Canine Emergency

(Yukon)

Our bend in the river is a windy spot. It’s about to get worse. We didn’t get a moose and so it will be a diet of dried beans for the winter. On the bright side, the wind blows the deep cold away so this will give new meaning to the term “man-made climate change.”

Calling for moose on the river

We missed our moose, the one we stood 30 feet away from but had no rifle. We aren’t seeing any tracks now so perhaps they have gone back up into the mountains? Lore has it that moose come down to rut when it gets cold. It didn’t get cold this year. 

Calling from the porch with birch bark bugle

Our lonesome moose lady calls are answered only by cackling ravens and furious squirrels. We haven’t given up, but it’s feeling unlikely.

Out early, looking for bloody moose

We’ve tried our hand at fishing. We didn’t have line strong enough for salmon and so have improvised with parachute cord. 

They aren’t fooled. When we fished salmon previously we used a fishwheel, a huge home-made water wheel type contraption that scoops them out of the water and dumps them in handy boxes.

Neil on the fish wheel

Our licences here only cover line fishing, so we are trying to attract a fish that has stopped eating with a piece of tinfoil and some cheese on a hook. Apparently, the trick is to annoy them so they bite. After weeks of not eating they are a bit grouchy. 

I’ve been jiggling the line around in an irritating manner but it’s not working so I’ll slag them off in this blog and see if that gets a rise. Rotten, parasite-ridden things with their hook noses and deformed teeth. A blight on the landscape.

We’ve got the right line and spinners for grayling but not a rod so Neil has improvised and made me one out of willow. An afternoon of fishing resulted in one lost hook and lure, much of our precious cheese drifting down the Yukon and one enormous grayling that got away.

We have got the internet running after a month without so I will be able to post this blog without a day’s travel by boat and truck.

Taking the internet to town

An afternoon with Bob the internet guy in Dawson revealed our tria arm had broken and was causing madly fluctuating cable attenuation which tripped out the modem. What does that mean?

Another hair raising drive over the mountains in thick fog

Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. We are online now and delighted to be able to see the demands for money from various agencies (tax, local councils, estate agents, credit cards) sent to us in our internet absence.  I’m quite tempted to give that tria arm a kick and see if I can’t break it again.

Top of the World Highway

Whilst in town, I took my driver’s test for my Yukon licence. Our pal Sarah leant us her nifty automatic Honda as our truck windscreen looks like we drove over an improvised explosive device. And the right indicator stopped working. There’s only so many left turns I could pull off so I was very grateful for her offer.

Snow on the distant Tombstone mountains

I’ve been driving since I was 17 so almost 20 years, (yes it is), but I was insanely nervous. Dawson has no paved roads, no road markings, no traffic and hardly any signs. It’s so simple it’s disorientating. I struggle with automatic drive as I’m a control freak so I could barely breathe for fear by the time I met the examiner.

Sarah suggested I apologise if I accidentally grab his knee whilst reaching for an imaginary gear stick. Good idea. How about "Sorry if I accidentally grab your knee and give you a blow job?" That should do it. Must have worked because he passed me.

And yes, I am very aware of the Yukon impaired driving laws

Thankfully we got the internet up before the next problem – the idiot dog.

Homer managed to spear the inside of his hind leg on a willow whilst leaping around like a moron. He seemed OK for a couple of days and the wound was healing but once an infection set in, he went downhill rapidly. Luckily we were able to contact the vet in town and get an emergency appointment the next day. 

The miserable pus-y patient

Homer could just about walk down to the boat in the morning which was a blessed relief. He weighs 86 pound and his homemade box is probably just as heavy.

We got to know the local vet when he visited London this summer and were looking forward to meeting up with him again. 

In the truck and looking feeble

The meeting was spoiled by having a miserable dog dripping pus all over his floor as we tried to catch up on news. The wound was too sore and swollen to know if there is any willow left inside. We must complete a 10-day course of antibiotics then wait two days to see if it flares up again.

Not a problem in normal circumstances but this is a serious worry for us.

Another foggy trip, bringing Homer back

Last year the river was running with ice by the first week of October and we had to get the boat out. This year, by some global warming miracle, we have not yet gone below zero. But we will be cutting it very fine by 16^th October and are wondering what the hell we do if temps drop. They must soon.

Stapling vapour barrier over the insulation

We are better prepared for the cold when it comes now as we’ve insulated the inside of our roof. The chap who advised on how to do this said, “Oh, you can do it in day.” He doesn’t work with logs. 

We made a platform to work from. I'm testing its strength (or tempting fate).

Fitting the 48 rafters we needed to hold the insulation in place would be a synche in a dimensional lumber house. They’d all be the same size and you’d saw them and slap them up. 

Chiseling a notch with a ridiculous amount of things on my head

It’s beyond my skills to explain just how many variables there are between a rounded log beam, log walls, a roof made of multiple little spruce poles laid side by side and thin air.

Unrolling the vapour barrier

Not one of those bastard rafters fitted without being hammered in, jamming, hammered out, re-sawed then falling out because it was now too short. So, cut another one, start all over again, then can you find one damn spot to nail it?

This bit was fun, insulation expands like magic when you open the pack

Under the vapour barrier trying to staple it. All very trippy and claustrophobic.

We bent a few nails, sorely tested our marriage but wasted no lumber and the beautifully rustic inside of our roof is now cling wrapped with plastic sheeting and festive red tuck tape. 

Well fuck rustic, it’s cold. We’ll go for shiny and man-made and spend less of the winter cutting wood, thank you.

Rustic v. synthetic

At the moment I’m wondering why we even bothered. Winter seems so far off, we haven’t lit the barrel stove once and are just using our fantastic 1970s wood-powered cooking range to heat the house.

A gale is howling outside and the rain is lashing as I type this morning. It’s like being in my hometown, Plymouth, perched between the Atlantic and the granite highlands of Dartmoor, on the windy side of a small island next to Europe.

There’s a pot of Great Northern beans soaking on the range, so there might be some gusts that'll test the staples on the plastic sheeting.

Our Findlays range with incendiary device on top

But, for once, we are bloody grateful. Just please, please hold off with the ice until we know if we need to get Homer to town again. We’ve botched fishing line out of parachute cord but I don’t want to carry out minor surgery on a boisterous 87 pound husky and botch stitches out of fishing line.

Better get well or you're fucked, mate

Update- It is now light. There is a sprinkling of snow on the hills and temps are at 1c. Winter is creeping towards us.

Our pal Sarah puts up some great photos on facebook- check her out at Klondikesarah.