A New Kind of Shopping

So most people will probably cringe when you start talking about powdered milk and freeze dried vegetables but we have learned to adapt. We have been living here in Fort Yukon for 7 months now and have learned a lot about how to adapt to a changing environment of available amenities. Although we do have a fairly well supplied store in town it can be very spendy to shop there. One example is the cost of a gallon of milk. In Pennsylvania we used to purchase a gallon of milk a couple times a week for about $4 per gallon. Here in Fort Yukon the store does not even carry gallons, only half gallons. A half gallon of fat free, 2% or Homogenized Whole Milk will cost you about $8. When you do the math it becomes very prohibitive for us to maintain the same milk drinking habits we had in PA.  Not to mention the fact that the milk here is ultra pasteurized and is not that pleasant to drink.  It tastes about the same as the shelf-stable stuff, which some people like but we most certainly do not.

We discovered that if you regularly drink powered milk you do in fact get used to the taste, and it isn’t actually that bad. One of the tricks to drinking powdered milk is to make sure it is as cold as possible, sometimes even with ice cubes in it.

When we were getting ready to head out to the Yukon Flats region of Alaska we knew we were going to run into these issues so we stocked up on some of the necessities and had them shipped to us. As we began to run out of some of the things we stocked up on we began our search for new sources of food to stock up for the winter. We discovered some others here in the area that buy freeze dried vegetables and meats and said they are happy with them. We were turned to a company called Shelf Reliance and we ordered a kit of things to try.

In October we got our first package of fun lightweight food. We got an assortment of vegetables, fruits and even a couple meats and a few other things. A couple of days after we received our shipment, I decided it was time to try a few things and see how we like what we got and see what else we might want to order. I made omelets for breakfast, made almost entirely from ingredients that I had to “reconstitute” with water.

So the first ingredient to make an omelet is egg. Whole egg powder is a strange thing to work with. To reconstitute you mix 1 tbsp egg powder to 2 tbsp water per egg required. I decided I was going to make a 3 egg omelet to split with Joc and see how we like our strange stuff. So I mixed the egg and while I was letting it sit for a few minutes I looked through the cans of other things we had that I might put in an omelet and decided on Green Peppers, Onion, TVP Ham and Diced Chicken. I put a tablespoon of each freeze dried item in a bowl added up how much water I needed to reconstitute them all mixed that up and let it set while I started cooking the egg. I discovered that cooking reconstituted egg powder is a little different from cooking regular egg, it requires a slightly higher temperature and acts a little bit different as it is cooking, but I managed ok. So the only thing I used that was a fresh ingredient was some shredded cheddar I had in the freezer.

When the omelet was done I tried it and was happy with it, Jocelyn tried a bite or two and asked if I would make one for her but to add a  little salt and pepper, I knew I forgot something. I made her omelet for her and we decided that it was actually amazingly good and given the cost of the ingredients and the ease of storage of all the ingredients, well worth it.

So after our first experiment we decided we really liked what we got and decided to get more. We got a couple of other kinds of meat and some more fruits and vegetables.  We also liked the milk soooo much that we got a whole case!  Since getting this, we have been drinking a lot more milk (it’s actually pretty affordable, a gallon is about $5.50!).  The best thing about all of this is that Jocelyn is able to have real food when traveling and not just canned soup.  It’s really easy to take with her and is really easy to make in the limited kitchens that the schools have for the traveling staff to use.

We also make pizza regularly.  We never thought we would like pizza made at home but when you don't have a local pizza parlor, you learn to adjust.  Joc despises frozen pizzas, saying they mostly taste like cardboard and don't have near enough toppings.  We found that Jiffy makes a great pizza crust mix that's easy to make and tastes really good.  We have tried to make our own crust but for the hassle it's not worth the $2 savings.  The store has the mixes and pizza sauce and even having to buy these here it's not that expensive.  The most expensive part is the cheese but even that isn't that bad if you watch the sale items at the store.  So we have gotten to be really creative with pizza toppings and mixes.  Since neither of us likes sausage, we are able to make a supreme pizza that is much more to our liking (we substitute roast beef from Thrive for sausage).  Having the Pampered Chef Large Bar Pan is the key to making wonderful pizza as the crust turns out crispy on the outside and still soft on the inside.  

Sure we still eat "fresh" foods but not as much as we thought.  When we "go to town" (aka flying to Fairbanks), we usually stock up on meat and butter.  While the butter powder is actually really good, it is sometimes a pain to wait to "churn" butter (put it in the kitchen aid and whip for 15 minutes or so).  We buy butter as more of a convenience thing than anything else.  The meats from Thrive are really good but they do actually end being more for the most part unless we are not able to get into Fairbanks to do our own shopping.  We have learned better ways to buy in bulk and also are pros at finding deals in the local AC (1/2 price items are actually really worth it).  

So this is how we live now... Not bad at all if I might say so!

~ Andrew

The Cold

Yes, It is cold here.  This past week we have had the coldest temperatures that we have experienced yet.  It has gotten down to -62 a few times. It may have been colder than that overnight, but when you wake up in the morning and are getting ready to go to work and the needle on the thermometer is pointing below -60 all you think is “Brrrr.”  Well, Sunday it was that cold and there was no way the truck was going to start given that extreme cold, so we decided to go for a walk.  Jocelyn wanted to take some pictures and I needed to walk up to town anyway.

Getting ready to go out in these conditions is a workout in itself.  First you need to make sure that if you recently showered you are completely dry.  The last thing you want is any excess moisture that could freeze to you.  Next comes the first layer, some people wear them, some don’t, but thermal base layers are a good idea when it is this cold.  Next comes the “Normal clothes” so put on your jeans, shirt, sweatshirt or fleece and whatever else you might be wearing.  Don’t forget to wear good socks. Natural wool heavy socks are the best. Jocelyn wears a pair of “regular” cotton socks and then one or two pairs of the wool socks over top.  Next comes the bibs or snowpants.  These are essential, as they are what keeps the wind off of your legs and are a lifesaver out there.  After your snow pants you have to put the good boots on. We both have Rangers.  (Jocelyn doesn’t like hers, I loves mine.)  When you lace up your boots, you want to make them secure but not too tight.  Pulling them too tight makes the insulation almost worthless (this is why Jocelyn doesn’t like hers, there is not enough room to put her pant legs inside of the boots).  Next comes the coat.  Not your typical winter coat that people from Pennsylvania are used too.  Jocelyn wears a 650 down coat and I wear a Carhartt Arctic insulated coat.  After the coat, you have to make sure you dress the rest of the way fairly quickly cause indoors you will very soon overheat.  After the coat you put up your hood from your sweatshirt or put on you liner beanie, then you will put on your neck gaiter or scarf (or both in Jocelyn’s case) then your hat.  Hopefully you have a good fur lined hat cause let’s face it, mother nature knows what she’s doing when it comes to furs that animals have here (Jocelyn doesn’t wear anything inside of her hat as she says hers is more than warm enough to handle this cold). Then make sure you have your skin on your neck covered everywhere, and if you wear glasses, this is your last chance to take them off, and you really should.  Next you pull in your hats, gaiter, hood and whatever else to make your head good and warm. Next you put on your liner gloves (necessary) then your heavy gloves or mittens, and if your gloves do not have a long cuff, either have a friend help you pull your coat cuffs over them or make sure you have a pair of wristlets.  Jocelyn discovered how these can be a lifesaver when she is taking pictures.  Once you are all bundled up, don’t wait around, get outside. If you let yourself get too warm, it is more shocking to your system when you do go out in the cold, plus if you start sweating this will cause you to get cold quicker outside.

The other tricks are to not leave your boots, coat or bibs close to an heat source, making them too warm will make you start sweating which will cause you to get very cold very quickly outside.

This is the process to get ready to go to work, to go play, to go do anything outside if you will be out for more than 5 minutes or so.  You really do have to be careful here, but if you take the proper precautions, and make sure you are always prepared you can enjoy life in the arctic and find out how beautiful and amazing this place is.

And here Jocelyn is with all her gear on other than the gaiter cause that's just way too warm indoors.

Up next.... pics from our crazy walk in the VERY frozen North.

Loosing Light

This is something that people ask me about almost all the time.  For some reason people think that we go from 100% light to 100% dark over night, but just like back in PA, it’s a gradual thing.  There is a much more significant time shift here than back in PA obviously but it’s still not all at once.  We have been steadily loosing light since we got here and will continue to do so until there is none for a couple of days/weeks.  I have not been too affected by this shift in light, but it does still mess with your sense of time.  Just like back in PA, when there is very little light in the sky, it is also cold, this means you stay inside.  And just like in PA, when you are in the house, you turn the lights on.  So like I said it is not as noticeable (until you look outside at 330 and it’s as dark out as it would be at 5 or 6 back in PA).  We don’t have television (ok we have a television but all we can do with it is watch DVDs) so we spend a lot of time doing other things (you know, those million and one hobbies that Andrew and I seem to torture ourselves with). 

There are advantages to being here with the light waning though.  The biggest one is that you are actually awake when the sunrises!  And that is something that is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!! The sunrises and sunsets stretch as far as the eye can see and because it is sooo flat here, it goes for literally 360 degrees.  The colors of the sunrises/sunsets are AMAZING!  They are so intense and there are so many colors at once.  It’s almost like a rainbow every time (ok well minus the greens and not in “rainbow” order). 

Another advantage is that when you want to take a nap in the middle of the day, you don’t have to struggle trying to block the sun out of your bedroom! 

We are now getting quite a bit of light.  It's crazy how fast it seems to return.  Yesterday had the most amazing sunrise (at around 1030am).  I wish I had a camera with me but I was in the middle of work and I didn't have a chance to get back to an outside window before it went away.  I will try to describe what it looked like.  The whole sky was a brilliant pink, not just the pale pink of the sunrises back in PA but bright like a pink highlighter.  And when I say the whole sky I mean every last bit from horizon to horizon.  It was like we were on the inside of a giant Easter egg.  The funniest thing about it was that we were all gaping out the windows at it like we had never seen the sun before.

Today when we were done with school as teachers (around 430) a couple of us came out to go home and someone made the comment, "There's still daylight!"  It took a moment for the rest of us to register that yes there was still day light (albeit dusk) at the time of day when we are going home... something that hasn't happened for over a month.  You wouldn't think you would be that awestruck by such things but it really is startling to realize when daylight returns.

Finding Space

The most difficult commodity to come by is space… space for storage that is.  When you buy food for months at a time there is a lot that you need to store.  Also there is the matter of clothes and other things that need to be stored somehow but accessed daily as well.  We have found many creative solutions to this issue…

Remember those things that you put under your bed back in the dorms?  Well they serve a very practical purpose up here in the bush.  Unlike in college when really it was just a place to hide dirty clothes and such, here we store extra food, suitcases and dog crates (that we won’t need till we travel with the dogs again), not to mention boxes from items that we want to keep to pack them up in when we have to move. 

Another solution… “Alaskan suitcases.”  They are not cloth.  They are not on wheels.  So what are they, you might ask.  Well Rubbermaid Roughneck Bins, of course!  We ship everything in these tough guys.  Trust me, the cheapy ones at Walmart DON’T hold up to the extremes of Alaska.  And yes we really do use these as luggage when traveling to the city.  When you go in you take several of these with you, stacked together, so that you have them to ship your groceries back in.  They work much better than boxes and stack much better than an actual suitcase.  Not to mention, the extra ones that you have at home turn into great TV stands, coffee tables, night stands, dressers,… well you get the picture.

There are surprisingly few shelves in homes here.  But not to worry!  Unlike in homes back in PA, the spaces above the cabinets are left open.  No decorative trim here, but rather many more cubbies for STORAGE!  Don’t forget the ever popular top of the refrigerator.

Many homes have caches outside that allow for more storage.  These are little sheds.  Ours is actually where our landlord keeps various maintenance things for our house and his.  While we don't use it personally, having him keep these items in the cache has freed up some space for us.

So that is how we solve this dilemma of space shortages.

INTERNET!!!!!

We FINALLY have internet at home!!!! I have many more things I would like to post to here including pictures but since Christmas is only 2 days away and I am way behind on baking and such, I will have to wait until after the holiday to post more.  Until then, we wish all a Merry Christmas!

Getting Things You Take For Granted

So living in a town such as Fort Yukon has its advantages and its disadvantages. Most of the advantages revolve around it being both a small town and it being very peaceful and cut off from the world in many ways. These advantages can quickly turn into disadvantages however when you need something that back in the “Lower 48” you could just run to Walmart or Lowes for.

There is a store in town that is run by a company called The Alaska Commercial Company (The AC). This company operates over 20 stores in bush towns in Alaska. These are mostly smaller stores that serve communities in the close to or over 500 people range but some are in smaller towns down to 200 and some are towns of a couple thousand. The problem is that this is a store that reminds me a lot of being in a “general store” in small communities in Pennsylvania. They do have everything you would need in order to survive, but not everything you will ever need.

Eventually you will need something that they just don’t carry. For example in the minor renovations we were helping with on our house before we moved in we were doing some electrical work. Fortunately our landlord is on the ball and had all the supplies we needed to do the work and make it functional so we could move in. One of the things that we did overlook were the plastic cover plates that go over outlets and switches. Not necessary items to function, but preferable to have for safety reasons. So in order to get these in Fort Yukon, I had to contact a building supply company in Fairbanks, get them my order, (I needed a few other things too) then pay for the order with a credit card over the phone, they pick the order, charge a small fee to have the order boxed up and labeled and delivered to the airport cargo terminal.  Then I have to call the airline, let them know that the packages are mine, pay for the air freight for the boxes and then they give me an idea of when they will arrive based on room for freight on the planes. Then I call the terminal to see if the boxes left or if they are still in Fairbanks, find out the did get shipped so then I have to go to the airport here and seek them out so I can finally get them back to my house and install my outlet covers.

This scenario is not limited to building supplies either. Most food and house wares are available at the AC but they do have a limited selection and many items are very expensive. Most of the expense is due to transportation but also contributing to it is the very high cost of energy here, both electrical and fuel, and the limited customer base which leads to a lot of spoilage and loss. So knowing these facts most people try to get many of their needs in Fairbanks when they are there for one reason or another.

So that leads back to the “Alaskan Suitcases” (Rubbermaid bins)  When we go into Fairbanks, we bring several of these empty and stacked together as our luggage on the way into Fairbanks.  We do our shopping, pack our goods into the bins and take them to the post if they are non-perishables and mail them home (this is cheaper then bringing them as freight).  Things that are chill or freeze and things that are oddly shaped we take as our luggage home.  You are only allowed so many pounds on the planes and then you have to pay per pound for anything over (hence why you mail everything you can).

All of this has made us realize how much we took for granted back in PA.  We actually are really enjoying things despite these difficulties (small “price” to pay for the wonderful life we have in Fort Yukon).

A Day on the River

So after our tour of the river with the school, we got the chance to go out again.  Here is a bit about that trip (from August 20).

A Day on the river

Today we got our second experience on the mighty Yukon and Porcupine rivers. Some people claim the Mississippi River is the might force in the USA, but I beg to differ. This river is a force to be respected and feared all at the same time; sandbars that change by the day and currents that can flip a boat in a minute.

So on to what we did today. After a wonderful walk around town in the rain, we waited for the weather to clear as we were invited on a trip up the river. We were told we were going to a place that is 8 miles up the Porcupine River. There is a camp area there where there are some cabins that the locals use for hunting and getting away from town.

There were 2 men that are staying there that are visiting Alaska from Switzerland who were amazing hosts. We were treated to a cup of campfire coffee after a wet trip on the boat in the rain. Then later once we were warmed up and dried off a little, we discovered that the guys threw a King Salmon steak on the fire. The etiquette at a wilderness camp is much as you would expect, steak is thrown on a plate when it is done and everyone digs in with their fingers.

Then we did some exploring and I got to see my first Moose tracks in the mud. I also got to see wild cranberries and rose hips growing all over the place. I even tried a cranberry, although it was quite tart as they are not quite ripe yet. A friend of the Jackson's have a cabin at 8 mile that they said to go ahead and use whenever we are out there.  The Swiss guys were using it just for baking bread cause they preferred to "rough it" for sleeping and such.  It's a very beautiful cabin. (Pictures of these adventures will be coming shortly.)

When we got back to camp from exploring the area, there was now a duck on a spit on the fire. As the duck was cooking we were pointed to a couple smoked Northern Pike fillets. So we broke a piece off and threw it on the grate over the fire to warm it up. That Pike was probably the best fish I have eaten in a really long time.

After we devoured the piece we broke off and the rest of the 2-foot long fillet was thrown on the fire so that we could all enjoy lots of the wonderful fish. By the time we finished the pike the duck was done cooking. It was not a large duck, but there was enough there for everyone to have some to try. So the duck was cut up and the pieces put on the grate for a few minutes to make sure it was done and to give it a little more flavor. Once we started we couldn’t stop. The duck was so good for having been cooked on a fire for about an hour and not having any seasoning or anything, just the goodness that nature has to offer.

After eating 3 wonderful mini meals at the camp we decided it was time to begin the journey home. This trip was much nicer with no rain to hinder the experience. Traveling back to Fort Yukon on the river, watching the sun slowly set as the colors of the sky met the reflection in the river, made the most beautiful sight I have seen yet. After about 50 minutes on the river, we arrive in Fort Yukon and the trip has come to an end.

Finally, tea and story time with the company of the day and everyone then goes their own ways to get ready for some much needed rest as tomorrow is a work day. Well, for most anyway.