Yukon bush life

That’s it. We’re out. Out of the water, out of time and, aside from the internet, out of contact with other humans. We’re cut off until the river is frozen and we can snowmachine to town. Last year we didn’t have trail in until the end of January. Why the hell didn’t we buy more booze? Ice on the hull Two days after I wrote the last blog, a crust of ice formed at the shoreline and crept along the edge of our boat. We pulled the boat out straight away. By the following day, the river was filled with chunks of spinning ice and the eddy where it was moored had become a skating rink. We would have had to chop the hull out with an axe if we’d left it. Neil moving the boat with the rope puller attached to a willow It took two days to get the bloody thing across the beach, up the bank, turned 180 degrees and pulled into its winter resting place with a handheld rope-puller, chain hoist, rollers and skids. Stuck in a hole There are fid...

(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 ...

(Yukon) You can pay a lot to de-stress yourself in a wilderness retreat with no internet, no mobile phone signal and no easy way in or out. Or you can just come here and give us 50 bucks. Trying to fix the world wide web We are still without the internet but with close relatives abroad, tax problems to sort out and tenants to manage we aren’t sitting around eating lentils, meditating and enjoying the luxury. Yellow souwester weather We’ve made one trip to town in lashing rain and fog to get a new modem, which didn’t work, and so will set off tomorrow with the satellite dish, tria arm and 100’ of cables to be tested by Bob, the internet guy. Hair-raising drive on the Top of the World highway Life without Facebook or Instagram means we have got on with stuff, which is a plus. Neil has gone mad for berry picking and jam making. I can barely tear him away from the cranberry bushes to help with our home improvement projects. Mashing berries. I...