Yukon bush life

Temperatures are down to -12C at night and below zero during the day. The creek is freezing over and ice is beginning to form at the river bank.  With our boat now out of the river, we are cut off from the world maybe until next year. We can’t travel again until the Yukon is frozen and we’ve managed to get a trail either 60 miles south to Dawson or 30 miles north to the old mining road. Until then we are in splendid isolation.  Moose receipts and laundry- all the glamour of our last trip to town And so we made our final boat journeys last week. We did our last supply run to Dawson for this year and, for once, got to town on a weekday that wasn’t a public holiday so all the shops were open! A cause for celebration though we had no time to.  Days are getting shorter and with at least 4 hours of driving once we got out of the boat it was a race against time to get everything done. We were on the river at first light around 8am- it was bastard cold still, at 12 be...

(Lou, July 14th) Much relieved to say not yet. We woke yesterday to a text from a friend in Dawson City. “Fire near or at our property. Forest fire crews in attendance.” Great. Only 7 hours to wait til 8am Yukon time when we can call Dawson Wildfire and get more detail.  How I'm imagining our property Mitts and knickers Everything we own is in and around the cabin. Over the past five years we’ve scrounged/ begged/ bought second hand/ cheap on ebay a fuck of lot of stuff. If the cabin burnt we’d lose everything from our snow machine, chainsaws and generator to saucepans, mitts and knickers. I tried to do a quick calculation of the cost to replace it all but my brain started steaming. And then, oh yes, there is the house. We’d have to rebuild it.  Maybe our cache is still "standing" and we move into that? There is no insurance to cover cabins in the bush.  Other common events that may destroy our home  We’d mentally prepared for being wiped out by ...