Yukon bush life

(Lou, Yukon) One day is the same as another here. A man-made event like Christmas can easily pass us by if we aren’t paying attention. There’s no dithering on Oxford Street trying to find presents, no carols playing, no family rows about who’s going where and with whom. Nothing to differentiate the day unless we somehow make it special. A glimpse of Christmas sunshine from the river We have two criteria for celebrations and festivals- an easy day with no hard physical work and an unusual activity. A day of chainsawing was our easy day for Christmas Eve. We are burning logs from last year’s woodpile stacked behind the house. They need to be bucked (cut) into stove-size lengths then heaved round to the front of the house in a wheelbarrow. ( See our How To on firewood ) Not particularly relaxing or festive, I grant you, but compared to trail breaking or felling trees and hauling them back, it felt like a day of light housework. Our unusual event was BEER. We haven’t...

(Lou, Yukon) We put in a trail across the river last week. How do we know if the ice is safe? We walk on to it, hit it with an axe, and wait to see if we plunge through. Yes, really. We’re clever folk out here in the bush.  It’s hard to improve on this process as you’ve got to go on to the ice to test it. My best idea so far is, get your husband to walk ahead carrying the axe because “my arms are a bit tired” and have him do it.  Such tired arms We can make a fairly good judgement about where to go. We don’t have any open water (leads) in front of the house and, as the river stopped in a huge jagged mess, we know most of the ice is safe.  Bloody mess If it is “jumbled” it will be thick, maybe 20’ eventually, as the chunks of ice are piled on to each other. Also opaque ice is usually thicker, older. The places to test are flat areas with black ice as they may be recently frozen.  Chipping ice whilst standing on a frozen lead We chip our way ...