Winter 1994
Introduction
Every Alaskan, especially in the winter, doesn't live from day to day. They have to think and prepare a day or two ahead due to the weather conditions that could change from hour to hour.
The winter of '94 was Jan, our adopted daughter, and my first winter at the homestead just north of Healy, Alaska. Our cabin had no running water, and we cooked with a propane stove. (We hauled all our fuel on an ATV up to the cabin three miles on a small trail.) The cabin had very little electricity, (We had limited DC power for DC lights.) except for an occasional evening when we fired up our 4000 watt generator to watch a movie and to charge our batteries. On the roof of the home we had solar panels, but they did little good when there was only four plus hours of daylight in any given winter day. Our heating was done with three wood and coal stoves. In the main cabin we had a Blaze King in which we burned wood and coal. In the kitchen area we had a wood cook stove that aided heating the main cabin. Attached to the back of the log cabin was our wood framed bedroom which we heated with a pretty efficient coal stove.
Jan and I moved to Alaska from rural Nevada, but we had all the conveniences of home living in the Silver State. We didn't know what to expect in a winter in the wilderness except for what we had read, so some of our short comings and mistakes occurred because we were ultimately not prepared for what might happen. We thought we were prepared, but it turns out we learned from our mistakes.
Last but not least our toilet facilities were very inconvenient. We had an outhouse but the ladies preferred using the portable toilet which needed to be dumped at least twice a week.
A day in the life of: The night before
The shopping list was prepared for the trip to Fairbanks the next day. We would buy for a month at a time at our favorite store, Fred Meyers.
That day we had the Subaru checked out and had an oil change so it was ready for the trip to town.
Because it was so cold, we constructed a mini log garage which we kept the ATV in at night. We would then take the battery out of our car and ATV and set them next to the stove in the cabin.
Jan, Reyna and I would make sure every wood and coal box in the cabin was stalked to the top. We collected the wood from our wood shed which protected the fuel from the snow. We had hundreds of pounds of coal piled near the cabin covered with a blue tarp.
That evening before it got too dark we would need to get water from the spring a quarter of a mile away from the cabin. I would fill a five gallon container by hand, load it on the ATV and haul it back to the homestead. Occasionally the spring would freeze over so we would have to bring water from Healy, 10 gallons at a time.
All of our winter gear, which we had to wear everyday to survive, was hung up near the fire to dry out in preparation for the next busy day.
Before we went to bed, I made sure all the stoves were stoked to the max with wood and coal and then closed down the dampers. For a moment I would take the time to roast my hands over the warm stove and then jumped into my bed.
2 AM
It was time to crawl out from under my warm blankets and check the three stoves. I would again stoke then to last until 6 am. Then again returning to bed for few more hours.
6 AM
Somehow, I always woke up on time. It could be because my nose started getting cold, but I knew it was time to check the stoves and get ready to go to Fairbanks. The temperature on the thermometer outside read -40 degrees.
Since the wood stove was stoked and warm we prepared a quick breakfast of cream of wheat or oatmeal. After eating and while the girls cleaned up the dishes I got the ATV battery and went out to the garage and started it. While the four-wheeler warmed up I attached to the ATV a plastic crate to carry items we needed to bring with us including the car battery. I would also attach a five gallon water jug to be filled in town.
The last thing we did before leaving the cabin was to again stoke the fires. We knew that if we didn't it would probably be in the thirties inside the cabin when we returned.
The three of us would mount the four-wheeler and begin our day on a this brisk Saturday morning.
When arriving at the river, three miles from the cabin, we parked the ATV and loaded the car. Because of extreme cold, oil in gasoline vehicles gets very thick. Consequently this makes them tough to start. This particular day was no exception.
At the river we stored a tank full of propane and a propane torch. We used this torch to warm the oil so the vehicle would crank. I used a stove pipe with a bend in it and slid it under the car. The torch was lit and placed at the end of the stove pipe. (At these temperatures we had some difficulties even lighting the propane torch.) Eventually the oil would warm enough to crank the engine and it started. This '81 Subaru would start many times at -40 degrees.
Our little $300 vehicle was on its way to Fairbanks but we were still freezing in the car. On this particular day the heater was almost useless. It was an uneventful morning until just outside Ester, Alaska, five miles from Fairbanks, the car started to overheat. Overheat at -40 degrees, you might ask. Yes it did. We stopped to check the engine and we discovered the fan belt was gone. We had a couple of people stop and ask to help us, but we thought, in these temperatures, that we could make it to the little garage down the road.
We made it to town, but found out later that we damaged the engine on the vehicle.
Our family finished the shopping we had come to town to do and about dark, 4 PM, started home, 100 miles away. We had a load of supplies that when we arrived back at the river, had to be transported up to the cabin on the ATV. When we eventually arrived at the cabin we had two priorities: unload the supplies and stoke the fires.(It would be about forty degrees inside.)
After taking the girls up to the cabin with a small load I returned to retrieve the remaining supplies. I usually had to do at least two extra trips as well as a trip up to carry additional coal for fuel for the night.
Of course, the girls had the supplies put away and dinner prepared by the time I returned with my last trip. I got very good at doing very fast three mile sprints on the four-wheeler. Between 10 PM and 11 PM I was home warming my body next to the stove that was blazing hot.
Then the nightly routine began again. I was in bed by 1 AM.
The next day was the Lord' Day so we prepared our hearts for a great Sunday.
What a day we had and with God's help we lived through many days even harder that this.
