The Spell Of The Yukon: Hiking Montana Mountain

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land — oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back — and I will.

~Robert Service, from The Spell Of The Yukon

I have spent the last two weeks up here in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. The goal is to work and play, as simple as that. Work has involved a new painting for Abbozzo Gallery in Oakville, Ontario, shooting photo reference for new paintings and a private commission. As I have waxed romantic about the North before I will try to temper that here....but I wanted to include some musings and photographs from recent climbs, scrambles, drives and hikes in the area.


Here is a detailed section of the painting I recently finished here...I will blog about it soon but wanted to include it in this post. The entire portrait of my friend Danielle is 12"x24", oil on panel.

Lavender mountains cut the horizon like a serrated

 knife with dawn blushing furiously behind it.

12 hours after arriving in town, my friend Ian and I hiked up Montana Mountain. It lies about 1 1/2 hours south of Whitehorse, just beyond the tiny hamlet of Carcross.  The mountain is the one visible in the photograph above...we hiked until we were waylaid by snow and turned back...all in all a great 15km hike. My knees weren't impressed, nor my quadriceps...but it is all about the challenge (and the view) :) I was struck by the quiet world that lives up there.

The lichen crunching under my feet, the silence broken only by a small creek flowing between two ridges and the leaves slipping into an ochre hum on the slopes all around us. 

The field of mustard-tinged foliage was intoxicating..

While hiking up the mountain I took some reference of my friend Ian and had him take some of me. This reference will for the basis for two new paintings. Yes, they are a bit of a departure from my usual, figurative work, but it is the figure in landscape....instead of a sheet, the mountain is wrapped around us.

I have never been to the Yukon in September. It is a beautiful time of year...many mornings you are scraping ice off of the car windows, you are layered for warmth, and hot coffee takes on an almost religious experience. I am always inspired by the mountains outside of my window here in Whitehorse. They are like friends who never leave, never judge, but also leave you to your own devices. Montana Mountain was a new experience however. I had only climbed in an alpine environment once before, near the Arctic Circle in Alaska. On this day we climbed a total of 3,400 feet in elevation gain. The air, the smells, the foliage, the entire atmosphere of a place changes a lot when you climb that high.

Whole little ecosystems of quiet beauty abounded up on the mountain..

At the highest point, we ascended into and above the clouds. Shortly thereafter we encountered a good deal of snow. I was a bit nervous about a whiteout and we decided to descend back down the mountain.

Assessing whether to continue or not.

As we retraced our steps the snow transitioned to rain and then stopped altogether...the clouds opened up to show us Tagish Lake below, with a riot of colour all around us. It was sublime. Though I felt the effects of this new terrain in my body for days, it was worth every moment.

Tagish Lake below us..

One final surprise of the day. As we rounded a corner on the road Ian said "why can't we just see a bear today?" Low and behold, a black bear came lumbering out in front of us and crossed the road. I had to scramble for my little point and shoot and this was the best shot I could snap. I wonder what he is up to now...off in the woods, off in the quiet, perhaps even off in the clouds..

The Stark Beauty of Spring: Whitehorse

"Some say it’s a fine land to shun;

Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it

For no land on earth — and I'm one."

~Robert Service, The Spell Of The Yukon

Time spent in solitude, especially in northern climes, invites introspection. It makes you cherish those distant connections with friends and family even more, yet also opens you up to new possibilities of adventure. In fact, travel inherently is paradoxical: you pull your past along with you while also forging ahead into new landscapes. The weight of the past may be light or heavy, depending on your relationships. Some seek to cut the rope that holds those memories behind them as they climb, run, hike away into new valleys of experience. However the trick, I think, is to keep your loved ones in your heart, trusting that you will return to them after your sojourn away from them. And perhaps, just maybe, leaving them for a time brings your closer to them in the end.

The view from my room in Whitehorse

I am going to try to blog more frequently up here in Whitehorse as I have less distraction than when I am in Ontario, and the rhythm of my days is much different. The Yukon is so vast, it is comforting to know that there are less than 40,000 people here in the entire province!

Glacial water has that luminescent blue hue that is sublime..

A view of Whitehorse

I wanted to post some new photos that I have taken of the surrounding area on a small tour with my friend Ian. His cats are warming up to me and I have included a photo of my latest painting subject, the lovely and convivial Pumpkin. Ian informed me last night that he had briefly considered naming her "Grendel's Mother", which is a FABULOUS name. Perhaps that can be her middle name. Certainly she has a better temperament than Grendel's Mother :)

So today I shall think about our own unique histories, for each is as individual as a fingerprint. Revisit what you might have put aside or neglected or turned away from. Our past shapes our future, of that I am certain.

The lovely and incomparable Pumpkin (aka Grendel's Mother)

The Yukon River, which I have not seen since I was in Alaska two years ago near

Fort Yukon on the Dalton Highway

Have a beautiful day :)

Heather

"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment." -Hilaire Belloc

"Lisa, Kanuti"

"Its the great big, broad land 'way up yonder,

It's the forest where silence has lease;

It's the beauty that fills me with wonder,

It's the stillness that fills me with peace."

~Robert Service, excerpt from "The Spell Of The Yukon"

"Lisa, Kanuti", 24"x 18",oil on panel, was inspired by my recent pack rafting/hiking trip with Ed, Lisa, Dan C and Dan P to Kanuti hot springs in the Alaskan Interior. We had traveled 4.5 hours north of Fairbanks along the Dalton Highway. It was very remote. There wasn't a soul around for miles, perhaps a hundred miles or more. The day was amazing. We had bushwhacked over a mile uphill and then traversed the smaller peaks near Caribou Mountain. The fall colours were our in full force and painted the landscape a variety of reds, ochres, whites and greens.

As we crested the top of a hill I took some shots of Lisa. I particularly enjoyed the quality of light all through Alaska, how it played upon objects and people. It was pure, clean, unfiltered...it was immediate and true. The interesting thing about this painting is that I had set up a couple of other small moments to take photos for a painting of Lisa earlier on in the trip...However this one, shot quickly and candidly, was the one that captured my interest. The mountains on the horizon, the reds of the foliage around her, and Lisa's pacific expression all served as inspiration.

We had heavy packs on and our water was precious up there as we had long left the Kanuti river that we had pack rafted down to the hot springs. I have never painted a backpack before but that lent an authenticity to the piece for me. I don't like posing really and try to keep my compositions as genuine as possible, with utilitarian objects included that are just as important to the narrative.

I wanted to convey Lisa as accurately in the moment as possible. She has since moved away from Alaska and I thought about that while I painted this piece. I wondered if it might serve as a little reminder of one of her last treks in the vast Alaskan landscape before she moved on. She has a beautiful personality and energy to her and I hope that it is evident here.

While the hills in the distance are rolling and seem innocuous, make no mistake. It was serious business hiking through that back country. There were times that my body wanted to give out but I knew that only my own two feet would carry me onwards. It was very humbling, very intense and the difficulty of it made its resolution all the sweeter. 

On a side note, I have been painting on wood panel more lately. I enjoy the look of the brushstrokes on the surface more than canvas. I find that the brushstrokes get a bit lost in the texture of canvas sometimes. I would like to experiment with different supports and surfaces but panel is definitely my preferred material to paint on currently. 

You can read more about my adventures at Kanuti on my other blog, Heather's Paintings And Musings. 

"Keep close to Nature's heart...and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean." ~John Muir