Yukon bush life

Bull caribou walking across local glacier The tributary rivers in this part of the Yukon were named by an eccentric mathematician. We have the Fifteen Mile River, which we have just discovered is 21 miles from Dawson. Also, the Twelve Mile and Forty Mile Rivers, 18 and 55 miles from town, respectively and just over the border in Alaska, there is the Seventy Mile River, which is 70 miles from absolutely bloody nowhere at all. Fifteen Mile River I believe the numerals were plucked from a bingo machine, one drunken night in Dawson City, and randomly distributed down the Yukon  (See footnote). End of the road- overflow water on the Fifteen Mile. The Twelve Mile River is also called the Chanandu. Mishearing the local accent we thought it was the Xanadu. But the film with rollerskating Olivia Newton-John, that anyone of my age might remember, was apparently not named after a tributary of the mighty Yukon River. What a shame. View from Forty Mile ...

(Lou, Yukon) At last, we have a few inches of dusty snow. We’ve got the snow shoes down from the cabin wall and trundled the snowmachine off its logs. There’s not enough snow to run the machine far, but we were able to test out our new ramps on to the property. First trip down the new ramp And more importantly, up There’s a big improvement in the plumbing system. No more Jack and Jill up the hill from the creek with heavy pales of water. Ramp at waterhole bolstered with frozen in logs and snow Buckets can be dumped in the back of the machine and whizzed home with a roar and a cloud of filthy 2-stroke engine fumes. Almost as easy as getting it from a tap. Still trailing along We’ve been out on snow shoes brushing out an old trail we found. We hope to bypass some of the jumbled river ice by cutting across the apron of land next to us. Open lead in the river downstream from us It’s about 3 miles long and hard work with chainsaw, loppers and brush axe, b...