Yukon bush life

“Sra Niday” means the sun is shining in our local Hän language. And it really did, for weeks. I don’t know Hän for “How the hell can it be summer already?” or “Jesus Christ, is that a mosquito?”   Things have got out of hand. A warm chinook wind roared through, hot as a hair dryer. The snow is melting, the trails have gone slushy, our meat’s thawing and there are spots opening in the creek. It’s May in March and we are reeling with it. Across river, the cliffs rumble and crack with avalanches.  Snow tunnel by the old cabin Earlier in the month, we had the most astounding March weather. Days bright enough to hurt your eyes and skies so deep you feel you can fall up into them.  Trip to visit a disused communications station in the mountains The nights were ice cold and clear, down to twenty below with a hazy green aurora rippling in a wide arc around the North Pole, brushing the tops of the hills.  Our mo...

Both Neil and Homer, plus 2 of our 3 snow machines are injured. Neil’s wrist is slowly improving after our adventure last month but he is avoiding doing anything that might jar it. We've had lots of snow That includes chainsawing, limbing trees, splitting wood, driving a snowmachine, getting water, hauling logs, skiing and leaves not a lot.  The sun returns The dog is under “house arrest” in the hope his hip will heal. He is miserable as sin. All we could do for a while was go snowshoeing, but without our bounding husky it felt a bit pointless. The scenery’s pretty and all that but, whatever... Then I broke my snowshoe. That wasn’t a good day. We are running out of winter to get the logs we need to finish our new cabin. We can’t get them in the summer as we have no vehicle to pull them out of the bush. So with Neil’s wrist still not better, we’ve had to crack on but with me doing most of the work. Waist deep snow We had to find 5 ...