Nanook is a good name for a dog. Sounds snowy. Imagine the big paws, and the long-haired warmth rolling in white. Taken by a leash out in a field, or up a hill. Something gentle to begin with, then a bit of a climb. It comes easy with four legs, but it’s tiring. A sound sleep is needed to grow stronger.
Looking up, way up a mountain for the first time, a dog doesn’t seem to read the angles. There is a distance beyond their eyes, and a nose doesn’t reach that far without practice. Looking down is easier, because a cold nose knows which way to go. So it’s comfortable to find a rest until the legs are stronger, even running in a dream.
The lead is there. Mountain people have a view that never retires from trying to go up. Even when there is more rest than strength, with age comes a view to memory, and that can be a try, too. Telling stories we relive the sensation. It is immediate. Legs never tire of the moment we hear of our past, or listen to the call of those going up now.
It isn’t age, though, that portends a need to take the rise up a hill. Anyone can be a pup to the idea. First times can happen at any age. Like a sudden inspiration taking flight. The moment arrives when we touch the snow. It is immediate. There will be a breath of cold. It will take us down to the warmer air, and comforts heaped in winter snows.
Summer is wild and fresh everywhere. It leaves a story we all hope to remember, until it happens again. Winter says come again, and we do, but there is a rise into the cold that demands alertness. It needs us to keep things on a leash, to be safe. Weather permitting. All of that white stuff seems to give us energy, though. A compromise of seasons only a dog could love, with all that fur.
Looking up, we ride the leash into winter, here at Whistler Blackcomb. We sniff at the cold, and warm ourselves after a chilly wind. Play is everywhere, but it reminds us of the two-legged challenge of life. Standing over a snowboard or a pair of skis, like a newborn at first, learning to move inch by inch. Standing, falling, crawling, sliding, then free. It comes with a bit of joy. We may even roll in the whiteness. Like a new pup. Liking a day in the snow.
