Latest Posts by flurries-and-frost - Page 4

canadian gothic

You have never seen the Tim Hortons’ employees outside their restaurant. You didn’t apply for a job there when you turned sixteen, but they called you all the same. Twice. 

There’s that boy you went to school with, Samuel, he was once so rude that they - you do not know any boy named Samuel. 

There comes a time in January when you cannot remember what’s buried under all that snow, and you are glad. 

You wonder what the others hear when the winds from the Great North blow; you always want to ask, but the winds made you promise not to. 

The week after the New Year, you walk past the frozen lake and hear knocking from under the ice. You smile, and you do not know why.

A warm summer means the maple syrup will taste like rust and something you do not want to name; the trees miss the cold. 

The hospital’s waiting room is always full and you can never remember why you’re here. 

The weatherman speaks of the coming snowstorm with a fondness you will take years to master, much to your sorrow. They can sense fear. 

arctic gothic

• There are strange lights in the sky. It is not the Aurora Borealis. You pretend it is the Aurora Borealis.

• Something is eating the polar bears.

• The ice fields seem to go on forever. Perhaps they do.

• You wake up in darkness. You go to sleep in darkness. You exist in darkness.

• Watch out for falling icicles- they’re waiting for you to come within spearing distance.

• Yes, the wolf is howling your name. Do not go outside.

• Every radio station is static. Sometimes whale song plays from a channel with no name.

• A crack in the ice opened up last week. It creaks and groans intermittently. There is no bottom in sight.

• A pale figure stands atop the northernmost snowdrift at 00:59am each night. At 1am it is gone. We are unsure of his motives.

Canadian(BC) Gothic

- You hear the crickets at night. It’s louder then you remember. It’s better then it being quiet.

- Winter comes fast. When will it leave? You don’t remember.

- There’s a snap in the woods behind you. You hope it’s your dog. You don’t check.

- You see an Alberta license plate. Then another one. The cars are the same.

- You walk around the fall fair. The bright lights and noises fend off anything coming from the surrounding woods, but only till 10:00.

- Halloween is around the corner. You see the local adds about it. Check your candy, don’t go into the woods, always carry a flashlight, stay with your group.

- The tenth person this year has gone missing in the mountains. It’s February.

- Your friend collects animal skulls. You help.

- You go hiking to pick Saskatoon berries. You dare stray from the path, but never go so far you can’t see it.

- You see a missing pet sign and wonder why people still put them up. We all know if it hasn’t turned up before nightfall that the coyotes got to it.

- You always go to the same timmies. You order a double double. They get you a triple triple instead.

- You plan to move to Vancouver. Everyone does.

- You’re stuck behind a logging truck. You’re always stuck behind a logging truck.

- The crust on top of the snow makes it easier to walk on. That is, of course, unless the snow decides it wants to keep you.

- You’re skiiing. No one is wearing a jacket. You’re not wearing a jacket. It’s very hot out.

- Winter snow is blinding. Summer sun is blinding. There is no happy medium.

- Your window rattles. You don’t need to look outside. Part of you knows and dreads whatever is out there.

- The rain is pouring. It’s sunny out.

- The hockey academy guys leave for the rink on the first day. You don’t see them again.

Alaska/Far Northern Gothic

You had a neighbor yesterday. You’re sure of it, but when you walk the trail between your properties there’s no sign of their house. You recall their faces, but not their names. The distance between you and the next nearest living human continues to grow.

On the longest night of the year, you wake at midnight to a high noon sun. Its blinding light renders the snow a featureless, glimmering white. You cannot even see the trees.

You visit Barrow for Nalukataq and are invited to participate in the blanket toss. When you come back down, there is no one to catch you.

You open the windows.  Pile snow on your bed. Allow icicles to form on your ceiling. It is still too hot to sleep.

You spy a raven near the grocer’s with an eyeball in its beak. You tell yourself that it must be the scavenged remains of some animal. It couldn’t be human. It couldn’t be your own.

You come back from the outhouse to find the door to your cabin locked. You see movement through the window. You live alone.

When the snow finally melts, you find something that you lost years ago. In another state. Another life. It is something you hoped to never find again.

The river in Nenana has been frozen for years. The Ice Classic continues to pool their bets, leading more and more people to pay in with the hope that this year it won’t roll over. The year passes. There is still no sign of spring.

This year’s Iditarod winner harnessed wolves instead of dogs. They froth at the mouth and drip blood from long fangs. No one but you seems to notice.

Your roommate brushes her teeth and spits out blood. She looks thin, almost gaunt, even though she’s been eating constantly for the last week. It occurs to you that you haven’t seen her boyfriend around lately. She smiles. Her teeth are sharp and cold.

Late one night, you whistle at the aurora. The last thing you hear is the aurora whistling back.

Northern Gothic

Arctic Circle Springtime Gothic

Someone looks at your snow pictures. “Must be cold there up North!” You look at the thermometre. Sub-zero frost. “Yeah.” You’re so hot as you stand in the blazing snow field that you feel like the Scottish twitter user, as if ye wrapped yersel up in tinfoil and crawled inty the microwave tae blow yerself up tae fuck.

There is a strange glowing orb in the sky, white and distant. It stays there for over three hours. It hurts your eyes. You no longer know its name, but it does make you see colours you had already forgotten. It follows you.

“Flower!” someone says. “Green leaves and grass!” You stare numbly at the snow. “Running water!” You hesitate to tell them that you haven’t seen even a hint of dry, barren earth in months.

Yesterday you wore three winter coats, leather mittens and a woolly hat. Yes. Today is t-shirt weather. Tomorrow you know you shall need thicker three coats.

Arctic Gothic as inspired by Fortitude

It’s always snowing. It will never not be snowing. It snows and snows and snows, yet the drifts never gets any taller. 

The sun won’t rise for three months. It won’t ever rise again. Your life now exists in darkness.

You’re not allowed to die there because you’ll never decay. But people are already decaying. 

Respect the polar bears. They were here first. What do we do about the polar bear within us all?

The Northern Lights brighten the night sky in the dark winter, but they will never brighten your soul.

Everything is frozen, just like I am frozen by my thoughts.

The Permafrost never forgets. It won’t let you forget either. Soon it will make you remember. 

The cold bites at those exposed to it for too long. Bite back. Always bite back.

Everything is covered in white. Why is no one wearing sunglasses?

The final 20 miles of the Dalton driven in the fog, North Slope, Alaska

Taken August 2020

“Stream in a Winter” (1909)

Jakub Glasner (Polish;1879-1942)

oil on canvas, private collection

Desa Unicum

“The Ascent”, photo by Mikhail Litvinsky (1970s)

source

Felix Booth – Scientist of the Day

Felix Booth, a British merchant, died Jan. 24, 1850, at age 74.

read more…

oh so you consider the past “romantic” but when I tell you about my dream of being an 1800s arctic explorer who dies homoromantically frozen in the arms of their shipmate while dreaming of tar-black horror terrors under the ice and forgetting the taste of sunshine, shivering and calling Billy’s name over and over out again even though he’s stopped moving and it echoes against the frigid rotting halls of the ship as the cold eats away at my nerve endings

suddenly I’m “disturbed” and won’t be invited to anymore “Victorian themed weddings.” hypocrites.

Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) “Man Proposes, God Disposes” (1864) Animalier Located in the Royal Holloway, University of London, London, England

The painting was inspired by the search and disappearance of Sir John Franklin’s lost 1845 Arctic expedition that had set out to explore the Northwest Passage.

In 1869 the New Bedford artist and photographer William Bradford took part in an expedition to northern Greenland sponsored by a Boston family. The trip was documented in this book, with albumen photos that are considered the finest artic photos of the mid to late 19 th century. The book is scarce with copies selling in the 125-150000 range.

Arctic Explorer

HMS Hecla in Baffin Bay, from William Edward Parry, Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage, 1821. Not pictured: a Marryat character trapped in an iceberg in suspended animation.

The five months had elapsed, according to my calculations, when one morning I heard a grating noise close to me; soon afterwards I perceived the teeth of a saw entering my domicile, and I correctly judged that some ship was cutting her way through the ice. Although I could not make myself heard, I waited in anxious expectation of deliverance. The saw approached very near to where I was sitting, and I was afraid that I should be wounded, if not cut in halves; but just as it was within two inches of my nose, it was withdrawn. The fact was, that I was under the main floe, which had been frozen together, and the firm ice above having been removed and pushed away, I rose to the surface. A current of fresh air immediately poured into the small incision made by the saw, which not only took away my breath from its sharpness, but brought on a spitting of blood. Hearing the sound of voices, I considered my deliverance as certain. Although I understood very little English, I heard the name of Captain Parry frequently mentioned—a name, I presume, that your highness is well acquainted with.

“Pooh! never heard of it,” replied the pacha.

“I am surprised, your highness; I thought every body must have heard of that adventurous navigator. I may here observe that I have since read his voyages, and he mentions, as a curious fact, the steam which was emitted from the ice—which was nothing more than the hot air escaping from my cave when it was cut through."

— Frederick Marryat, The Pacha of Many Tales

The Unkown Ships- in honour of the Arctic Expeditions, by Capt. Chamier and J. P. Knight 1845

Aurora Borealis by Frederic Edwin Church, 1865

Narrative of an Expedition in H.M.S. Terror, by Captain George Back 1838 after his Arctic Expedition 1836-1837 - all of these images are made by himself

In Search of Those Lost

I’m currently super interested in Arctic exploration. This is mostly inspired by the searches for the lost Franklin expedition. 

May they rest in peace.

A football or rugby game between sailors and officers, in front of HMS Terror, during the Back arctic expedition 1836, by first lieutenant William Smyth 1836

Narrative of an Expedition in H.M.S. Terror, by Captain George Back 1838 after his Arctic Expedition 1836-1837

Aurora Borealis, by Frederic Edwin Church, 1865

The Icebergs (The North), by Frederic Edwin Church, 1861

Photo Series | ~ Help! ~

Images by ©

• Sunil Singh

On an arctic expedition from Svalbard, we spotted this polar bear at about 81 degrees north. Fast melting glaciers and pack ice melting sooner than normal due to climate change have made extinction of this beautiful creatures a real threat. Their future is in our hands.

Natural history vol. 2 - British National Antarctic Expedition - 1907 - via Internet Archive