be seen.

The clay cliffs and hoar-frosted bushes right above that viewing spot were interesting, though.

On the way back to town, I saw this. How embarrassing. I’d forgotten how heavily tinted the Jeep windows are, and don’t remember how to correct that colour.

I stopped along the Yukon River and shot a video.

Next down to Main Street, which was very busy. The cold went right through my jeans and I hadn’t thought to put longjohns on, so my walk there was short.

The prospector and his husky looked great.

The new winter banners all around town are very nice.

I went down to Shipyards Park but nothing caught my eye, so I started back to Yukon Energy’s diesel and natural gas power generation area. Going down 2nd Avenue, I saw a group of tourists with their very distinctive red rented parkas. I saw 3 or 4 tour vans, so quite a few people were out getting a real Yukon Winter experience 🙂

The natural gas power generators at the south end of town pump an impressive amount of vapour into the air. Two tanker trucks run back and forth from Alberta constantly to keep them fueled.

A fleet of portable Cat diesel generators supplement the natural gas.

The Cats are very noisy!

The airport was very quiet…

4:07 – back in Mary Lake, out of the ice fog, with a glorious sunset coming in 40 minutes.

It had “warmed up” 2 degrees when I got home, to -43°C (-54.4°F).

As I post this at 08:30 it’s -47° and we’re just sort of hunkered down for the duration, which will be about 5 days. But I see that heavy snow has closed both Vancouver airport and BC ferries, so at least we have no need or desire to travel. My kids in Calgary are getting record-breaking cold – it’s pretty crazy out there. Take care of each other.