This is how we make our coffee when the power goes out. Because we absolutely MUST have access to coffee in any circumstance.

A bear.

At last, at long last, I saw a bear. I almost killed it with my car, but I saw a bear.

After driving and camping from bottom to top of big BC and then spending the last four weeks hiking in Yukon bear country I still hadn't seen a bear. A porcupine, a few beavers and way to many chipmunks, but no bears.

I had to stop myself from pulling over, jumping out of the car and running after it so I could wrap my arms around it's chubby, furry, haunchy chest. They just look so cozy and cuddly with their lush, shiny coats that ripple as they stride and their big fuzzy paws that turn in a bit. How could they possibly do me harm? So strange to think that these lovely creatures are the reason we hike around singing at the top of our lungs and carry pepper spray (bear spray) and mini-explosives (bear bangers).

"Bears are movin'" our neighbour said today. Apparently they move closer to the lakes as winter nears to fill up on berries. I just hope I get to see another and that I am able to restrain myself from running it down and rolling around with it in the leaves.

This is the autumn I was deprived of on the Island.

Colours I've never witnessed during fall on the West Coast.

CBC radio 1, 2 and 3

Have you ever listened to CBC radio 3? I haven't really. I would peruse the website as a treat in my past 9-5. Really though, it's aired Saturday night between 8 and midnight, how could a busy city girl possibly spare that time slot? Now that I have no tv and Saturday night in the Yukon is safest spend inside the logcabin, it's with glee that I spend this time with Radio 3.

I'm becoming more familiar with CBC programming and becoming addicted to radio in general. My eyes and hands are freed to do as they please while my ears are entertained. I don't wake up in the night with images of terrorized kidnapped foreign aid workers and bleeding people fleeing attacks in my head.

Thank you CBC radio 1 for your limited, yet existent, local programming. For letting me know what's happening in the rest of this Territory while still offering the perks of Sounds Like Canada. Thank you especially for occasionally, and I do mean occasionally, airing some traditional Northern Tutchone programming. I have no idea what they are saying, but could listen to it for hours.

Thank you CBC radio 2. Your consistent opera and orchestra programming keeps me focused and mature. 'Definitely Not the Opera' brings me back again. And thank you, thank you for the zany antics of Jurgen Gothe.

And thank you CBC radio 3. Thank you for reigniting my care for new music, for playing interviews from all those bands I won't often see, for airing monologues of young adults hitch hiking tails, for bringing all this to me in my logcabin in the north. Why don't you have your own 24-7 station?

I promise my next post won't be about CBC radio.

Buck it up.

Thinking about incentives....

The Log Cabin is full of 'ideas' tonight. CBC radio one at 9pm. The program is a little grim this evening. "Green if necessary" it's been called. They are discussing how crisis effects social change and if our environmental crisis can change values and behaviours. Joseph Heath, a philosophy professor suggests not, and that behaviours will only change if there are incentives that affect people as consumers. Such as water meters. Apartently when water meters are installed in neighbourhoods water usage is reduced by 45%. Another example, gas tax. People may feel guilty about driving into town but they'll still do it unless it's very expensive to drive.

Doomsday enviromentalists mean well, but who wants to put effort into saving something that's already beyond saving? I suppose a little optimism wouldn't hurt. Throw in some incentives and maybe we can save the world.

A few incentives I've happened upon in the north...

Water. We don't have running water. We have a large tank that sits in the corner of the cabin which we draw water from. We were told that we would probably go through one tank per month...wouldn't you know, two weeks in and we're through the tank. It's not fun filling the tank. Incentive.

Garbage. At Raven Recycling you can recycle EVERYTHING and they some how make it fun. Tetra packs, egg crates, plastic bags, all different types of paper and it's so easy. Everything is labled and the big bins make it simple to be rid of. Our garbage is down to two small bags a month. I guess when you don't have a garbage truck that comes to your house, and you have to lose your own trash at the community dump there's a little more incentive to recycle.

berries of my labour

not-so-warm springs

Jay and Atlin

me sitting on Mt. Monarch

Outside the log cabin...

The last few days we've spent outside hiking up Mt. Monarch (just south of Atlin, BC) and swimming in barely warm springs. Sunday was spent picking cranberries and today the logcabin smells of banana cranberry pancakes. It's been raining a bit, bringing back memories of the wet coast so it's just fine. Except when you need to drive through construction areas to see friends and you end up going down the road sideways.

and now i begin an internet photo album of my log cabin antics in the north...

late sun

shining fireweed

the log cabin