No business like snow business

Our creek

I am currently rushing back to Britain, as there has been some snow and a bit of cold weather. I’m coming to share the survival and bush expertise I’ve learnt from living in one of the coldest places on the planet. Here’s a quick one for free- wear more clothes, you stupid bastards.

Warm not cool

Doesn’t matter if you don’t look cool. Down jackets, woolly hats, big mitts and here’s the one no Brit ever thinks of- insulated trousers! Ski pants, they’ll do. In fairness, who needs a cupboard full of expensive, bulky clothing they only wear for a week every 5 years? Well, despite my extensive travels in the arctic, I have never been as cold as standing on London Bridge Station waiting for the delayed train to Woolwich Arsenal. I’d say it’s worth buying some big, daft, padded trousers.

Snowshoeing up the creek

We’ve had a dump of snow too. Our yard is piled with the stuff. It’s a terrible trip hazard and a danger on the trails as this keeps happening-

Lots of fresh snow makes the trail hard to see and if you come off, the snowmachine takes a nose dive. I tipped the new skidoo over a couple of weeks ago and found I couldn’t right it without Neil’s help. I’ve been worrying about this as I’m sometimes out alone on it and despite the whizzy computerised motor and electronic bits and bobs, it won’t drive on its side.

A clever mate of ours taught me a trick. He’s a big, strong guy but even he can’t right his machine alone so he told me what to do. By happy chance, I got to test out the new trick this week. Neil booby trapped me by leaving the Skidoo in Sport Mode after driving it up the steep ramp to our wood cutting spot and not telling me.

I drove it down, hauling half a cord of firewood, hit the 90 degree bend at the bottom and, instead of accelerating gently round the corner, I roared off at full throttle into the jumble ice. I was only a little bit angry, (“fucksake Neil! Why did you leave it in Sport, you twat!” I chided him gently as I rolled around in the deep snow trying to get out from under 550 pounds of snow machine.) It did however present a great chance for me to try getting the Skidoo upright.

Righting the Skidoo with a spruce pole

Look at her go! Worked a treat and I’ll soon be trying 360 Eskimo rolls on it, just for fun.

March is travel month here on the Yukon. The trails are in and getting smooth, the days are long- it’s light by 8 and past 7pm now and it’s warming up, so we took a trip to see pals downriver. 

Saw a wolf on the way. Tiny black dot, pictured

Here’s an opportunity to experience the noise and discomfort of riding a snowmachine along the Yukon. We filmed this from Piccolo, our little 2-stroke Polaris 340, so if you’d like the full virtual experience I’d suggest wrapping yourself in a duvet and bouncing up and down on a very hard chair with a fan blowing cold air in your face whilst you watch. Don’t forget to turn the volume up til it hurts.

I’ll have clocked up 8 thousand miles by the time the month’s over. Thankfully not on a snowmachine. As I mentioned I am returning to England to give some condescending advice on how to cope with snow, and also to help a family member who will be in hospital. So before I left, I had to make sure Neil was all stocked up on firewood, water and chocolate cream biscuits.

Enjoying a chocolate cream biscuit whilst out cutting trail

We’d been waiting for this dump of snow as there are some tantalisingly big standing-dead trees we wanted to fell. They are in a small creek, criss-crossed with fallen spruce, making it hard to find a place to stand whilst chainsawing or make a good escape route if things go wrong.

Attaching a safety rope to tree before felling

At last the gulley has filled with snow and, with a bit of strategic snow shovelling, I packed the area down with snowshoes. So we’ve been able to fell the trees and get a huge amount of firewood to keep Neil warm whilst I’m away.

Hauling a log home

We also had to fix the “plumbing”. The snow has, again, been very useful. After our waterhole in the creek disappeared under a glacier, we have been collecting prepacked frozen water by the bucket load from the old cabin roof.

Eventually that will run out, and shovelling it from the yard is not the best idea when you have a dog, so we wandered off up the creek keeping our ears to the snow until we heard the cheerful gurgle of running water under ice.

It’s usually a sound we avoid, but in this case, we found the perfect little spot and chopped through with an axe. There, almost on-tap!

Neil will have plenty of help from Homer whilst I’m away. No longer just a haulage technician (or sled dog), he has developed an interest in podiatry.

Homer in his previous job

Homer loves to come into the house. Then he loves to go out of it. Life is full of simple pleasures for Homer. His problem, though, is divining exactly when we might be leaving and so not getting up too soon from his blanket and standing by the door wagging his tail, only to find the humans are nowhere near ready to go. 

He’s not as dim as he looks and has learnt that amongst the many things we do before leaving- changing clothes, filling the chainsaw, waxing skis- none of those things mean we are actually ready so it’s better to wait on your blanket until… we start putting our boots on!

Homer has worked out that this is always one of the last things we do, and so that’s the time to get excited. Plus we are sitting down and bending over which offers a great chance to try to lick the humans’ faces.

Waiting for his next customer

It’s like having an extremely persistent shoe shop assistant in the house. One that wants to lick your mouth, which they never do at Clarks. Much as we love him, I don’t want any creature that eats its own frozen faeces, like a big turdy ice lolly, to lick my face and boot-time has become rather a battle.

Shit-breath having a nap

So Neil should be fine whilst I’m away. He’s got wood for years, a new waterhole and Homer can deal with any podiatry needs. He even knows how to right the machine by himself when he tips it.

Approaching Dawson

London bound. Spotty, blue Primark suitcase packed in the sled

Which is great because if the snow remains in Britain I might not come back. Why bother with all the inconvenience of bush life when I can have a desolate snowy landscape with good pubs, Indian restaurants and 24 hour supermarkets? And shop assistants that ignore me rather than rush over and try to lick my mouth. It’s all sounding rather good.

Stop at the laundromat on the way out

Next week’s blog should be exciting. Snow drifts! Blizzards! Lost in a whiteout on the A38 dual-carriageway north of Ashburton! I’ll film a video from the rental car to amaze my Yukoner friends.

Neil, looking like a man who will be absolutely fine on his own