Breakdowns
(Lou, Yukon)
We had two major breakdowns this week, first my husband then the snowmachine. The machine is more inconvenient.
Neil twisted his knee. Nothing major, but he can’t just take it easy, forget the bike and get the DLR to work as he would in London.
So I’ve had to get all the wood and water again. (I am a martyr, have I mentioned that before?) Time is the best healer for injuries.
But not machines.
We had been working on finding and staking our trail downriver, after losing it under a fucking great heap of snow.
We decided I shouldn’t carry on alone as if the machine rolled on the rough ice I could get pinned underneath it.
That decision lasted as long as it took me to get bored. About half an hour.
I don’t take stupid risks. I travel slowly, don’t go too far and snow shoe any sections I’m not sure of before driving them. I take a Delorme satellite signaller. If I’m not home by a set time, Neil can check the internet for a message.
But if I knock myself out at 30 below I will freeze to death before Neil gets to me. A couple of years ago, a man was found dead beside his snowmachine, not far from here. It still happens.
But the craziest, most dangerous thing I do is cycle in London rush-hour traffic. I have had so many near-death experiences simply getting to work. So I will take a calculated risk for the sheer joy of being out on the river on a cold clear day with the sun pinking the tips of the mountains and my lungs full of two-stroke fumes.
I wanted to put some trail back in as the Rangers might pass through on 13th. (That’s the wilderness armed forces reserves, not the Glasgow football team, thank fuck.) They are breaking trail for the Yukon Quest, a 1000 mile dogsled race that usually runs along the river. It was diverted through the mountains last year due to bad ice and we didn’t expect to see it this year either, but they are going to try to make it.
I cut willows and strapped them across the back of the machine to mark the route.
I stuffed one in the snow every so often by the trail in front of the machine. As the willows on the back protruded either side, I then knocked it flat when I drove off. Brilliant. I had to stand them all up again on the way back. No need to tell the Rangers that, please.
After a lot of snow shoeing around, peering for tell-tale chipped ice, or track marks under the blown snow, I lost the trail completely and decided to turn around.
30 below doesn’t feel that cold when you have the right clothing, but there was a breeze. A breeze means 5 seconds out of gloves and fingers get achingly painful. Things can get dangerous. I would be driving back into the wind, I’d gone about 8 miles and it was time to go home.
The machine had other ideas. It would not move. I can easily snow shoe 8 miles home but it would not be fun. I left the engine to warm up and eventually puttered and backfired off, with the feeling I was on borrowed time.
The wind was harsh. When dog mushing, or snow shoeing I can arrange the wolf-fur ruff of my parka into a tunnel round my face that holds the warm air of my breath. Machines go too fast for that. I had a facemask and neck ring pulled up over my nose (both horribly frozen stiff) plus the hood of my down jacket wrapped tight as a bandage round my head. But the wind found a spot at the top of my cheekbone and would not let go. I tried to drive holding my mitt over my cheek.
As long as it’s stinging, you don’t have frost nip. If it stops stinging, as I learned on the North Slope of Alaska many years ago, sort it out. Or you’ll get a blister that looks remarkably like leprosy. In the end, I hunkered down behind the windshield and drove slowly, though with the appearance of someone driving very, very fast indeed.
Thank fucking Christ I get 2 miles from home, and more importantly ¼ mile from our land trail which would get me off the river and out of the wind, before the machine stopped dead with a horribly loud whirring.
We had a new drive belt so it wasn’t that. Time to get the cowling open and apply the 2 or 3 things I know about mechanics. The track wasn’t turning, the belt was fine in neutral but moaned and shook once in gear. Conclusive evidence that narrows it down to… a problem with gears or transmission. Or something else entirely. I grabbed my parka, threw it in a sack with some food and water and set off home on snow shoes.
I plodded through the woods like a little clockwork toy, snow shoes winding around each other in automatic motion. The moon was a sharp, bright disc in a bruised sky and stars began to flutter between the spruce trees.
There’s been a lone wolf around so I gave myself the added thrill of imagining it appearing on the trail behind me, and as that wasn’t scary enough, another person on snow shoes! A haggard man with an axe and no face… I do this sometimes when I’m tired and alone in the dark. I have previously imagined a giant white worm snaking through the woods beside me and Moby Dick, waiting to smash through the Yukon ice to snatch me in his leviathan jaws. With so many real dangers, I can’t imagine why I conjure up fantastical ones.
Neil's tough day
Neil had a really tough day because the cookies he baked didn’t rise. It was such a tough day he appeared not to notice that I’d left on a snowmachine in the morning and returned after dark on snow shoes dragging a big sack.
He asked moodily, “how did it go?”
How self-centred of me not to even think about the cookies, though really. Once I’d given him some consolation, we established there was another disaster on the horizon, which might be a bit more serious.
We hauled the generator out, got online and made a Skype call to our Alaskan pal, whilst munching cookies (actually very good, I don’t know what the fuss was about). Seems it’s most likely a coupler between the jack shaft and transmission that had worn. Thank God, he actually had one spare.
More good luck, one of the Rangers is currently trapping not far from him. He returns to Dawson soon and then will be heading out with the unit that is coming to ours on 13th. So he can collect the coupler, take it to Dawson and then bring it to us. It’s a circuitous route but better than ordering one online and collecting it by helicopter from the post office. That's if they make it.
With incredible timing, there was also an email from a pal in Dawson asking if we wanted to buy his old Polaris snowmachine. Yes indeed. The only issue being how we get to it.
We have to remove the old coupler from the jack shaft and spent a lovely afternoon at 30 below in a howling, biting wind trying to remove tiny bolts from an engine so cold it burnt our hands to touch. It is rusted on.
We have dutifully greased that machine every fucking spring, but on close inspection, there is a bloody page missing from our online manual. So we didn’t know about the grease point on the coupler.
After more technical advice from an Alaskan pal, we went back yesterday and whacked it with a hammer for a full hour until Neil’s hands got blistered. It has moved about 3mm. Enough to reveal the shaft is crooked in the coupler and it will be a total bastard to get out. We noticed the coupler is longer than the one that is en route to us so we will have to order one online and get to the post office fuck knows how.
There have been no breakdowns on our four-legged back up snowmachine and he was able to haul a sled with our tools to the machine.
He’s doing great at being a solo dog team. He’s unsure on gee (right) and haw (left) so we aren’t good at corners yet but otherwise he stops, goes and pulls his little heart out for us.
We were smart enough to get this winter’s wood last year, so we won’t freeze without our machine, and were in the midst of getting next year’s. Homer will have full time employment hauling logs and helping us with the water run. I was just about to embark on our 2 weekly cycle of laundry and washing so the timing’s a bitch.
Right now, I would go to a dealership with our credit card and buy any new machine the limit would allow. That’s massive for me. I’m extremely tight and buying expensive new things gives me heart palpitations.
I would buy 5 more dogs if we could find them and run a team with Homer out front and just go in straight lines if that’s all he wants to do.
But we cannot get to any dealership in Tok or Whitehorse nor to any mushers. We cannot get further than we can ski or snow shoe and Homer can pull. We are stuck, again.
We had two major breakdowns this week, first my husband then the snowmachine. The machine is more inconvenient.
Neil twisted his knee. Nothing major, but he can’t just take it easy, forget the bike and get the DLR to work as he would in London.
So I’ve had to get all the wood and water again. (I am a martyr, have I mentioned that before?) Time is the best healer for injuries.
But not machines.
We had been working on finding and staking our trail downriver, after losing it under a fucking great heap of snow.
 |
| Trail goes this way somewhere |
That decision lasted as long as it took me to get bored. About half an hour.
I don’t take stupid risks. I travel slowly, don’t go too far and snow shoe any sections I’m not sure of before driving them. I take a Delorme satellite signaller. If I’m not home by a set time, Neil can check the internet for a message.
But if I knock myself out at 30 below I will freeze to death before Neil gets to me. A couple of years ago, a man was found dead beside his snowmachine, not far from here. It still happens.
But the craziest, most dangerous thing I do is cycle in London rush-hour traffic. I have had so many near-death experiences simply getting to work. So I will take a calculated risk for the sheer joy of being out on the river on a cold clear day with the sun pinking the tips of the mountains and my lungs full of two-stroke fumes.
I wanted to put some trail back in as the Rangers might pass through on 13th. (That’s the wilderness armed forces reserves, not the Glasgow football team, thank fuck.) They are breaking trail for the Yukon Quest, a 1000 mile dogsled race that usually runs along the river. It was diverted through the mountains last year due to bad ice and we didn’t expect to see it this year either, but they are going to try to make it.
I cut willows and strapped them across the back of the machine to mark the route.
I stuffed one in the snow every so often by the trail in front of the machine. As the willows on the back protruded either side, I then knocked it flat when I drove off. Brilliant. I had to stand them all up again on the way back. No need to tell the Rangers that, please.
 |
| Chipped ice under the snow drifts reveals our old snow machine trail |
 |
| Small section of old trail ahead beyond snow drift. Can you spot it? |
The machine had other ideas. It would not move. I can easily snow shoe 8 miles home but it would not be fun. I left the engine to warm up and eventually puttered and backfired off, with the feeling I was on borrowed time.
 |
| Sastrugi, packed snow ripples caused by strong winds, next to one of our few proper trail markers |
 |
| Wind blown ice. It's windy, have I made that clear yet? |
Thank fucking Christ I get 2 miles from home, and more importantly ¼ mile from our land trail which would get me off the river and out of the wind, before the machine stopped dead with a horribly loud whirring.
We had a new drive belt so it wasn’t that. Time to get the cowling open and apply the 2 or 3 things I know about mechanics. The track wasn’t turning, the belt was fine in neutral but moaned and shook once in gear. Conclusive evidence that narrows it down to… a problem with gears or transmission. Or something else entirely. I grabbed my parka, threw it in a sack with some food and water and set off home on snow shoes.
I plodded through the woods like a little clockwork toy, snow shoes winding around each other in automatic motion. The moon was a sharp, bright disc in a bruised sky and stars began to flutter between the spruce trees.
There’s been a lone wolf around so I gave myself the added thrill of imagining it appearing on the trail behind me, and as that wasn’t scary enough, another person on snow shoes! A haggard man with an axe and no face… I do this sometimes when I’m tired and alone in the dark. I have previously imagined a giant white worm snaking through the woods beside me and Moby Dick, waiting to smash through the Yukon ice to snatch me in his leviathan jaws. With so many real dangers, I can’t imagine why I conjure up fantastical ones.
Neil's tough day
Neil had a really tough day because the cookies he baked didn’t rise. It was such a tough day he appeared not to notice that I’d left on a snowmachine in the morning and returned after dark on snow shoes dragging a big sack.
He asked moodily, “how did it go?”
How self-centred of me not to even think about the cookies, though really. Once I’d given him some consolation, we established there was another disaster on the horizon, which might be a bit more serious.
We hauled the generator out, got online and made a Skype call to our Alaskan pal, whilst munching cookies (actually very good, I don’t know what the fuss was about). Seems it’s most likely a coupler between the jack shaft and transmission that had worn. Thank God, he actually had one spare.
More good luck, one of the Rangers is currently trapping not far from him. He returns to Dawson soon and then will be heading out with the unit that is coming to ours on 13th. So he can collect the coupler, take it to Dawson and then bring it to us. It’s a circuitous route but better than ordering one online and collecting it by helicopter from the post office. That's if they make it.
 |
| Neil had great success with moose burgers. Buns didn't rise, but best not mention it. |
We have to remove the old coupler from the jack shaft and spent a lovely afternoon at 30 below in a howling, biting wind trying to remove tiny bolts from an engine so cold it burnt our hands to touch. It is rusted on.
We have dutifully greased that machine every fucking spring, but on close inspection, there is a bloody page missing from our online manual. So we didn’t know about the grease point on the coupler.
 |
| The fucking coupler |
There have been no breakdowns on our four-legged back up snowmachine and he was able to haul a sled with our tools to the machine.
He’s doing great at being a solo dog team. He’s unsure on gee (right) and haw (left) so we aren’t good at corners yet but otherwise he stops, goes and pulls his little heart out for us.
We were smart enough to get this winter’s wood last year, so we won’t freeze without our machine, and were in the midst of getting next year’s. Homer will have full time employment hauling logs and helping us with the water run. I was just about to embark on our 2 weekly cycle of laundry and washing so the timing’s a bitch.
Right now, I would go to a dealership with our credit card and buy any new machine the limit would allow. That’s massive for me. I’m extremely tight and buying expensive new things gives me heart palpitations.
I would buy 5 more dogs if we could find them and run a team with Homer out front and just go in straight lines if that’s all he wants to do.
But we cannot get to any dealership in Tok or Whitehorse nor to any mushers. We cannot get further than we can ski or snow shoe and Homer can pull. We are stuck, again.
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