Yukon bush life

(Whitehorse) I’ve read the manuals for the chainsaws, the outboard motor, the truck and I’m just looking at the owner's guide for our new Skidoo. There is no mention of a penis. Safety goggles, helmets, ear defenders, yes, but I’m 100% sure I’ve seen nothing about penises. The new Skidoo. After trouble with our 20 year old machine last winter we bit the bullet and got a new one. I’m hoping this winter’s blogs will have less mechanical content. A relief all round When I picked up our new machine at the Skidoo dealership, I asked for everything I need to do the first service as I can't bring it back to Whitehorse. I didn’t see any genitals in the box with the oil and filter. No one chased me out the yard as I pulled away shouting “Hey, hold up! We forgot your scrotum!”  The night before I left Whitehorse I sat in my little Airbnb room watching TV and feeling nervous. It’s nearly 400 miles to Forty Mile. I’m not used to driving a truck, I’m not used to...

“If you can’t be assed to answer my questions then why don’t you go and get someone who will. Or perhaps just piss off and retire, you miserable old twat.” Home Hardware, Whitehorse. Friday morning. A low point.  Carpentry and construction is still a new language for me and I need a bit of help sometimes. Anyone who’s been to Paris will have experienced the crushing shame of attempting a few words in French only to receive a surly shrug. I was getting the Lumber Counter equivalent of a Gallic shrug. This is my sixth year doing “The Big Fall Shop”. I aim for 9 months-worth of food in case something goes wrong and we can’t get out. My shopping list runs to 7 pages and the truck is filling up with peanut butter, flour, rolled oats, canola oil, dog kibble etc. Nothing fancy, but it will keep us and the dog alive through a worst case scenario. Filling up I also have 3 building projects to shop for. You know how it is when you start on a DIY job then r...

Temperatures are down to -12C at night and below zero during the day. The creek is freezing over and ice is beginning to form at the river bank.  With our boat now out of the river, we are cut off from the world maybe until next year. We can’t travel again until the Yukon is frozen and we’ve managed to get a trail either 60 miles south to Dawson or 30 miles north to the old mining road. Until then we are in splendid isolation.  Moose receipts and laundry- all the glamour of our last trip to town And so we made our final boat journeys last week. We did our last supply run to Dawson for this year and, for once, got to town on a weekday that wasn’t a public holiday so all the shops were open! A cause for celebration though we had no time to.  Days are getting shorter and with at least 4 hours of driving once we got out of the boat it was a race against time to get everything done. We were on the river at first light around 8am- it was bastard cold still, at 12 be...

(Lou, Yukon) Our journey home was packed with more firsts than anyone should reasonably be expected to cope with in one day. First time towing the boat over a rocky beach, first time ever launching a boat, first turn of the key on the engine, first time driving a boat up the Yukon alone. First time landing the bloody thing, testing our guns, seeing our property covered in matted brush and willow instead of snow and best of all, first time for us to arrive back at the place we left in the spring with all our things and a ready-made wood pile!  With no place of our own previously, we’ve had to move each year so this is the first autumn we had the joy of coming “home.”  Trailer troubles Things went remarkably well, our only fuck up being reversing the trailer into the river at 90 degrees, forgetting about the Yukon River’s tremendous 7mph current which instantly swept the boat off taking the trailer lights with it.  We made it to our place with...