Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Oct 07/02) - The snow finally fell in Inuvik last Wednesday, possibly signalling the end of the unseasonably warm fall weather.

"It's been a funny fall," says Tsiigehtchic radio announcer and weather watcher James Cardinal. "It's not exactly the same as it usually is -- there's more rain, more dirty weather, no sunshine. We've been getting sudden cold spells and then it turns warm. And in the first week in September, we had thunder storms, red lightning. I've never seen anything like that."

It seems the flora and fauna are getting confused, too. Hunters have noticed caribou apparently headed the wrong way -- north instead of south from the Dempster Highway.

Biologist Dorothy Cooley with the Yukon government has been keeping her eye on eight satellite collared Porcupine caribou. She says it appears the caribou still think it's summer.

"We haven't seen any indication of fall movement yet," Cooley says. "Typically they should be crossing the Porcupine River in mid to late September, but they haven't crossed yet."

She says instead the caribou are still widely distributed, milling around like they usually do in the summer, which may account for the hunters' observations of caribou not going in the usual direction.

Around Inuvik, artist Ruth Wright has been noticing buds sprouting on wild shrubs that should be preparing for winter. She always spends the season collecting and pressing colourful leaves for her art projects and this year, she came across three rose bushes with new flower buds and ripening rose hips growing on the same branch. She promptly picked and pressed them.

"There's some willows getting buds on them, too," says Wright. "They really do think it's springtime with all the wonderful weather and lots of rain."