“Sun is possible”
The traditional Inuit calendar had moon-months, named for events in the land’s cycles. In his book, The Arctic Sky, John MacDonald details the Igloolik calendar which begins the year with “Sun is possible” (mid-January) and moves through the rest of the thirteen moon-months: “Sun gets higher”; “Premature birth of seal pups”; “Birth of seal pups”; “Birth of bearded seal pups”; “Caribou calves”; “Eggs”; “Caribou sheds hair”; “Caribou hair thickens”; “Velvet peels from caribou antlers”—more poetic than October, right?—then “Makings of winter”; “The hearing month” and “The great darkness.” (By “The hearing month,” at about the end of November, the seas are frozen and all ice strong enough for people to travel by dog-team to scattered camps, where people would visit and hear news of their neighbors.) Through this transparent calendar, one can “see” the landscape. The white (Western) calendar, though, hangs like thick blank white paper, preventing you from seeing the land.
(Source: Wild—Jay Griffiths, Image—Amanda Hathaway)