{"id":383,"date":"2006-11-24T11:52:32","date_gmt":"2006-11-24T16:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/11\/24\/auksalaq\/"},"modified":"2006-11-24T15:41:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-24T20:41:00","slug":"auksalaq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/11\/24\/auksalaq\/","title":{"rendered":"auksalaq"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>[auksalaq: Inuit for melting snow]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We had trudged across<br \/>\nthe mile of unbroken sitliq*<br \/>\nbetween our cluster of tents<br \/>\nbeside the frozen lake and<br \/>\nthe drill sites on the high ridge<br \/>\nevery day for several weeks.<br \/>\nNights were mystical bright<br \/>\nsunlit reveries to the<br \/>\ninsistent howl of the drills.<\/p>\n<p>We were bundled in heavy parkas<br \/>\nand wore dark green goggles<br \/>\nto cut down on the snow glare<br \/>\nfrom the low sun that slung<br \/>\naround the horizon all day<br \/>\ndipping out of sight<br \/>\nfor an hour at midnight.<br \/>\nMost of us improvised<br \/>\nhandkerchiefs tucked under<br \/>\nthe goggles to protect our<br \/>\nblistered red noses and cheeks<br \/>\nfrom both wind and sun.<\/p>\n<p>One day we were awakened<br \/>\nin our tent by<br \/>\nthe roar of water very nearby.<br \/>\nWe rushed outside to see<br \/>\nour back guyline loose<br \/>\nwashed away by a torrent of blue water<br \/>\nthe edge of it just inches from canvas.<\/p>\n<p>On the way to the job that day<br \/>\nwe sank up to our hips in auksalaq<br \/>\nwhere just a day before<br \/>\nwe had walked securely on sitliq.<br \/>\nAt the foot of the ridge we found<br \/>\na virtually bottomless deep crevasse<br \/>\nthat required a half-mile detour.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>[*sitliq: Inuit for hard crusty snow] <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[auksalaq: Inuit for melting snow] We had trudged across the mile of unbroken sitliq* between our cluster of tents beside the frozen lake and the drill sites on the high ridge every day for several weeks. Nights were mystical bright &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/11\/24\/auksalaq\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,24,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-serial","category-snow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}