We are now officially into Spring, and winter is slowly relaxing its grip.
As I walk the dogs up the snow choked droke, my boots plunge down uncertainly through the soft snow.
Rocks and the tops of berry bushes are emerging, and the smell of dank earth is in the air.
There is even birdsong once again.
Pausing to turn and view the frozen white harbour behind me, the tinkling of unseen trickling water is beneath me.
Onshore winds keep the harbour ice mostly intact, although there are blue holes appearing every day.
It's already too unstable to walk out on.
Around the shore, thick jagged pans of ice lie broken, the slabs jutting up where rocks have finally cracked them with the rising and falling tides.
The caribou now stay off the ice on the ponds, although it takes the first skidoo to sink through the ice before people grow wary of it.
I watch a hockey game played on the wharf, the puck now replaced with a ball, and skates hung in the shed for another season.
Fishermen are readying their boats for the crabbing season, already started further south where the harbour ice is gone. Concern for the ice is now focused on the huge rafts of saltwater pack ice drifting past offshore, some miles long. They tear away fishing gear and trap longliners until the icebreaker can smash a path to them.
Giant ancient icebergs drift by offshore, weathered into fantastical shapes.
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