It has been cloudy the last few days and northern lights were hidden from view. Wind shook the cabin last night and swept those clouds away.
This morning, I woke before sunrise (not too hard when the sun rises at 8:38 am) and caught a few wisps of northern lights.
Lucky me.
I get excited by nature’s wonders. Yesterday, we got to see a portion of the annular eclipse in the morning. First I made my pinhole camera.
Then I headed outside to wait and watch. The last time I experienced a solar eclipse, we were on Protection Island in the Strait of Juan de Luca. My technique was a little different this time. I used two separate pieces of cardboard.
And it worked. Photographing it with one hand was little tricky.
Then I tried to get a little creative.
When I returned to the cabin, I took another look a half hour later and it had changed to this.
It transitioned from an Apple computer apple to a heart. What a day!
We have come to realize there is no need to rush at anything we do because we don’t have anything else to do. So we can take our time and enjoy. Already, the nights are colder and frost covers everything until late morning.
The days are quickly growing shorter. The sun rose today at 8:22 am and will set at 6:40 pm. This is already 2 hours shorter than when we first arrived in late September.
I thought it was quiet at home, but here the only sounds we hear are made by us, the birds and the squirrels, since there is no one else within hundreds of miles. We got hear a wolf howl one night. I have already begun talking to the birds with a call and response. The other day I had nice chat with a Greater Yellowleg. We are sure to become great friends. The Canada Jays follow us around. And I never realized how versatile a Raven’s call could be. You’re never too old to learn a new language.
As Tim likes to say, there’s no such thing as paradise. We boarded and reboarded the cabins and Lodge the last few days. Today we went for a nice walk on the southern esker. For better or worse, the weather was balmy, in the high 40’s f.
We had checked the doors before we left. When we got back, plywood covering two doors and a window were peeled back like cardboard.
A bear had gotten into one of the cabins and the office. So we boarded them up again. This is all making us a little uneasy.
But I walked to the dock after dinner and still found the views lovely.
It’s funny how perceptions can change. I was relieved to see only wolf footprints on our walk and am hoping for cold weather so the bears will finally hibernate.
I have finished my first two projects. The first was a shawl/ baby blanket I started at home, called Honey Baby. I like it because it incorporates bees and leaves. It took 3 months and I knit the border once we arrived in Manitoba.
Next is a zipper pull for my weatherproof overalls. I count on these zippers when nature calls. I took a brief Kumihimo course and made a short spiral braid from silk, which in addition to being pretty, is very strong.
I think leg warmers will come in handy. I wound a ball of yarn from wool I spun last year at Acadia National Park.
And then there’s the beast. There’s a huge black bear we have seen three times, both it and we were spooked. Hibernation can’t come soon enough. Here’s a gift it left us.
My detailed food list went largely ignored. That’s fine because the commercial kitchen in the Lodge has almost everything I need.
Today’s task, after we finish boarding up the cabins, is to make and freeze a large batch of applesauce from the carton of apples left behind.
I have already made two batches of yogurt from powdered starter I bought from Amazon, before we left home. We should have enough frozen milk to cover our 4 months.
Sprouts are sprouting. They live by the oil burner and on a shelf that catches sun.
They will be appreciated when the lettuce is gone.
Without a microwave to defrost things, I had to get creative. I want to make a sausage dish and have a large roll of frozen venison sausage. The hacksaw !! helped.
There are fields of lingonberries that I want to turn into smoothies and sauce.
Our stovetop, camping coffee percolator and toaster work just dandy.
We need our energy to enjoy the walks and views.
aka, Walmart, where we find useful stuff. This is the most recent place to dump household trash but, as you can see, even the wolves, ravens, and Canada jays don’t like broccoli.
After 40 years, it has become a vast dump but surprisingly organized. There’s even a special area for the (very large) wolves:
That’s Tim’s foot, guest blogger of the week.
After a 2 day delay, due to weather, the last of the work crew left today. Tim spent a good part of the past two days sending weather conditions to the pilot.
We were happy to receive a 45 gallon can of JET A fuel (diesel fuel with an additive to prevent freezing) for our heating system as a parting gift.
Then we were on our own to wrangle it off the dock and onto a trailer to bring it to the cabin. No can do. We were able to roll it off the dock but couldn’t lift or roll it onto the trailer.
So we had to collect a smaller barrel, to offload half the fuel into, and the somewhat finicky fuel pump, fondly referred to as “old red”, so we could get two “lighter” barrels onto the quad’s trailer.
In the end, we got it done. Pizza was a nice finish to the day.
This is one of them.
It has taken me a week to absorb it all and be ready to write about it.
We are in a cabin in northern Manitoba on the southern shore of Egenolf Lake in a wilderness area that spans 6 million acres. Just like home in the Adirondacks. Except it’s not.
The nearest road is 250 miles away but travel is made easier, for some, in the winter, when the lakes freeze. We met one man who rode a snowmobile 6 hours to get here one winter.
We are in an off the grid cabin, designed to provide most of the comforts, in the harsh Manitoba winters. How harsh ?
There is a column in the cabin with the low temperatures marked for several years dating back to 2003, entitled, “The Bushmen Will Survive.”
And we are pretty sure they did.
Every system has at least one, sometimes two, back-up systems, and we have spent the week learning them all and thinking of many of the what ifs. We have had a great teacher, who has spent two winters here and who will continue to provide advice and support from afar. We have internet! And satellite communication.
Right now, the place is buzzing with activity as they close this vast fishing and hunting lodge in the wilderness. On Tuesday, that will change when they all fly off.
This is not our cabin. It’s an old trappers’ cabin near the lake, where two trappers once weathered -60 degrees and lived to tell about it.
The moon was beautiful last night as it rose to the northeast.
And a stunning sunrise greeted us this morning. We have hiked the esker that is behind the lodge and look forward to skiing and snowshoeing it. We’ll use a snowmobile and gas powered auger to get our water once the lake freezes.
Should be quite an adventure.
Island and North Country Life 