Yukon bush life

(Yukon) Snow! It still makes me gasp. Those first few flakes of the season drifting in the beam of my headlamp. Snow in the boat Never mind we were planning to go to town the next day, never mind we have no chains or winter tires for the truck, never mind it’s 7am, pitch black and Neil is fast asleep, “Neil! Guess what?” He couldn’t. “Snow!” Neil can stand before the most wondrous sights nature has to offer and say “Oh that’s nice, shall we have a biscuit?” but even Neil said, dreamily, “Oh… snow!” Snow in the washing   Will we still feel that flutter of excitement after 10 years here, I wonder? The year I don’t wake up and gasp at the first snow is the year we up sticks and shift to Thailand. We’ll be done with the Yukon. This time last fall I remember temps going down to -20c. The river was bumping with ice chunks and we had the boat safely out. We’ve been blessed with a few weeks of extra boat travel this fall. We’ve ...

(Lou, Yukon) We are exhausted. It was a long fight but we won in the end. Our battle of wits with a not very intelligent dog was fought over two hundred miles and 5 days. We departed last Thursday to visit friends with Homer packed in his much-hated travel box. The trail had disappeared under fresh snow in places so we un-boxed him and put him upfront to find the way with his nose. Good boy. Homer in lead Getting him back was easy. I’d call, offer a handful of kibble and he’d come running. Then we’d stuff him in his fourth class carriage. He fell for it every time. The trail crossed wind-blown ice, pocked by a warm southerly wind that had sent temperatures above freezing for a couple of days. In places it was so rough I thought my teeth were going to bounce out of my head. We let Homer run free, rather than risk blending him into a husky smoothie with all the slamming and bumping. Rock hard ice He did NOT want to go back into his box and ran up the bank into the w...

(Lou, Yukon) Driving a snowmachine, it’s hard to know what’s happening to the rider following you. Two-stroke engines whine at ear-splitting pitch and your head’s muffled in fur, ear defenders, goggles, hood. You wrench your neck round, keeping your thumb on the throttle, and snatch a glimpse of their headlight to be sure they’re still there. Often you only see the back of your hood. So it’s a sign of how bad things got that I could hear Neil screaming Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! from 20 yards behind me. Yesterday goes down as one of our worst journeys. Another one. For the past week we’d been riding an emotional rollercoaster on our broken-down snowmachine. We must have involved everyone in a 100 mile radius in the saga. Homer helping with diagnostics from between Neil's legs Both our Alaskan friend and a pal in town had the spare part we needed. They got those parts to the Rangers who were headed to us, breaking trail for the Yukon Quest dogsled race. Preparing for the...