Author: Melanie Hackett

By Melanie Hackett

It’s happening again. Fireworks are lighting the skies all around the globe. The ball is dropping. People are writing down everything that is going to change with this new beginning. But what exactly is the significance of the New Year?

For most, it’s a clean slate. People are comforted by the idea of a chance to start fresh, erase the mistakes and bad things of the past, celebrate the accomplishments, and resolve to make positive changes starting – mañana!

In reality, most of us realize that New Year’s resolutions typically don’t make it through the first month. It is after all a wee bit irrational to believe that things can just change at the drop of a hat – or a ball in this case. But it is a global starting point for people to reflect on their lives and the changes they want to make, to talk about it, and to participate in something that makes their resolutions seem to sink in.

My mother has always said, “New Year’s resolutions are silly. If I am not pleased with something in my life, I will change it NOW, and not wait until the New Year!” And kudos to her! To change old habits can be extremely difficult and not everyone can do it without some kind of starting point, and even then, we have to work extremely hard not to fall back into the same habits. That is why so many people make resolutions at this time of year. It brings people hope and confidence that they can implement the changes they want to see in themselves or their lives.

For me, New Year’s always held special significance. Our coach for competitive Irish Dancing taught us to reflect on our accomplishments over the past year, and to write out the goals that eluded us or new goals that we wished to achieve in the coming year, as well as a strict plan on how we would aim to do that. My plan would include monthly, weekly and daily strategies, outlining in detail the changes I was committed to making in order to improve my skills at a faster rate. Sometimes, we had to bring these goals in to the first class. Other years, we brought our papers in prepared to share them with the class, only to be told that we were going to get straight to work and start sweating – hard! We would then be required to glue our goals to our mirrors so we would be forced to look at them every morning. But in the end, I think we were all going to work as hard as we already did, whether or not a new year came. The results we wanted to see were much stronger motivating factors than the change from December to January. Similarly, the reason for wanting to make any resolution and the results of the change should be motivating in itself, because ultimately we are not motivated by the change from one day to the next even if it is a new year.

This year, I’ve been struggling with the task of writing down New Year’s resolutions. I don’t anymore compete in the sport that consumed my entire existence, where goals and successes were very well defined. Now, like most people in their twenties, the direction of my life is a little more vague. So instead, I am reflecting on the reasons why it was so important to me, and many others, to come up with resolutions before that ball drops. In the world of highly competitive athletes, it is easy to be defined by your accomplishments, especially in the elite levels. This is particularly true when athletes are children or adolescents with brains that are developing, and their self-identities are only just forming. When 110 percent of their focus is towards reaching a specific goal, as is necessary if they are to succeed in elite sports, they cannot build all of the other elements that make up a healthy self-identity. Essentially, they can become defined by a number – the value of their top placement.

And what is the New Year? It is also just a number; a day like any other. It only holds the meaning we decide to attach to it. So rather than expecting ourselves to be able to change things that we haven’t yet managed to change and being disappointed that an arbitrary number did not change anything at all, why not frame this New Year simply in terms of hope for a good next cycle of the seasons. Why not simply resolve to enter into a future that can be satisfying even though it lacks everything that we may desire; a future that offers hope that if we cannot change certain things, that we will be at peace with the unavoidable rougher times we will all face within the next journey around the sun?

Tonight, for the first time since I can remember, I will not be writing down any resolutions. I will raise my glass of Glühwein high, and toast to the continuation of this ongoing journey through time, resolving to celebrate the good things each day and to enjoy a future that has hope even with the inevitable challenges life will bring. Happy New Year!

Where Fire Meets Ice – The Icelandic Eruption

By: Melanie Hackett

Humans have always been fascinated by the immense power of volcanoes. After all, volcanoes are responsible for the birth of new earth, as is rapidly happening on the Big Island of Hawaii. In fact, the gases released by volcanoes may have contributed to the creation of our atmosphere, and therefore set the stage for all of life itself.

Here in the Yukon, these spewing beasts of fire have helped shape the landscape. Have you ever driven the Klondike Highway to Dawson and wondered about the white layer on the sides of the road, especially visible near Carmacks? That is volcanic ash, or tephra, from a massive eruption of Mount Churchill 1300 years ago. Near Fort Selkirk, at the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly rivers, Volcano Mountain is a young and active cinder cone.

But what happens when volcanoes erupt in frigid areas full of glaciers, and how does that change the landscape afterwards? In 2010, a team of scientists from the UK and Iceland set out to the flanks of Eyjafjallajӧkull to discover the consequences of fire meeting with ice.

Remember this Icelandic eruption? Yes, it’s the one that caused the greatest air travel disruption since the Second World War as ash clouds blanketed Europe. However, Eyjafjallajӧkull provided the opportunity for scientists to learn how volcano-driven torrents of glacial meltwater would behave and how they would alter the landscape.

When the volcano rumbled to life on April 14, 2010, it melted large amounts of ice, sending cascades of meltwater roaring down the mountain. These glacial outburst floods are given the easily pronounced name jӧkulhlaup. The action culminated in two larger floods that sent the equivalent of 60 thousand Canada Games Centre swimming pools down the flanks of the volcano! The surge flowed both underneath and atop the glacier, carrying gravel and debris into a lake at the base of nearby Gigjӧkull glacier. And before you can say “Eyjafjallajӧkull”, the lake level rose by nearly five metres, engulfing the scientists’ equipment. The jӧkulhlaup continued its rampage, smashed through the far lake wall and drained the lake entirely.

Before this, not much was known about what happens as these catastrophic floods are raging down volcanoes. The scientists’ time-lapse imagery showed another subsequent 140 jӧkulhlaups. Each of these is believed to have occurred after the rupture of temporary blockages in meltwater rivers. These floods were much smaller than the initial two because the increasing tephra created an insulating layer on the ice, so less could melt. However, what the scientists discovered, to their surprise, was that contrary to previous belief, the large floods did not actually transport the most debris. The 140 smaller jӧkulhlaups had a much greater influence on the new shape of the land, as they brought fans of gravel down the mountain.

These findings will be invaluable for future hazard assessment, especially since more and more of these glacial outburst floods are expected in our warming climate. Closer to home, a future jӧkulhlaup is possible at Lowell Lake, a sediment-dammed lake at the headwaters of the Alsek River. Currently there is not enough water in the lake to flood Haines Junction if a catastrophic flood were to happen, but as Lowell glacier melts into the lake with global warming, this could be of concern in the future. However, as Eyjafjallajӧkull has shown us, it is not necessarily the largest and most powerful body that initiates change. There is strength in numbers, and change can be initiated by much smaller forces, that when combined, hold great power.

Here in the Yukon, these spewing beasts of fire have helped shape the landscape. Have you ever driven the Klondike Highway to Dawson and wondered about the white layer on the sides of the road, especially visible near Carmacks? That is volcanic ash, or tephra, from a massive eruption of Mount Churchill 1300 years ago. Near Fort Selkirk, at the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly rivers, Volcano Mountain is a young and active cinder cone.

YOU only need to set foot in the Yukon for a split second before it becomes clear why the territory’s motto is “Larger Than Life.”

Home to 14 First Nations groups and some 30,000 people — as well as the backdrop of Canada’s highest mountain and some of the largest and most isolated National Parks — the Yukon is one of the least densely populated places left on earth.

Imagine taking one tenth the population of Victoria and spreading it out over an area that is geographically larger than California, and is unadulterated and pristine wilderness.

Most of the population resides in the territory’s capital of Whitehorse. I, on the other hand, live in a self-governed Northern Tutchone First Nation community of 300, several hours north of Whitehorse. Of the seven billion people living on our planet, only about four million of them can claim that they live further north than we do here.

I am a graduate from SFU’s Kinesiology program, and the Recreation Director for the community of Pelly Crossing, which is located in the traditional territory that the Selkirk First Nation has been inhabiting for many thousands of years, passing on knowledge of survival in the below 50 Celsius winters from one generation to the next.

In my time here, I’ve had many larger-than-life experiences, and have also faced the sharp paradoxes of the Yukon: there is a contrast between the awe-inspiring experiences that teach you how tiny yet connected to everything you are, and the harsh reality of life in the north.

One of the most amazing northern experiences has been to watch the aurora borealis dancing overhead in electric purples and greens as the particles from the sun interact with the oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere, respectively.

One particular November night, it was nearly -50 Celsius. I ran out with two of my friends to watch a huge swan dance into a soaring eagle, a daffodil and finally an angel that raced across the star-filled sky — a sky that was so clear by now that I spotted the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away. By contrast, in the summer, it’s chilling to lie in the sunlit tent nestled in the jagged mountains at two in the morning, listening to the eerie call of the wolves. The ground cover consists of strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, blueberries, and more. By autumn the hills are on fire with the changing leaves, as hundreds of thousands of cranes, swans, geese, and other birds migrate south. I saw bears, lynx, foxes, porcupines, Dall sheep, wolves, moose and elk.

Yet even with more beauty than imaginable, the people here have suffered greatly. From the sudden colonization that occurred after the Klondike Gold Rush, to the end of the steamboat days when the Klondike highway was built, which forced Selkirk people to relocate, to the despicable residential school era that forced children away from their hunting gathering culture, westernized them and spat them back to families they could no longer understand, there is a lot of trauma left in our community.

It is a generational cycle, one lacking parenting as a result of being taken from their own families; there is a generational gap: the elders living here grew up living off the land, and their grandchildren grew up playing video games. It is a suppression of their language, traditions, and culture, and it is a cycle of substance abuse that leads to many more downward spirals.

There is no purpose in sugar-coating it. Children steal money off their parents in order to feed their drug habit — after all, their parents are attempting the same thing, sometimes stealing off their children who work part-time student jobs.

Being part of the Yukon EMS ambulance team, I know that over 50 per cent of our calls are alcohol related. Beginning in February, it is the sunniest place in the country, but don’t let it fool you. There have been several instances this year of teenagers that have passed out drunk and froze to death in the -40 temperatures.

Even if sober it can be a dangerous place. If your car breaks down on an isolated strip of highway, it could be an extremely long and dangerously cold wait, as there is no cell reception. Although difficult to deal with, these issues and history make the discrimination against me — as one of the only “white” people here — more understandable.

I have a friend here who was violently raped as a teenager. She got pregnant, and alcohol and drugs were the only method to temporarily wipe out her horrifying experience, so her child was born with severe fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. This substance abuse however, increased her vulnerability to being raped again.

Eventually, two kids later, she found herself lying in the street close to death. She finally called for help and was flown to Vancouver, where a specialized surgeon reconstructed her slashed wrists. Relocated from her home and with no money or support system, she had nowhere to go. She ended up like many of the people in Vancouver’s downtown eastside.

How many of us look from the bus window at that corner and judge the people there for “wasting their lives?” How many of us ignorantly tell kids ogling from the car that that’s where they’ll end up if they make stupid choices? In the best case scenario, we simply don’t give them much thought.

My friend was one of those people — the ones standing on the corner, serving as a lesson of deterrence to children, on the receiving end of our pity. Today, she is one of the most inspiring “Larger Than Life” characters I have ever met: hardworking, outgoing, and humorous, she is not afraid to share her story.

Sometimes the incredible beauty surrounding us brings even more pain as we try to comprehend the horrors that occurred in such a pristine place; likewise, it is difficult to comprehend how a simple mistake, such as forgetting your lock antifreeze inside in the dead of winter, could lead to death by such an aesthetic place.

But the things that bring healing to the community are activities that restore their culture and focus on nature.

One successful program was a native dancing program for school kids. When the children performed for their elders, the community was transformed. Tears of joy, pain and healing flowed down the faces of elders as they got up from the audience and danced with their youth, bridging that generational gap to finally connect with them.

The stone-faced youth that were so preoccupied with finding their next joint became energetic with smiles after only three days in the wilderness, where they were learning to ice fish, make fire, shoot arrows, make snares and listen to traditional legends.

It will take time — it may take a few more generations — but if any people can overcome such struggles, the Larger Than Life community of Selkirk people will.

These are the people most connected to the land, and they instinctively realize what an integral role it plays in the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of a person. If we are to deal with all of the contemporary issues we’re faced with, we need to listen to the lessons of their stories and culture.

One thing I know for certain is that if there is any place on earth that is larger than life, in both the natural environment and in the character of its inhabitants, it most certainly is the Yukon.

Words and pictures by Melanie Hackett

(Melanie Hackett was recreation director for Selkirk First Nation. She lived in Pelly Crossing for more than a year.)