Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

At the end of May, I was invited to give a workshop in Yellowknife (Thank you, Storytellers of Canada). This would be my first time really north in Canada. And I would again enjoy endless daylight as we did 6 months ago in Patagonia at the other end of the Americas.

The sunlight lasted from 4 am to 11 am, but the few night hours never actually got dark. It's more like the sun was hiding just behind the horizon making for amazing skies.

I found the welcome  by the conference organizers exceptional. (Ben was beyond gracious.) And the city, well it is different. Located 1,500 km north of Edmonton, Yellowknife is out there. Few roads exist in the NWT, so I stayed in town for an extra day and hiked around a couple of the many lakes, watched birds and enjoyed the amazing weather. Back country starts as soon as one leaves the built up city.

Would love to go to the Arctic Ocean next time  ... more than another 1,200 km north ... and Nahanni for some hiking. 

Walk around Frame Lake

The Legislative Assembly, NWT. Gorgeous location and
I was told the only round house using
Consensus Government. How cool!

At Bullock's. They boast the best Fish and Chips in Canada.
Filled with character, it was awesome,  as was the price

Great Slave Lake still iced up.

Chile volcano eruption pics

Dubbing itself "Probably the best (non-governmental) earthquake reporting site in the world" Earthquake-Report.com has assembled some of the most awe inspiring pictures as well as status updates on the weakening volcanic eruption.

Nature is a powerful thing. There's been quite a bit of seismic action in this part of Chile - happily none while we traveled in the area in December. I trust that Chileans will continue working together and make good choices to deal with the fall out from this eruption.

Volcano eruption in Chile

Chile is situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire - the most seismically active region on Earth. Today, one of its many volcanoes erupted spewing smoke and gas up to 10 km high."End of the worlders" appear to relish in this occurance as another sign that the end is near.

I take it as a sign that Earth is alive and ever changing. And that it's good to pay attention when travelling as to where one is and what reasonable actions are to stay out of trouble. Chile's volcanoes don't present a huge threat to human activity, but when they erupt they create some challenges, in particular with ash and sulfur getting spread over large areas. The present eruption is the cause of a government evacuation order for about 3,500 people in the area.

Black underlines = where we travelled last year.
Red underlines - area being evacuated due to eruption.

English-language media has not updated its reports much it seems. I've tried to get a sense of the magnitude by looking at Chilean media.

The area affected appears to be just a bit north, maybe 100 km or so, of where we were travelling in last December near Puerto Montt/Cochamo. Click on the map to enlarge.

Chileans are a resilient people, who are accustomed to the big picture geographic challenges they live with. I hope and trust they will deal with this eruption by being smart and following the precautions to stay safe.

You might remember the huge 8.8 magnitude earthquake last February was a shock in particular as the tsunami that followed came without warning, which meant many people were caught off guard and had not gotten to the necessary higher ground. From what I've heard people now tend to self-evacuate when bigger earthquakes happen rather than wait to be told to seek higher ground. That is a good thing.

Knowing that many earthquakes have happened leading up to this eruption, might mean people were already alert to the possibility of a bigger issue.