So what happened to winter?

(Lou, Yukon)
You know how whenever you do a home improvement job there is always some bit you can’t be bothered to do? Some little bit of trim, or a corner that needs painting? 

Or a roof that needs putting on. 

We got as far as putting the roof on our resurrected cache then had to stop because Neil hurt his back. But with snowy clouds darkening the skies, we had to get it finished, bad back or not.

Health and safety is a serious challenge and works in inverse proportion to temperature and time. So we start with the best intentions (not using a chainsaw when off the ground, one of us always holding our rickety handmade ladders etc.) then as our hands get colder and frustrations build, we progress in an increasingly stupid manner until the job is finished or one of us is injured. 

Not using the chainsaw on the swaying platform lasted for as long as it took me to look at the log that needed a corner notched into it and then look at the hand saw. Keeping both feet firmly on the platform went out of the window (if we’d had one) as long as it took to realise Neil couldn’t reach to screw the roof tin down. 

We spent, oh, minutes trying to think of something really safe he could balance on the uneven spruce pole floor and came up with... a bashed in empty 5 gallon kerosene drum with a beer cooler box perched on top. Our safety check was that I would stand behind Neil in case he fell. And of course the dog was milling around beneath us, so he’d, like… catch us if we both fell. 


Actually working within the cache walls with purlins and a ridge pole to grasp wasn’t too bad. To get the last section of tin on we had to be outside the cache and so built a little platform, balanced on the protruding base poles, at the front. Only a couple of morons would STILL be standing on a tippy kerosene drum out there! Yes, well, you know- the dog was down there…

All finished and ready for Airbnb

The injustice
Despite our death-defying rush to get the roof finished no snow fell. Then temperatures soared to up to zero. This is the second roof we’ve slapped up in a rush, thinking winter was coming. We put a new one on the old cabin a couple of weeks ago. At the point it was -20c and snow was falling, so we have spent the coldest, snowiest days of the year so far building roofs. And now it’s dry and warm we can sit in the cabin browsing Facebook.

So what happened to winter?
Things tend to operate on a micro climate level in this country. Due to temperature inversion in winter, high ground will usually be warmer. The cold air sinks into valleys and settles there. A wind tends to raise the temperature as it blows the cold air off. 

The first place we lived in the Yukon area (maybe 50 miles from here) was the coldest. It was at a confluence of valleys and the cold air streamed in and sat there. We were often 20 degrees colder than places a few miles away and once went as low as -73F.

Our new home is on a bend in the river, and next to a high cliff. So we are warm and windy. But zero feels a bit too warm.

A rare stroll
It is very hard to walk here. You wouldn’t think it with all this land around but the ground is either covered in feet of snow, knee high in moss humps, liquid bog, impenetrable with thick brush, so bloody steep you can’t be assed and often a combination of many of those helpful features with clouds of biting insects/ sub-zero temperatures for extra discomfort, depending on the season. 

The glacial silt on the beaches even turns to quicksand when wet. You have to pay consistent attention to where you put your feet, what might be about to poke you in the eye and whether something might eat you. You don’t stroll.

Last month's walk. Not too much brush but look how steep

 But we have a slither of time now where the brush has died off, the ground has frozen but no snow. We have been able to explore the woods relatively unmolested and yesterday, wandered down the ice shelf as far as the next creek down river (which may or may not be called Happy Creek.)

The river begins to freeze at the edges first forming a shelf of ice. It is flat, but slippery so we shuffled along like constipated geriatrics rather than strolled, but it was refreshing to go “somewhere else.” 

“Perhaps there’ll be a pub that does local beer and home-cooked roast dinners!”

“Or a little tea room with freshly-baked scones!”

We never tire of this joke. What a couple of sad sacks we are. 

Homer, dog of wisdom
Homer doesn’t like ice. We just about convinced him to cross our creek to join us. He adopted the same stiff legged shuffle as us (with four legs he managed to look even weirder) but he would not join us on the ice shelf. 

I had just said, with a timing that you could never replicate for a stage or film production, “Come on Homer, this ice is totally safe. It’s about 3 feet thick!” when I crashed through the top layer

Happy Creek must be shallower than Cassiar. It had frozen completely so we scooted along it, hollow ice layers shattering under our feet now and then. 

Happy Creek (maybe). Didn't see a pub.

On our return, the temperature was dropping and the river ice began to heave and bend with ominous creaks. The river is flowing with slowly spinning saucers of sugared icing that brush up against the shelf with a constant shhhhhhsh. 

But less ice than a week ago and still no signs of the river stopping. We won’t be going anywhere else til it does.

Water on tap, still
With the mild temps our creek is still open in places so we can dip a bucket from the edge of the ice, but it’s getting precarious. 

How to test if ice is safe- “Neil, stand on the edge with a bucket and I’ll take a nice photo for Facebook.” Works every time.

The creek has been flowing over the ice (known as overflow) so we are often standing in water on top of ice. I dip the buckets with Neil holding me tightly for safety. The creek’s only knee deep but the flow is fast enough to suck you under. There isn’t another open spot downstream so I wouldn’t come up. And what with Neil’s bad back, I wouldn’t expect him to try to chip me out.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pale of water, Jack fell down and hurt his back, So Jill had to get all the water for the next week, And split all the wood. Not that she ever complained.

Zombie squirrels
We are now battling dead squirrels.

One of our indoor chores was to clean up our beautiful old “Findlays Arklan of Ont. & Winnipeg” cooking range. It’s far more efficient with wood than our barrel stove and just so gorgeous we need to use it more.

It smokes when we get it going so we figured a good old clean and scrape inside to get the soot and rust out would get us a better airflow. And I’m glad we did cos there was not one, but two dead squirrels nestling at the bottom. (I know we’re not big on housework but I’m sure this could happen to anyone.)

Bloody things. No wonder it didn’t draw properly. Works great now, thank you. 

Lemming satay
I tried to reward our dog, Homer, for alerting us to the fact that lemmings were eating our moose meat last week by making him a nice bed made of improvised “straw” cut from the yard. I laid it in his “lean to” (next to the lovely dog house we built him that he won’t set foot in.)

Hates it. Scraped it all out and wants to sit on the cold earth. He has found his own reward- the dead lemmings in our bucket traps. Nicely marinated in their peanut butter bait.

And a last word from our psychic dog
He hasn’t been quite so communicative this week, I think he is preoccupied. But I did manage to capture his latest message on camera here.

“Get off the fucking ice, man. You’re crazy! That’s the Yukon River out there. Hell no! I’m not coming to you, you stupid fuck.”

I think that was what he said.

Next week: Homer’s predictions on when the river will freeze over.