The day · Whitehorse, Yukon
Afternoon · 154 min left
Sun 26° up, in the south-west · Boreal North & Taiga
The kind of day it is
High overcast
A lid of cloud over everything. Light is flat and diffuse, shadows are gone, and the whole day behaves like an extended dawn — fish roam shallow, and greens that would bolt in sun hold on.
The whole day is usable. This is the day to cover water and to transplant.
The day, phase by phase
Happening now · 15:58–18:52
2h 54m long
Afternoon
Where the sun is this minute. Its highest today: 32°.
The angle falls away again, but the ground is still releasing the morning's heat. Air temperature peaks well after the sun does — usually two to four hours late.
Where the light lands · Boreal North & Taiga
The sun swings far round to the west and stays low, and the long afternoon runs on into evening without much changing.
Up close
The lake surface has taken all day to warm the top half-metre. Below that it is still a few degrees above freezing, which is why the lake trout never came up.
The whole landscape
Thunderstorms fire over the burns and the rock barrens where the ground gets hottest, and lightning starts more fires. Half the boreal forest's renewal runs on exactly this.
In the water now
Northern pikebest now
Sitting still in the weeds in one to three metres, facing out, waiting. Pike hunt by sight and prefer daylight to dark.
Bluegillbest now
On the beds and the shallow flats, in water warm enough to see the bottom.
Arctic graylingbest now
Holding in the current and rising steadily to anything that drifts over. Grayling feed through the long northern day.
Cruising the weed edges, pads and shallow flats, ambushing anything that moves across the top.
Flat light spreads fish out and holds them shallow through the middle of the day.
In the garden now
Hoverflybest now
Hanging motionless in a sunbeam, then darting — hoverflies use warm still air and are strongest in the middle of the day.
Aphidsbest now
On the newest growth and the undersides of leaves, reproducing steadily through warm daylight.
Spider mitesbest now
On leaf undersides. They explode in hot dry weather and collapse in humidity, which is the whole control strategy.
Working flowers from about 13 °C upward, most heavily mid-morning when nectar has risen and the dew has gone.
The kindest day for transplanting there is, and the safest for sowing.
Sitting this one out
Walleye · Lake trout · Brook trout · Green lacewing · Ground beetle · Earthworm
The full guide
Everything for Whitehorse this week in one place.
Boreal North & Taiga
The region this day belongs to, and what lives in it.
The almanac
The year's arc: day length, the moon and the water behind the air.
The week ahead for Whitehorse
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