Monthly Archives: June 2021

Alaska

Summer days

It has been a busy couple of days. It’s over 80° and it feels so good. Things are starting to get moving up at work. And this morning I got to experience my first real traffic jam since coming up here. It was caused by a moose. Of course!

Nobody wins when it’s moose vs traffic.

Early on I learned that you never doubt braking on the highway. The guy three cars up might be a jerk trying to mess with traffic, or he might be trying not to mow down a moose. The moose doesn’t care what’s coming at him, he’s just going to do his own thing. It’s in everyone’s best interest to avoid hitting the moose. This morning someone hit the moose. Traffic was at a standstill, backed up for a mile. It took us an extra fifteen minutes to get in to town. Tragedy, I tell you!

The cool thing is that the meat won’t go to waste. The troopers have a list of people to call to pick up the carcass. Any meat that isn’t ruined will be shared out by whoever can pick it up first.

It looks rough and it’s old,but inside looks cozy.

Now for work. The staff housing unit has arrived and been set up. My assignment this week has been to clean it. This is a man camp unit that spent years up on the north slope. From the outside it looks like trailer houses set side by side. Inside there’s a really nice commercial kitchen, washrooms, a common room, and nine bedrooms. Yesterday I scrubbed down the kitchen. Today I cleaned the pantry and four bedrooms. This is a job I can do. It really isn’t too dirty, except for the road dirt that got in everywhere when it made the trip down the Dalton.

And now for the concerning bit. Heading home there was smoke on the horizon. We saw a helicopter with a bucket headed towards a nearby water source. Later there was a string of three airplanes that flew past the smoke column and back towards town. Farther north of Fairbanks there is a wildfire. I don’t know anything more than that, but after Oregon’s fire season last year I can’t help but want to pay attention.

I am not too worried. Basecamp is set next to a firebreak and it looks like they’re trying to get a handle on this fire early. I’d hate to see anyone’s property go up in flames, but I will be okay no matter how this goes.

So there’s a brief update on my eventful day. I hope yours is even better.

Alaska

Mosquitoes are vampires. Prove me wrong.

2 Comments

When I stepped outside this morning I was struck by a wave of mosquitoes that crashed against me. Literally. I did what I had to do and hurried back inside, trying to leave as many as possible on the other side of the door. It doesn’t always work. I probably have a dozen or more perched on the ceiling, wall, or some inconspicuous place near me, just waiting to buzz past my head.

Vampires? Yes. But whoever wrote that rule in literary vampire lore that they need permission to enter a home must have never seen a mosquito. Ugh. They are bad enough during the day, but try to sleep with that buzz at the edge of your consciousness is less fun. A fan helps, but I can’t stand air blowing on me at night so instead I either hide completely under the blanket or I rig a sheet over me like a mosquito net.

I love dragonflies. This might seem like a change of subject, but dragonflies are the good guys. They are predators. They eat mosquitoes or mosquito larvae. Yesterday morning I found a dragonfly on the steps. Last week the kids found what I believe is a dragonfly larva in the creek. I’ll encourage them. Give me more dragonflies! I’d like fewer mosquitoes.

Alaska, Off-grid living, Squashing Bugs

Start fresh every day.

2 Comments
The bright blue skies of June.

I’ve been stuck in a rut. I’ve started and deleted a couple of posts. I have a bunch of things I’d like to write about but the words just won’t take shape. It feels a little frustrating and I haven’t been able to force my way through the block. I’ll need to find a way around.

It has been a year since I left Oregon behind. Right now I feel like I am in the same position as I was when I arrived in Alaska. I don’t have reliable transportation. (Chris is working and uses my truck. The Scone is still not working.) The cabin is still on hold. (We should be able to pull the sawmill off the property today so we can get it repaired.) I’m not working regularly. (Okay, I’m scheduled for two days a week, but they’re having their own roadblocks so it feels like no progress there.) On top of all that, when I do work my feet and body end up hurting so bad that it takes all week to recover so I can do it again.

I came across someone’s quote yesterday, “Don’t be afraid of failure, be afraid of being in exactly the same place year after year.” And that’s where my mind is. I’m seeing all the ways that I am not making progress. I feel like I’m going backwards, especially with my physical condition. It doesn’t help that I had a cold knock me down for a couple of days this week.

Forgive my whining. I don’t like to do it, but sometimes it’s like sweeping up the dust from the floor and starting fresh. My brain generates all these negative thoughts and they collect like dust bunnies in the works. You can sweep them under the rug, but that doesn’t make them go away. Saying them out loud and acknowledging them seems to work better. Bring them out into the open and cancel them with reality, then they can be collected for the trash. There will be another batch soon enough. It’s best to not let them build up.

So how am I in a different place than I was last year?

I have done a lot of healing. I don’t have nearly as much bitterness in my soul as I did last June. I know myself a bit better. I know some more of what brings me joy and I have been learning how to allow myself to settle into that. It seems simple, but it’s harder than you might think.

The cabin is actually started. The beams are in place and it looks like they didn’t settle much during mud season. That’s good. All we need is a working sawmill and a couple of days and we can have our stack of lumber. Then it’s a matter of getting the framing done and the roof on. If we put the RV on site I can even do some of the work while Chris is in town. I really should see about getting some gravel down in the parking area…

I do have a job that I like, even though what’s available over the summer is kicking my butt. I know they want me to be available for when the season starts again in August. It’s good to know that I’m wanted.

I have also learned a lot over the winter. I learned about my abilities and limits. (I can do more than I thought I could.) I learned that I can live well with less. I know I want to share some of that. I just have to get around that imposter syndrome crap! Why does it feel fake if I’m doing it?

Tamarack, or Eastern Larch,is a deciduous conifer. The needles turn gold and shed in the fall,then grow back for summer.

Life runs in cycles. Every year follows a similar pattern to the year before. I guess the question is whether you are on a track going in circles or if you are in a spiral. If you’re just making your run deeper then I hope you like where you are. I’d rather be working my way up the spiral.

I think that’s enough for now. I’ll try to make more posts and fewer excuses. And I hope you will talk back to me. Ask questions. Tell me what you’re curious about. Some things about living here are slightly surreal, like having daylight all the time. That’s a post for later. For now I’ll leave you with some flower pics.

Lingnon berry flowers. They grow like a ground cover all through the forest, and are especially thick at the edges where they get the sun.
Wild current. I know someone who calls them high bush cranberries. Both these and lingnon berries taste very much like cranberries.
The wild roses are now in bloom.