Bollocks to it

(Lou, Yukon)
We have crisp, sharp days and fathomless blue sky. The thermometer slinks between -30 and -37C.

So as well as failing in most of our endeavours this week, we’ve had the fun of aching fingers, freezing feet and eyelashes glued together with ice.

Our first “Bollocks to it” was getting the snowmachine along our new land trail, to save snow shoeing for 1.5 hours each way carrying heavy tools to finish clearing it.

Not enough snow, not worth the wear and tear on the machine. We gave up.

Then we chose a delightfully breezy, 35 below day to attempt to cross the river at the far end of our trail to inspect the ice. 

It was bitterly cold. I had my coney hat and wolf fur parka ruff velcroed tight leaving a square inch gap to see out. It was like peering through the ass of a wolf that’s just eaten a rabbit. 

That's me in there

I stumbled blindly over the ice boulders, pressure ridges and potential danger spots.

We made it. I immediately plunged into a (dry) hole and turned round to shout to Neil to help. He couldn’t. He was trying to wrestle his snow shoe out of a hole too.

Next, we tried to get the snowmachine up the creek, without a paddle so to speak.  We were hoping to drive the first 3 miles of our epic Xmas Day expedition to our friend’s place, 30 miles away, rather than snow shoe.

Testing ice on snow shoes. Homer waiting to see if I fall through

The creek is frozen with thick yellow-green overflow ice from half a mile from our house to the point we must reach to begin our climb up the mountain.

Glacier beginning to form on the creek

It’s just that first flakey half a mile.

Why we test the ice with an axe before proceeding

We inched along, tapping the ice with an axe to see if it was safe. “Tap, tap crash!” is how I’d recreate the experience as a soundscape. The gurgling of the creek echoed ominously beneath our feet opening to a roar each time we smashed through.

We managed a third of a mile and then thought, bollocks to it.

The water isn’t deep but the ice froze high. Dropping the machine 3 or 4’ into water that will quickly freeze around it as we try to hoist it out is an experience we’ll leave for another year.

Fucked that right off. Heading home.

We decided to get firewood on the way back. That went terribly well too. I plunged feet first into the creek in my moosehide mukluks.

Which left a rapidly increasing gap for us to topple the logs across to reach the sled.

How could this go wrong?

However, we did spot a huge dead spruce leaning at a safe 60 degree angle to the ground. It was at least 3' at the base and over 100’ tall, which is massive for the subarctic sticks we get here. Weeks of firewood all in one spot. Hoorah! On to our next pointless endeavour!

We spent an hour or two before dark, clearing a route to it.

The next morning the tree looked bigger somehow.

Lots of swearing going on here

A dead poplar was blocking its path. It was a quick job to remove it. One of those quick jobs that takes all day. We ratcheted it to another tree to stop it falling on me as I made a cut near the base. Once cut, the tree hopped off its stump then stayed more or less where it was. It was now very unsafe.

Neil having fun with a come-along. More swearing.

Despite more cutting and heaving, it remained upright. Eventually we went home for a come-along and ropes and yanked it down. None of that wood is useful as poplar doesn’t burn well.

I went to inspect our tree in daylight, or our potential nemesis as I was beginning to view it. It sat in a ditch allowing only one escape route for the cutter. A large split in its trunk made it unstable. I imagined Neil with the tree on his neck, chainsaw still running into his face. I remembered I have not read our St John’s Ambulance Wilderness First Aid book, that there is 60 miles of this-

-between us and the hospital.

Fuck that.

We found a fallen spruce, still green, for next year’s wood. (Green wood must be dried for at least a year before you can burn it.) We took a few sections as consolation.

The next morning, I set off alone for our measly “consolation wood” with a prophetic “This’ll only take a few minutes.”

A 3-point turn with a wide-track machine and heavy sled takes often more than a few minutes. The ski bust through the ice and stuck. I went forward into the willows. Try again. The machine was now held fast by a willow jammed behind the skis. One of the few willows we hadn’t wasted time and gas cutting away in order to get a tree we decided not to fell the day before. 

So I had to cut the willow with the axe. No axe. 

Foot in the creek again

Neil now joins me and helps by taking photos.

And the other side

Neil decides he’ll have a go at reversing out.

You know how whenever your spouse says something you can only hear part of it? I said, “You’ll have to walk the machine back and go really slowly because of the dodgy ice.”

Neil heard, “You’ll have to walk the machine back and wah wah wah wah wah.”

So he walked the machine back at high speed, the ski wedged in the ice and there was a sickening snap that left the ski poking out like a broken limb.

We turned the machine on its side to investigate the damage.

Living in the bush has taught me it doesn’t help to get angry or blame one another. You have must calmly fix the problem before the cold gets you and you end up in real trouble.

It doesn’t help, but doesn’t it feel good? After a high pitched speech that started “I just fucking told you-” and ended “-and you can bloody fix it” I lapsed into a sulky, “well, OK I’ll help” (but look at me being the martyr). I kept that up until it occurred to me, once we'd tipped it on its side to take a look, the machine was really damaged and we were in the shit.

The bolt that holds the ski into the spindle had sheered. Just a wee bolt. Not a specialist Polaris part nothing to worry about.

Except we don’t have it. And we can’t get it. Not unless we pay $700 for a helicopter delivery. And find someone who will get one for us and give it to the pilot. That’s an expensive 6" bolt.

But, there was an odd bolt under the seat! That’s what it’s for! I held it against the ski. It’s … too short. 

We limped the machine back to the house. Neil went back to the creek with a magnet to see if he could find the sheered nut and washer in the snow. He didn’t. I thought of every single thing in this fucking place that might have a bolt in it we could pull apart. Short of deconstructing our brand new Yamaha outboard motor, I came up with nothing.

We have a tray on the porch with odds and ends in it. Neil brushed off the snow and began to pick his way through it. A bolt! With a nut, exactly the right size!

We threaded it through the bushings. It’s… too short.

My other motto for bush living (after “Do it while you can”) is, “everything takes all day”.

Days are short now- 5, 6 hours at most. By 4pm after my “couple of minutes” morning job, it was getting dark.

No machine means we won’t be able to travel. Well, no shit- we can’t travel yet anyway, there isn’t enough snow. We have enough supplies.

We have a large woodpile from last year but at these temps, it goes. Hand-hauling logs from across the river with Homer’s help pulling the dogsled would keep us even. We could get enough wood in a day to burn in a day. And, let’s face it, we wouldn’t be home much to burn it.

Hauling wood. A lot easier with the machine and sled, pictured.

Neil went back out to the tray of things and found a piece of threaded rebar that was almost the right size. We had no nuts to fit it, but managed to jam some on.

I went to bed that night with a tightness in my guts. We are the most remote people we know here on the Yukon, (and possibly most places in the world). 

We are 30 miles from the nearest people, our Alaskan friends, and 50-60 river miles from town. Our friends are just as far from town but they are on the road system. Snowmachiners and dog mushers use it throughout the winter. People come by. 

No one will put a trail in to us, and without our machine, there won’t be one. Last year, apart from one brief visit from our Alaskan friends, no one came by until mid-March.

We no longer see the sun but the moon is with us from afternoon to mid-morning this week. She is full today and beaming so bright I started at the cabin door, thinking someone was outside with a lamp.

I hope our bolt holds.

We need a second snowmachine. That would be good.

And a handful of 6”, 5/16" wide bolts with nuts and 5/8" head (in case anyone’s flying over).

Homer doesn’t contemplate his vulnerability in the same way. Simply the best thing that happened for Homer all week was that noisy, scary thing broke. It stopped roaring and stinking the place up. Everything was just great! 

But now it’s all ruined again.

Oh no