Yukon bush life

If we ever leave the bush it will be because of conversations like this- “Who was it in Gladiator? Australian.” Long pause. "Can’t think of anyone Australian. Except Rolf Harris.” “Neither can I.” “Mel Gibson!” “Younger.” Longer pause. “One syllable name, though.” “Definitely.” Hours later… “Russell!” “That’s it. Simon Russell-Beale? No. Wait. Simon Beale… Russell Beale… Russell Crowe!” It’s like living in the world’s most remote old people’s home. Things we once knew are slipping away and our minds are gently filling with snow. I get The Economist online every Friday to stem the flow but it doesn’t help with trivia. Dawson City in the distance, open lead on the Yukon to the right Thank God we can get to town now and have other input. We don’t have our shorter river trail in yet so are doing the long route, downriver and back over the mountains, a 160 mile round trip. Cassiar Dome just before dawn, no filter ...

Filling with ice Winter came all of a sudden this year. We saw a few wee chunks of ice in the river on November 1st, nothing bigger than you would put in a G & T. By the 5 th it had choked with ice and stopped completely. Stopped A few days later it was -30˚C and a few days after that, we had a huge dump of snow. I was still wandering round the yard in flip flops and jeans wondering what had happened. 30 below. Sun dog over the river We were out walking when it stopped. It dammed downstream and backed up, flooding over our feet. I managed to capture it all on the GoPro, take a look if you didn’t see it on our Facebook page- It’s all too exciting and we’ve found ourselves rushing around doing things we thought were a month away.  Punching ice out of the water hole We've already been across river and gone 6 miles up towards Dawson, and 7 miles down towards Alaska. For the past two years, we hadn’t even crossed the river here for...