For those of you who have never been to Alaska in November: winter can often seem to arrive early. By the beginning of month, when many regions in the Lower 48 are still cozying up to fall, the northerly latitudes have begun their transformation into wintry landscapes, well before the winter solstice. Snow usually starts to stick before Thanksgiving, though different parts of Alaska get it sooner than others — the mountain peaks, being higher up, are already brilliant and white. Earlier this week, there was already several inches of snow in the highlands of Homer, Alaska — the hometown of my husband Arron (WAC founder + CEO).
With this early arrival as inspiration, we’ve decided to celebrate the holiday that features the words “give and thanks" a bit early, too. We’re dedicating the entire month to really unpack the ongoing practice of gratitude, which we believe goes well beyond a long late-autumn weekend of good eating. To celebrate our gratitude by getting actively specific about what makes us thankful. To utilize our appreciation by getting nuanced about it.
To start out our Gratitude Series, let’s travel — to Alaska, of course, a place that for our family, and so many other Alaskans, feels more like a teacher than a location. More than a point on a map, it serves as a point of reference, a blueprint against which we keep on keeping on. Each season shows up with its own agenda, unfurling its characteristics at our doorsteps and window sills, whispering to us in the ancestral languages of the earth, water and sky. I am grateful for the privilege of having Alaska as the compass for my family, for illuminating us, through her endless magnificence, on the power of living in concert with nature.
Which is why I invited our good friend and commercial fisherman Melanie Brown to write about what Alaska presents to her this time of year. For Melanie, it’s the ideal time and space for contemplation and creativity.
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A Blank Canvas for the Mind
By Melanie Brown
Colder weather may not cause the heart to leap with joy, but there are many things that I look forward to when the cold and white descend upon us in Alaska. The cold tends to give me energy, especially when there is an electric tingle of fresh snow.
The snow blankets the land so that it can rest before re-awakening in spring, and I think that we as humans naturally slip into a sort of slumber, as well. We tend to slow down and sort of hibernate at home with the comforts of good books and tea, or maybe the darker days encourage writing projects too. The winter snowfall timing varies depending on the latitude of where you are in the vastness of Alaska. In Anchorage it is snowy already and there is enough snow to hit the ski trails but to ski in Juneau a person would have to hike up to the snow line to get on their skis and cruise. The snow should fall at sea level anytime now.
Sometimes the darkness makes it too easy to descend into a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and I would remind you that omega-3 fatty acids found in wild salmon are a real way to combat the SAD. They are also a healthy way to fuel snowy adventures.
For me, I find that when I get out in the cold and snow it is a good way to resist slipping into full stagnation. I think that my Iñuit heritage predisposes me to not mind the cold too much, but as I was growing up, I was encouraged to be outside in the snow, which helped me to get used to it as well. My dad put me on skis as soon as I could walk, and I am grateful to have the skill of gliding on snow. It is fun to get out and ski with others, but I also relish time to be on my skis and let my mind wander where it will when I let my body slide into a good rhythm of kicking and gliding. In some ways, getting out on my skis has been as important as my fishing life, and it’s something that has changed over time.
When I was younger, I had the pressure of racing associated with my skiing. Once I stopped racing, it evolved into a joy of practicing a beautiful form of movement. As I let my thoughts wander, I sometimes think of fishing and how the action of double-poling forward on my skis is the reverse of pulling in gear, and how the physical actions strengthen and prepare me for the other. I also like to think of how the snow is so important for the spring melt and watering the land for summer growth. The melt also calls the salmon home to their streams by sending the scent of the land out into the waters of the sea. The snow shelters baby salmon that live under the ice of lakes and streams and provides insulation to keep the ice from freezing all the way down to stream and lake bottoms.
The colder season gives me time to tend to my musical life, as well. Throughout the year, I sing and play guitar in an acoustic duo, Sunny Porch, but I do a lot of rehearsing and songwriting in the winter. When the snow covers the earth in Alaska, it offers a blank canvas for my creative practice, a place where I can let my mind passively figure things out, much in the same way that good sleep can do. There is a certain purity that covers the colors of the land, providing a clean slate and a new place to start from.
In recent years, I have started writing songs instead of just interpreting other peoples’ songs. I used to listen to music as I skied, but I have found silence to be more generative. I am more open to the thoughts and words that come to me as I move through the blankness of the white that invites anything to come into my mind.
The act of skiing itself has even helped to inspire a song line that alludes to gliding on snow:
“When it’s cold outside and the ground is white, we find ways for our hearts to glide…
When the feasting of fall pulls up a blanket of snow, its back around the seasons we go.”
- Sunny Porch lyrics from the song ‘Seasons’
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I’m ever grateful for the way that Alaska — even in its most dormant, snow-blanketed season of the year — is one of the most living, vibrant places I have ever known.
Live Wild,
Monica
Picture above: Melanie Brown, with cross-country skis in hand and a bit of snow underfoot. Photo courtesy of Sydney Akagi.
