The beginning of the end

Winter held on until yesterday but today we are at +7c and our beautiful white world is fading fast. I’ve been “out”, as people say here, nearly all of March. I had to go to England to buy a Canadian-made log scribe, as I shall explain later.

On my return the Yukon was resplendent with spring blue skies and dazzling white, so bright your eyes go blotchy when you step in the cabin and you fall over things.

The top surface of the snow has thawed and refrozen giving it a shiny crust and the worn look of an old suit. In the woods it is dimpled with spruce needles and crud and everything looks like it needs a good sweep.

The yard looking cruddy

The river ice has started to sink. The jumble ice and boulder fields we fought to make trails through in December are now pillowy humps of sagging white. Between them are wide, flat snowfields.

Holding hands with the Inukshuk iceman that appeared on the trail (See footnote)

We’re hurtling towards 24 hour daylight. It’s light when I get up at 6 and night doesn’t fall til almost 11.

A last trip on snowshoes

Temperatures had stayed low at night, hitting -30c when I arrived 12 days ago, but last night we only reached -1c and the big meltdown has started. 

I’m holding onto the tail end of winter and giving the bastard a good old shake, though. Our trails are slick and fast as hell and we’ve been speeding around on the snowmachines, taking trips up local rivers and visiting friends.

Trip up the Chanandu river

Lots of wolves around, got this cow moose and calf 

Checking an ice bridge before crossing

I missed March as I had to go to England to get this Veritas Log Scribe thanks to the Canadian postal system. It is cheaper to have a scribe, made in Canada, delivered to my Mum’s house in Britain than it is to have it sent to the Yukon.

True. Although not the only reason I went. A close relative had an operation and I went to help them. The month was a dizzy blur of hospital wards and Tesco ready meals but I was able to enjoy hot running water and English beer, so I can’t possibly complain.

When I arrived a friend met me at the airport and drove me into town where Neil was waiting with our snowmachine. Dawson City has many charms but infrastructure is not one them. 

There is no bus, or even a taxi, and I’ve had to hitch hike from the airport before. After a 4-day journey, the last thing I needed was to be haranguing other passengers on our little plane for a lift so thank you, Sarah, for picking me up, and Elisabeth for dropping me out there when I left.

Creek flowing

“What’s been happening at home, then?” I asked Neil, excited to get news from the homestead.

“We had a warm up and the creek started flowing, but it’s frozen again now.”

Refrozen but now very high

“Wow!” I said.

“Oh, and Homer’s got worms!”

Great. When I asked why he hadn’t given Homer his worming pills, Neil replied- “I thought you might want to see.”

A less thoughtful husband would have just gone ahead. What a lucky girl I am.

Water pooling on the river on the way home, open lead in the background

We’re trying out the new log scribe by making a log dog kennel with scribed corners. Homer doesn’t know yet and is happy lazing in the yard fostering his tapeworm and producing the occasional animated turd.

Homer and parasite, soaking up the spring sun, unaware of our plans

He has hated every shelter we’ve constructed for him, from the sturdy house made of expensive dimensional lumber to the rickety shacks we’ve rigged up. He has never gone in one unless we’ve pushed him in and held him there with a strap.

Cutting out the notches after scribing. We knock out the slices of wood with an axe to create a bowl-like notch in the log

He’s getting another house whether he likes it or not as we want to practice building with logs. We have a plan to build a log workshop. I’m not committing to a date for this feat, but we have about 35 x 20’ logs so far. I’d like to use them before they rot and so I thought a miniature practice cabin would be a good idea.

Cleaning the notch out with a chainsaw

We tried scribing and notching logs a few years ago and were terrible at it. We’re more proficient with tools now so I was optimistic. Until we started.

Tidying the notch with a chisel

I can’t detect any improvement in our skills but what has changed is our attitude. We’ve accepted our notches will be tattered gaping holes rather than the snugly scribed joins. We’ll stuff them with moss when it thaws.

Still doesn't fit

When the Yukon River ice breaks up, so do our trails. We will no longer be able to travel by snowmachine.

Collapsed trail

If we have icebergs piled against the shore it could be well into June before we can get our boat in the water, so we did a last run to town to stock up on supplies. 

We bought food, soil and hardware and decided to have a healthy booze-free spring. It was a nice idea but then we panicked and bought bottles of rum and gin at the Liquor Store.

A week ago

Yesterday. Melt water pooling

I have no idea how long we have before break up.  Water is dripping from the last patches of snow on the roof. Every now and then a clump thunders down and lands with a whump. The yard has the soggy look of an old mattress that someone’s thrown out on the street.

It feels like the end of something not a beginning. I’d keep the world white and frozen if I could like the evil Ice Queen of the Narnia stories. Summer is still a long way off and I can’t muster much enthusiasm for this spring business. 

It doesn’t breeze gently in bringing primroses and frolicking lambs like it does in Britain. It drips and thumps and slushes in like a bad hangover. Nothing is alive yet, just seedy and jaded.

Last run out on the dogsled

Our trails are now wet and slushy and going for a walk, ski or ride on the dogsled with Homer is no longer any fun. I felt a bit despondent yesterday whilst wondering what shoes to wear. None seem to work. They’re too hot, too cold, not waterproof enough, (ooh it’s like choosing shoes for a wedding, those are uncomfortable, they don’t match my dress, can I dance in those? Y’know, ladies...)

A trapper pal gave as a wolverine head. Here I am cleaning it up after boiling and poking the brains out with a stick. Seemed like the best thing to do. 

This is the first time we’ve spent break up on this property, and with the Yukon only a couple hundred feet away it will be an exciting, if not terrifying time but having seen the river so still and so white for so long I can’t quite believe it, let alone get excited about it.

This morning two wonderful things happened. A pop and a gurgle. The first bud popped on a willow by the creek, proof that the world will indeed come back to life. And we heard this-

From under the ice! (Sounds like a toilet on the GoPro mic, but never mind.)

The deep and urgent gurgling of water rushing under the ice. The ice in the creeks will go out before the river and having flowed once already a few weeks ago, ours sounds like it will go very soon. It is impossible not to feel very, very excited about it. 

By the next blog I hope to have dramatic footage of the Yukon ice smashing to pieces, flood surge waves and icebergs grinding by. Or at least more willow buds and couple more rounds on Homer’s dog house.

The iceman didn't survive spring.

Footnote- Inukshuk/ Inuksuk is an Inuktitut word for a figure built to represent a human, and often used as markers or cairns on the flat barren lands of the arctic coast. It means "that which stands in for a man."