"Perfect Actions"

December 11, 2010

The very forces of nature are being rend by a storm in a world not seen by the eyes. This winter began with its usual grace with each day getting colder and colder with each descending pass of the arctic sun. As usual it didn't take long for the lakes to begin freezing over followed by the rivers growing into silent solemn highways stretching into the deepening void. This advanced cooling of the surface of the earth up here is a fortunate event as it renders the first snow as tenacious as talcum powder; the perfectly white precipitation descends to roads surfaces where it is blown off by the first breeze from a passing vehicle; plows are rarely seen on winter highway in the desert of the high arctic. Yet, this year something occurred as if someone had thrown a bolder into the fine mechanical workings of a silk textile mill.

November came with its usual temperatures reaching -38 at times and when it warmed up closer to zero there would be the usual snow fall that comes with warm weather between -5C to -20C; but as mentioned, something seriously went awry. During the third week of November the temperatures began to creep above zero and with this event the snow on teh road sides becem a bit heavy. Everone noted the unusual warm spell but everyne alos expected such weather to be failrly fleeting; what noone was expecting is what happend fourty eight hours later. By the second day of the week the temperatures were getting close to fove above zero but when I say we live in an arctic desert I mean we live someplace that hardly gets any preceptation be it snow or rain, yet on the thirsd day rain is what began falling.

If it were a trancient isolated shower all would have been well but it wasnt at all; rain began to fall in place of snow and it fell everywhere without relenting. The essential thing to remember with such an odd weather event is teh fact that the ground has been frozen since the middle of September and by November the ground temperatures remain sub zero maing the reason for "permafrost" a natural part of life in these parts. Th erain came down in a continous shower that lasted for days and the first shower froze to the surface of every solid thing instantly and the most dreadful was teh surface of the highways. Within the first hours of rain fall the surface of the roads began to build up a solid surface of ice tha grew in thickness with each passing hour. The only think slicker than ice is ice that is covered with liquid water.

The result of this anomalous event caused a living environment that tirned a familiar life for arct dwellers into a living nightmare. I wasn't on the road ways more than five minutes when my impatents with a driver creeping along at five miles per hour caused me to try and speed around him; no sooner had I hit the acclerator and I found my vehicle totally out of control. It took some time to regain control of the vehicle I was driving and imparted sufficent shock to caus eme to drive almost as slowly as this driver I tried to pass. Howevere, five miles per hour would not permit me to get to work on time so I made an effort to engage my experential knoledge with driving on black ice to get me to work on time.

  Click For Main Page History

It Begins In Light

 English Lessons

Calvin and Hobbes

Home