Catching up – winter and dogs and photography and Christmas…
It’s been 5 weeks since I last posted. There hasn’t been much going on as my activities are still very limited, but I promised that I wouldn’t go silent for long periods, so here’s what I have been doing.
The Whitehorse airport is one of my happy places. Whenever I go to town I have a list of expected arrivals and departures and try to time to errands or meetings to catch some of them. The first photo of the action on the ramp with the fancy new snow-clearing machine going by was shot on December 19th.
The following day, I caught an interesting atmospheric phenomenon created by an incoming 737. At -16°C and 85% humidity, jets make their own weather as they approach to land. Notice that it’s not smoke from the engines, it’s clouds of vapour created by the flaps.
A better look at the plane making the little clouds, Air North’s Boeing 737-48E C-FANB.
This new rig looks like it does a great job of getting snow and ice off the runway.
The older rotary puts on a more impressive show, though 🙂
The airport is easy for me – I drive by it on my way to other things, and the photos come easily. The thought required for creative photography is still beyond me, and writing this blog is far more difficult than it was before the accident.
I waited for the arrival of Air Canada’s Airbus A319-114 C-FZUL that afternoon (December 20th). It was 20 minutes late, but while I was waiting I was able to help a couple from Vancouver who had gotten badly stuck below my planned shooting location across from the truck with scales. I had taken the Tracker, and it’s always stocked with recovery gear, so that was quick and simple. The next photo was shot at 4:07, exactly 20 minutes after sunset.
On December 24th I did a morning outing to pick up a few last-minute things at 2 grocery stores. I left the driveway at 08:50, and was heading home on the Alaska Highway at 09:35 (35 minutes before sunrise). Quick and simple. When I headed for home it was -6C in town, -13 at home. The next photo shot on the Alaska Highway gives you an idea of just how little snow we have this year.
Christmas was particularly quiet this year. There were no decorations, no presents (well, we never do presents), just a couple of wonderful meals with friends, one on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas Day. I had plenty of assistance offered while I was working on the turkey stuffing. 🙂
We’re babysitting for a couple of weeks. Paddler is an easy fit – he’s pretty much a part-time member of our pack, which he joined as Maverick, a member of YARN’s Airplanes2 litter 10 months ago. Bella and Tucker both love playing with him, especially in this incredibly mild weather we’ve been having.
I’ve been doing some more scanning of documents and slides, most of which then get turfed. This is the painful part of slide scanning. I can think of many reasons why I shouldn’t toss them, but these many binders of slides have to go. Some – a few, like early Alaska Highway images – I may be able to rehome.
The City of Whitehorse does a wonderful job of lighting up the city for the holidays, and I’ve been wanting to get out for some photos. By evening, I never have enough energy to do it, so on December 31st, I headed out just after 04:00 while I still felt okay.
The SS Klondike was my first stop. The lights here have been scaled back from what they used to be, but it’s still beautiful.
The huge tree that’s installed in front of the railway station on Main Street was one of my two primary targets, and it’s best seen before normal people get out of bed. The next photo shows it from the Main Street side.
And here’s the Front Street view.
City Hall is always done up nicely.
The MacBride Museum.
Shipyards Park is the main showplace for the light display.
This was the first time I’d seen the City create a large animated light display – the train at Shipyards Park is best seen in a video.
At 05:30 I went up to the airport to catch an Air Canada departure. It was too dark and none of those photos were any good, but Air North’s Boeing 737-55D C-FANF was towed into position to get ready for a 07:00 flight while I was there.
I really needed to get out, but the Christmas light cruise went badly. I wasn’t feeling well by 05:30 and by 06:00 had to quit after a few minutes at the airport. By the time I got home I was just plain sick and had to go to bed.
I could only spend a few minutes on it yesterday, but I’m still working on restoring the model of the WP&YR container ship Frank H. Brown at the Yukon Transportation Museum. The section of the boat needing the most work, the gantry crane, is almost ready for paint now. Two of the arms were broken off, one was loose, lots of the paint was flaking off (and at some point it had been re-painted the wrong colour), and many small pieces like railings needed to be re-glued.
The model railway is a superb location to work on this piece of the boat. It’s an easy place to talk to people about it and other aspects of the museum as well.
I did an interview with Dave Croft and Wayne Vallevand from CBC a couple of weeks ago. Very soon after the story went live, I heard from one Whitehorse woman who also had a fall and needed to hear that what’s going on is real. Hearing from Rebecca made my day, since that was my main point in talking about it. Admitting what’s going on in that way feels like its own sort of defeat, and yet is important. You can read the story here.
There, caught up – sort of 🙂 I hope that 2020 is kind to all of you.
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