Transformed

The transformation of Inuvik from May to June has been fast and furious. The town has literally turned green within days. On June first, I walked to work in my heavy coat, shivering while tucking my hands into the sleeves to keep warm. By that afternoon, however, I was traipsing around town with only a sweatshirt. The day after that, I was enjoying the sun on my bare shoulders. It's been a week of many firsts of the season: first barbecue, first walk along the river, first ice-cream bar.

These pictures were taken at the end of May, when bleakness still reigned supreme. But, there was a silent sense of solitude that cannot be attained under the midnight sun, a deep quietude that was present in the grayness, in the bare branches, in a lonely abandoned schoolbus in the midst of the remaining snow, in the shadow-forest reflected on the murky waters of Boot Lake.

I'll post photos of the "transformed" Inuvik in my next entry.