Spectacular freeze up and some new curtains
(Lou, Yukon)
Temperatures have dropped at last. Not far, to -25C, but we are delighted. I don’t know why, as wearing a neck-ring over your mouth and nose that’s frozen with snot and rubs like a cheese grater is not pleasant, nor is having your fingers ache with cold inside your mitts. But the pay-off is that strange, stiff winter beauty.
Layer upon layer of hoar frost feathers every surface, the sky is a deeper, crisper blue and the stars seem to blink themselves awake in the brittle night air.
On our first day of cold, the river suddenly gorged itself with ice. The pans clung together, and began to join the ice shelf advancing sideways into the flowing water from the bank.
By afternoon the crackling of ice flows turned to groaning and popping. We got to the bank in time to see water flood under the ice shelf and straight towards us.
The shelf lifted, then ground, thumped and shattered itself into huge, perfectly-shaped geometric pieces. Their edges caught the still flowing water which gently spun them round and slowly crushed them together, tilting their jagged edges into the air.
The ice still flowing now moved as one with a low growl. It ground a pressure ridge along the side of the newly rearranged ice shelf that tumbled with ice debris.
It’s dark now before 5pm so what went on after that was left to our and Homer’s imagination. The noise got so tremendous at points I had to run out to check the ice wasn’t coming over the bank.
The house is about 50’ from the edge, but Homer’s only 20’.
We woke to silence, with the occasional rifle report, as the ice settled. It is dark for about 4 hours now in the morning after we wake. We waited impatiently for our feeble almost-dawn (we no longer see the sun here) and then charged out to see our new winter view.
The jade green water, that has been flowing for the past month with calmly spinning, shussshing pans of ice, now looked like a mess of rubble and glass that had been fly-tipped in a hurry off the back of a truck.
The water had risen about 10’ vertically and 30’ across the beach, creeping the ice almost to our bank.
Oh well, that’s it we thought. Stillness. Though not really. The ever-changing light gives us a winter river view that is just as dynamic as summer. Blue seams, bright as alpine lakes, appear and fade away, shadows become animals and then shift and disappear, fiery pinks flash then burn themselves out. Nothing is ever really still here.
In the afternoon the ice began to flex and moan again. Loud cracks rang out along the river’s edge. As it got dark by 5pm, all we knew was the river was rising. It was already high so that was a bit unnerving, particularly for Homer.
The noise carried on into the night and by the early hours I could hear the low constant rumble of that juggernaut of ice setting off again. The river flowed again for maybe 4 hours.
In the morning cracks and fragile-sounding tinkles rang out, like clumsy waiters dropping wine glasses in a back kitchen. We ran over to the bank again at first light. The river had indeed risen. Its icy fingers now tugged at the bottom of our bank.
We had a lake at the mouth of our new trail, where the creek kicks out, complete with standing icebergs and glowing pale amber with reflected light from the mountains. The pressure ridges were now huge, about 10’ high. The river looked as if some furious force had taken a hammer to it.
This will not be an easy travel year.
Homer pawed the wafer thin ice left by the retreating water, looking for the familiar rocks and silt of his beach. The rocks underneath are coated with a frozen slime. All is ice now.
And we are alone with it. Literally. The river has not frozen 60 miles upriver at Dawson and friends 50 miles downriver and into Alaska still have open water. There may be no ice bridge at Dawson this year. Some people here don’t believe in climate change. Perhaps the powers of nature seem invincible to them.
More exciting news
All this fuss about the river has rather obscured the more exciting news that I managed to make coconut yoghurt and we have some new curtains.
Our diet here can be very dreary. Particularly now as even the nice things we bought like chocolate, evaporated milk, pickled artichokes, have all frozen and been frost-nipped of taste and texture. We seem to get caught out by the cold every year and stuff we have stored on the floor, in the cold cellar or even on low shelves suddenly freezes overnight here in our poorly insulated house. Even our biro pens freeze if we don’t remember to put them up high.
But I have managed to transform the insipid bitter yoghurt we make into something quite delightful that doesn’t taste like we bought it in a health food shop.
I chipped off chunks of creamed coconut, imported all the way from Jamaica to England then carried to Canada in my suitcase (yes, talking of global warming I am creating a carbon footprint the size of Belgium’s.) I melted them into the water before I mixed in our piously lean skimmed-milk powder (I cannot find full-fat milk powder.)
It has taken me 5 winters to come up with this idea but it is genius. Creamy, sweet yoghurt, just like the real stuff you can buy in a supermarket. Not as dramatic or photogenic as freeze up but a life-changing achievement for us.
And curtains
Our house is chronically under-insulated. It is double-glazed but that doesn’t stand for much at these temps and glaciers soon build their way up from the bottom of the windows.
So yet again, I have created what may be a new low in the world of interior design- cardboard and duct tape shutters.
As we only have about 6 hours of daylight, they can be up for most of the time and removed once it’s light. As if they weren’t quite hillbilly enough, they are spotted in a dashing pattern of moose blood and bullet holes as the boxes had been used for target practice and storing meat. The effect really is quite charming.
News from Homer’s world
As he refused to enter his lovely doghouse, we decided to take back the lumber. He was momentarily delighted.
But very soon disappointed. We replaced it with another carpentry endeavour, this time botched up with logs and some old hardboard we rescued from a flood.
There is worse to come. We are going to turn his kennel into a travel dog box. He will hate it, as he does all box-like things from kennels to cabins so God knows how we’ll get him into something marginally bigger than a shoe box.
Our best idea so far is to cut a hole at the back for a rope and winch him in with a come-along. So suffering the indignity of his shabby new lean-to will be nothing compared to that, and he might as well get used to it.
Do it while you can
This is our motto for bush life. If we had a coat of arms I’d have in scrolled in Latin at the bottom. Things change so rapidly, so unexpectedly, that a job you put off til tomorrow may never happen. 6 feet of snow may fall, or temps may drop to 50 below.
We got to our last few jobs on the snowmachine just in time before temps dropped.
Hillbillies at work again
A bear chewed the seat off our snowmachine this summer. Snowmachine seats are to bears what bubble wrap is to humans. They just can’t resist having a pop. A kind friend gave us another from a junked machine so we have been able to rebuild our seat.
The back rest was unsalvageable, but as long as we could find some of the chewed bits of foam, random household trash and swallow any sense of dignity, something could be created. Yup, an old rice sack and more duct tape.
So the question is now, will we ever get to use our snowmachine this winter? The lack of snow is good right now. Snow acts as an insulator on the ice, and we want the river to freeze quickly. But snowmachines need just that to run. We are seriously thinking about things we may need to ration.
But, as I said, we could be digging the machine out of 10’ of snow by tomorrow
Temperatures have dropped at last. Not far, to -25C, but we are delighted. I don’t know why, as wearing a neck-ring over your mouth and nose that’s frozen with snot and rubs like a cheese grater is not pleasant, nor is having your fingers ache with cold inside your mitts. But the pay-off is that strange, stiff winter beauty.
Layer upon layer of hoar frost feathers every surface, the sky is a deeper, crisper blue and the stars seem to blink themselves awake in the brittle night air.
 |
| Hoar frost at an opening in the creek |
By afternoon the crackling of ice flows turned to groaning and popping. We got to the bank in time to see water flood under the ice shelf and straight towards us.
The shelf lifted, then ground, thumped and shattered itself into huge, perfectly-shaped geometric pieces. Their edges caught the still flowing water which gently spun them round and slowly crushed them together, tilting their jagged edges into the air.
The ice still flowing now moved as one with a low growl. It ground a pressure ridge along the side of the newly rearranged ice shelf that tumbled with ice debris.
 |
| Looking nervous |
We woke to silence, with the occasional rifle report, as the ice settled. It is dark for about 4 hours now in the morning after we wake. We waited impatiently for our feeble almost-dawn (we no longer see the sun here) and then charged out to see our new winter view.
The jade green water, that has been flowing for the past month with calmly spinning, shussshing pans of ice, now looked like a mess of rubble and glass that had been fly-tipped in a hurry off the back of a truck.
The water had risen about 10’ vertically and 30’ across the beach, creeping the ice almost to our bank.
 |
| Yeah, I knew it would freeze on Nov 18th |
In the afternoon the ice began to flex and moan again. Loud cracks rang out along the river’s edge. As it got dark by 5pm, all we knew was the river was rising. It was already high so that was a bit unnerving, particularly for Homer.
In the morning cracks and fragile-sounding tinkles rang out, like clumsy waiters dropping wine glasses in a back kitchen. We ran over to the bank again at first light. The river had indeed risen. Its icy fingers now tugged at the bottom of our bank.
We had a lake at the mouth of our new trail, where the creek kicks out, complete with standing icebergs and glowing pale amber with reflected light from the mountains. The pressure ridges were now huge, about 10’ high. The river looked as if some furious force had taken a hammer to it.
This will not be an easy travel year.
Homer pawed the wafer thin ice left by the retreating water, looking for the familiar rocks and silt of his beach. The rocks underneath are coated with a frozen slime. All is ice now.
And we are alone with it. Literally. The river has not frozen 60 miles upriver at Dawson and friends 50 miles downriver and into Alaska still have open water. There may be no ice bridge at Dawson this year. Some people here don’t believe in climate change. Perhaps the powers of nature seem invincible to them.
 |
| View down river towards Alaska |
All this fuss about the river has rather obscured the more exciting news that I managed to make coconut yoghurt and we have some new curtains.
Our diet here can be very dreary. Particularly now as even the nice things we bought like chocolate, evaporated milk, pickled artichokes, have all frozen and been frost-nipped of taste and texture. We seem to get caught out by the cold every year and stuff we have stored on the floor, in the cold cellar or even on low shelves suddenly freezes overnight here in our poorly insulated house. Even our biro pens freeze if we don’t remember to put them up high.
But I have managed to transform the insipid bitter yoghurt we make into something quite delightful that doesn’t taste like we bought it in a health food shop.
I chipped off chunks of creamed coconut, imported all the way from Jamaica to England then carried to Canada in my suitcase (yes, talking of global warming I am creating a carbon footprint the size of Belgium’s.) I melted them into the water before I mixed in our piously lean skimmed-milk powder (I cannot find full-fat milk powder.)
It has taken me 5 winters to come up with this idea but it is genius. Creamy, sweet yoghurt, just like the real stuff you can buy in a supermarket. Not as dramatic or photogenic as freeze up but a life-changing achievement for us.
And curtains
Our house is chronically under-insulated. It is double-glazed but that doesn’t stand for much at these temps and glaciers soon build their way up from the bottom of the windows.
So yet again, I have created what may be a new low in the world of interior design- cardboard and duct tape shutters.
As we only have about 6 hours of daylight, they can be up for most of the time and removed once it’s light. As if they weren’t quite hillbilly enough, they are spotted in a dashing pattern of moose blood and bullet holes as the boxes had been used for target practice and storing meat. The effect really is quite charming.
 |
| Shutter complete with bullet holes |
As he refused to enter his lovely doghouse, we decided to take back the lumber. He was momentarily delighted.
 |
| Great! They got rid of that hideous eyesore |
 |
| Oh |
Our best idea so far is to cut a hole at the back for a rope and winch him in with a come-along. So suffering the indignity of his shabby new lean-to will be nothing compared to that, and he might as well get used to it.
 |
| Cutting straw to make a warm bed for our ever grateful dog |
 |
| What is this shit? |
This is our motto for bush life. If we had a coat of arms I’d have in scrolled in Latin at the bottom. Things change so rapidly, so unexpectedly, that a job you put off til tomorrow may never happen. 6 feet of snow may fall, or temps may drop to 50 below.
We got to our last few jobs on the snowmachine just in time before temps dropped.
Hillbillies at work again
A bear chewed the seat off our snowmachine this summer. Snowmachine seats are to bears what bubble wrap is to humans. They just can’t resist having a pop. A kind friend gave us another from a junked machine so we have been able to rebuild our seat.
The back rest was unsalvageable, but as long as we could find some of the chewed bits of foam, random household trash and swallow any sense of dignity, something could be created. Yup, an old rice sack and more duct tape.
So the question is now, will we ever get to use our snowmachine this winter? The lack of snow is good right now. Snow acts as an insulator on the ice, and we want the river to freeze quickly. But snowmachines need just that to run. We are seriously thinking about things we may need to ration.
But, as I said, we could be digging the machine out of 10’ of snow by tomorrow
 |
| Ok, Homer, so when’s it going to snow? |
Your writing seems to be rather easy going. I love it. Your 'newsletter' is now a regular thing every 5 or 8 days. I have passed it on to friends in France and Munich.
ReplyDeleteWell, you're waiting for snow...so do I - in Berlin.
Thanks for the supportive comment, Uwe and for sharing the blog.
DeleteHey Neil, loving hearing about your adventures, the blog is splendid. Lottie (10) has some geography homework and one of the topics she can choose from is frozen rivers. I've been reading her your blog, trying to inspire her! Keep writing :o)
ReplyDeleteBen, thanks for the kind words. If Lottie has any questions, just let us know. Hope you're being successful and having fun. Have a lovely festive Christmas with the family. Best wishes, Neil.
Delete