As I stand by the lake, looking at the mountains through the hazy glow of the forest fires’ smoke, I cannot help but think how those forest fires are an analogy to my life… How sometimes, a forest needs to burn to the ground to be born again.

I have heard many people say that the Yukon is a land of healing, and I feel that. I remember the first summer I was here and took a medicinal plant class, how amazed I was to discover that the boreal forest had so many wild healing plants among its relatively limited varieties. The Yukon national flower, the fireweed, is the first plant that grows after a forest fire. In the desolated black landscape appears that beautiful fuchsia flower and the land is alive with pink hills. And guess what the medicinal property of fireweed is? Anti-inflammatory, of course… Isn’t nature so fascinating and wise?

If you watch how nature deals with adversity, continually renewing itself, you cannot help but learn. – Bernie S. Siegel

Just like the land needs beauty and protection after such devastation, a bare soul needs to be comforted by the beauty of the world. Right now, I need to fill my heart with beautiful words from poets and authors. I wrap myself in their blanket of beauty.

Their words are my fireweeds.