Boreal Beauty- A Visit to the Forest

One of my favorite daytime excursions is a walk into the boreal forest. First, let me just review that boreal means "of or relating to the north". So the boreal forest is a northern coniferous forest. In our area, this means mostly spruce trees with a few larch trees here and there. Also, the aurora borealis is an aurora which occurs in the northern skies. (Aurora Australis occurs in the southern skies)

The boreal forest is also known as the Taiga, and even more appropriately, the snow forest. I found that in Wikipedia, but I have not heard it called that up here. Still, I love the name. It is certainly a perfect name because the trees trap all of this blowing snow, causing it to be quite deep as soon as you exit any open area. I was reminded of this at the very start of my journey!

I had been offered a ride out to the forest with Roger, known around here as Starman. The other guests traveled in komatiks, which are sleds pulled behind the snow machines. Below you should see a photo of a komatik. Roger and I left ahead of the others, but the trail was obscured by all the blowing snow. As it turned out, we were off by just a little, so I volunteered to exit the vehicle and walk back to the ice so Roger could back up the machine. Even though I was walking over our snow machine trail, I sank in at every step. Finally Roger signaled me to come back. I turned and crawled on all fours which worked very well! I guess a polar bear does the same thing on ice that is just forming.

Here is a komatik for pulling about 6 people.

Roger dropped me off with the group who had all entered on the prepared trail. First stop was at the quinzhee which had been built last week. A quinzhee is a big mound of snow that has been hollowed out for an emergency shelter. Two years ago, Brian and I slept out in one of them- a memorable night. As I mentioned in a previous post, there were many twigs poking out of it, and Daniel explained to us that the branches would be inserted 15 inches. That way when you hollowed it out, you would know when to stop hollowing. To demonstrate just how strong it is, one of our volunteers climbed atop it and jumped up and down. I was impressed!

I decided to skip the snow sampling demo which I had seen in other years, and I took the scenic walk back through the forest. Right away, I saw some ptarmigans crossing the snowmobile tracks. These white birds are almost impossible for me to spot unless they are moving. I was not fast enough with the camera, so I am including our photo from another forest excursion.

Walking through the forest is so beautiful and peaceful. First, there is much less wind in the protected area of trees. The trees are coated with snow, and rather than snow blowing off, usually snow gets added to the trees. The word for snow that builds up on branches of trees is called "qali". It may be an Inuit word- not sure. I found this one particular tree with the most beautiful patterns!

Eventually, Roger and Brian caught up to me, and we had some fun with snow angels. Brian was our angel. We made a little video, but that will probably not make the blog.

It was time to walk back over the rocket range and back to CNSC, but not without first enjoying a last look at the landscape.