Salmon-coloured, sleeps in the ground. Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan. Makes explosives, fertilizer, other things. Useful things. What would we do without potash? Who would we be without potash? What would we make without potash? How would we smell without potash? SASKATCHEWAN!

9 am, it is minus 37 with the windchill in Winnipeg, and the bar past airport security is crammed with happy package-vacationeers headed south, clinking their first beers of the day. Many of them are already in shorts, showing off some styrofoamy leg as I trudge by in my sweaty parka and untied boots towards coffee. I am off to Dawson City to be one half of the Dawson City Music Festival’s Songwriter in Residence for the month of February. Christine Fellows, the other (and my better) half, will join me in a week or so.

I get to Calgary on Air Canada in the company of a pretty strong airplane movie, Morning Glory (sort of forgivably miscast Harrison Ford, pleasant Rachel McAdams, Broadcast News-ripoff type thing where you don’t feel too bad about missing the last 15 minutes) and walk up to the Air North counter/time machine. Just about the only things I feel nostalgia for from the 90s are payphones, Export Medium cigarettes, and the relative ease of air travel. The first thing the guy says as I approach is, “You’ll be wanting to carry that guitar on with you, I hope.” They serve a free lunch. One of the options is practically vegan. It is like a better version of the past. Getting on the flight from Whitehorse (where it is a spooky plus 4) to Dawson, going through security means walking past a smiling uniformed fellow on your way to the precarious stairs into a Hawker 748 prop plane that says “In Emergency Cut Here” on the side. It doesn’t seem clear to me where “here” is.

Last time I was on this flight it involved turbulence. Not that 747 rocking sensation they call “turbulence,” but real fist-clenching thumps, and when it wasn’t turbulent it felt like we were skateboarding on ice, moving randomly from side to side. I was sitting next to Toronto musician Paul Aucoin, who snored through the whole thing while holding a hot cup of coffee, which I found really soothing. This time it is just me and a book I’ve already read, and I’ve now realized I have forgotten those magic pills I keep for these occasions, the ones that you “dissolve under the tongue as needed” and make everything go almost immediately slow and calm. I can see them on the shelf in the kitchen, content in their little orange bottle.

But it is okay. It is fine. I arrive in Dawson City. Here I am. In residence. I have bought some groceries, I have met fine citizens, I have sat and stared at my notebook, and the northern lights, which can’t or won’t be described, are better than pills.