Yukon bush life

(Lou) Fireweed not cinders Great news from Ryan, our hunky Dawson City Wild Fire Crew dream (I have no idea what he looks like, by the way.) Our cabin is still not cinders and with more rain forecast it’s likely the nearby forest fire will be out. A friend passed by in his boat and has informed us that the brush, mostly fireweed, is now at chest height all over our property. So the cabin is engulfed in fireweed not flames, which is less of a worry. Though now I’m wondering if we’ll even spot it as we head down the river. Cabin will be out there somewhere Beach landing Some more good news, there is a beach to land our boat. The river was still frozen when we left in April so we had no idea what was sitting under all that ice. I’m not good with landing boats. I get confused about left and right, up and down with the outboard motor. You have to do everything in a reverse-mirror Alice in Wonderland fashion. So I have a tendency to be accelerating at high speed bearing left whe

Neil's version of events: Winter 2011, Camberwell south London I didn’t pay attention when I picked Louise up from Heathrow. She'd just come back from her annual Alaskan pilgrimage (she'd been visiting regularly since before we met).  I was happy for her to go on her own. The frozen North wasn't my thing. I was more the large pilsener and bratwurst kind of traveller.  When she mentioned some crazy offer to move to a homestead in the Alaskan wilderness it didn’t quite register. I was in the middle of organising a conference at BSkyB, grappling to get 30 broadband lines installed at a hotel within 72 hours. Traveller's delight - bratwurst Louise and I met whilst rehearsing for a fringe theatre play. I was living in a dingy bedsit in Wimbledon and life wasn’t going anywhere. I'd made an effort to inject some sparkle by taking up acting.  We hit it off (well, we fell in love) and I moved into her council flat in Brixton. A few years later we bou

Lou's version of events: Winter 2011 Camberwell, South London My acting headshot We left London and moved to Alaska because I called Neil a moron.  Neil and I were living in (then) cheap and dowdy Camberwell. Neil had a job at BSkyB, I was working, or often not working, as an actor. We had a lopsided cat (a stroke victim), no kids.  Life was fine but dull. Not much to complain about, though that never stopped me.  The far north I had a passion for the far north and would save all year to spend a couple of weeks in Alaska on dogsledding trips. Neil had a passion for nice food, pubs and comfort so I travelled alone.  On holiday in Alaska Cabin sitting Whilst mushing in the Alaskan bush I met a guy, let’s call him Hank, who needed a house-sitter for his remote, off-road homestead and 50-some sled dogs. Six weeks alone in the wilderness!  I cleared the decks of acting jobs (cancelled one day's role play for a bank, I was in high demand) and returned t

Our cabin on the Yukon Neil and Lou’s story We live very remote, in a log cabin in the sub Arctic Yukon bush. We are off the road system, off the electricity grid (and off our heads). We came to the Yukon in 2012 from inner city London, two urban middle-aged professionals with not much in the way of survival skills. I worked as an actor, Neil was a manager at BSkyB. We'd never used a chainsaw, ridden a snowmachine, driven a boat, got firewood, fished, hunted, pickled... we'd never even made jam but were pretty hot with internal communications plans and line learning. I always wanted to live in the Alaskan wilderness, Neil didn’t. In fact, far from it.  Alaska! I'd watched a Disney film called The Wilderness Family as a small child growing up in Plymouth and fell in love with the freedom and excitement that Alaska seemed to offer. I later found out the film was made in Colorado and set in Canada, so this has all been based on a mistake. Neil grew