massivelyzanymoon asked: now that you have been in the bush for almost a year, how was it compared to what you had expected? with all the mosquitos and rain in the summer, and the harsh cold in the winter, it had to be HELL. would you recommend this area to anyone else? were you able to spend any time outside in the winter?
uncivilize-livefree answers: hey zanymoon, thanks for the great questions.
i think overall our experience this first year was pretty in line with what i expected. here are some details:
mosquitoes vs. ticks: i was Thrilled to find out there are no ticks here. when i lived in missouri, i could walk ¼ mile to my neighbor’s place through the grass, and during that walk i would have EIGHTY ticks crawling up my legs. Eighty. 80. there were so many that if i were working on a project outside, between hammer strokes i’d have to pull a tick off (my hand, arm, leg, wherever). so i figured mosquitoes would make me feel about how i’d felt about ticks in missouri. unfortunately, unlike ticks, mosquitoes fly. i’ve dealt with places that supposedly had pretty rough mosquitoes before, but alaska is… different.
it was unfortunate that we were here during what we’re told was the worst mosquito year in Two Decades. i had a hard time enjoying my meals, because mosquitoes would be flying into my face (and Landing on my face) as i tried to put food into my mouth. i’m a pretty butch/tough/rugged/whatever kind of lady, and normally bugs do not get to me. but after about the 3,000th mosquito, they started to freak me out. i was pretty cranky. that being said, we KNEW that would be tough, Especially that first season, because we were Outdoors 18 hours a day - we had no ‘indoors’ except a Tiny two person tent. and the mosquitoes had to be cleared out of that meticulously, or we’d suffer as we slept. if jon rolled over and let his arm hang against the side of the tent, they’d sting him Through the tent material.
the mosquitoes show up here right around june 1st. we showed up may 25th. so we were just in time. they didn’t get Horrifically Bad until… late july, maybe? until then, it was similar to what i’d consider a high level of mosquito annoyance elsewhere. we had about two months of BAD mosquito time. our neighbors didn’t have much of a problem - they had a cabin to go into, sometimes they wear head nets, and andrew says that he simply lets them bite, because while he’s working during the day they simply don’t bother him. his 'yard’ area has also been cleared for about two decades now, and gets ample sunshine and has a healthy population of dragonflies, which helps immeasurably. Our building site was only newly becoming cleared, had only occasional dragonflies, is north-facing (less sun, lots of forest to our south), and is Boggy. Perfect mosquito habitat.
so. did the mosquitoes suck? yes. yes they did. i swatted them away Religiously, and i’d estimate that i probably ended up with something like 400 bites through the whole season. jon got Way more, because he didn’t swat them all away. he had bites on his Lips and Eyelids some of the time. ALSO - it’s important to mention that for some reason the bites from the mosquitoes here Don’t actually seem to be as painful or itchy - they itch for maybe a day and then mostly stop (unless they’re somewhere really bad, like under a waistband). so it’s more the Presence and Chaos of the numbers of mosquitoes than it is the biting that gets to me personally.
(during the worst part of the season, we’d wake up to ~100-200 mosquitoes waiting on the outside of our tent)
And, aside from the fact that 2016 was the worst in two decades and so our next 19 years likely would have been easier, now that we have a cabin it would have been better as well. it’d also be easier if i could stand wearing a head net, but i have issues with feeling trapped/confined/whatever by clothing, so i refused to wear one (99% of the time).
post script: jon used 100% deet. i used an essential oil mix that i made. they both helped up until a certain point. after which, neither did jack sh*t.
the rain: yes, the rain was annoying. again, we knew summer is the rainy season here, but this area (and large portions of alaska) experienced 70% MORE rainfall than normal last summer. it Was, indeed, very frustrating to be in the middle of building our cabin and have to sit in our tent or under a tarp (with the mosquitoes) for sometimes 7 days in a row until we had weather that we could build in again. some days we could simply choose to go work the sawmill in the rain. other times it wasn’t possible. the sawmill area actually flooded at one point, and we had to wait for it to drain enough to mill again. when it reached a 'usable’ depth - with the sawmill itself being above water level, and the surrounding area being only a foot or so underwater - we continued. in muck boots. through adversity and slurping mud and sawdust. the one advantage to that was that we could then Float the logs toward the mill. silver linings everywhere.
(keeping our building site out of the rain was an ongoing process. frustrating, but not the end of the world)
as before - we wouldn’t expect future rainy years to be a huge issue, since we now have a Cabin, where we can be Indoors and Dry and Comfortable. we also have a wood stove that allows us to Dry our things. it was SO humid here last summer that the willow and spruce of my baskets was molding, our clothes and books and Anything left outside of a tote was molding. there wasn’t enough wind Most days to dry anything. and drying things around an open fire pit is tricky. especially when it’s Still Actively Raining. but we made do, and i don’t think anything was ruined beyond repair.
(we took every opportunity to dry out our clothing - and our tent, which needed it a few times)
the cold of winter: wasn’t really an issue. if we had gotten a fancier wood stove, we wouldn’t have had to get out of bed through the night to tend fire when it was 40-60 below zero. but that didn’t last too long, and getting nice dry firewood wasn’t difficult. we were prepared to dress properly, and it was only a handful of days that were the absolute coldest when we didn’t particularly want to go outside. so no, we didn’t spend Huge amounts of time outside when it was The Absolute Coldest. but most of the winter the cold didn’t keep us from doing what we wanted to do. i still went out barefoot & naked to go pee at night, still bathed outside (because i’m very splashy and hate bathing indoors), we still went out for several mile walks, etc. i was pretty unreasonable in attempting to do a bunch of hide tanning stuff through winter, but i Knew it was a silly thing to attempt, and so i just did what i could or figured out a workaround. we still had plenty to keep us occupied indoors (well, i did. jon wanted more to do).
we found that our ability to acclimate to the cold was pretty exceptional. initially, every drop in temperature felt chilly, and then soon it just didn’t. it just was what it was. then it’d warm up five degrees, and that temperature felt Balmy. we got used to going out at -40, and -20 felt like a heat wave. but this acclimitization goes both ways. so now it’s 30s to 40s during the days, and if the wind blows we still think it’s chilly. pretty funny, but that’s how it is.
(jon got used to flicking the ice from his mustache onto the woodstove when he came indoors)
would we recommend this area to others? it depends on the person and the situation. there are other things that are tough about being here, some of which we expected and others that we couldn’t know how they would feel until we were Here. for example:
-loneliness. if there were a few other couples/families/people out here already, our social needs could have been met more fully. as it was, i got pretty desperate to connect with people more deeply than just the odd bit of text on a screen now and then. i’m pretty antisocial, and i’ve lived alone before and gone days without seeing people, and i love my quiet time. but out of the last eleven months, there have only been 14 days total that i have seen any humans other than my partner and our two neighbors. i miss having a wider array of people to talk to.
-administration. there is NO phone service here. there is LIMITED satellite internet. we couldn’t afford to set up our own internet this first year, and so have shared some of our neighbors’ bandwidth. when you have a bank account, or you’re making purchases online, or doing any other sort of administrative task, it can become very Difficult if you can only call via internet, have access to post only 1x/month at Best, and don’t necessarily have the ability to print documents. this was exacerbated by the refusal of many merchants to ship to alaska, and furthermore by many merchants’ failure to understand that we Have No Physical Address. all we can provide is our po box, just like all the residents of the Actual Village down river… so when people want to send something via ups/fedex, they think they Can’t because you only have a PO box. when it’s actually a non-issue because the whole town knows and shipments are left at the airport and the airport posts on the online message board who’s got a package. but try telling an online merchant that. so… if there’s anything you Can’t Live Without, and if there is ANY chance you won’t be able to purchase it from out here… you better Bring It With You.
to clarify… think of any of the administrative sorts of things you need to do. make a deposit or withdrawal at the bank. manage a student loan. order something through a web site that requires a phone number (and recognizes phony ones). deal with an organization that can only send important information via mail. NOW imagine handling those tasks Without being able to: go to the bank. get to the post office. HAVE a phone number. Receive phone calls. print documents. reply within several days of receiving notice of something. it becomes a problem. it can all be dealt with… eventually. somehow. it just takes more time, creativity, patience, and money. remember also that this is likely how you’ll purchase/receive the bulk of your staple food stores (flour, sugar, etc).
so. what kind of person does well up here? someone who’s Stoked about all the work involved in building a log cabin, who has the money and tools and wherewithal to pull that off without losing their enthusiasm. someone who is familiar with stocking up 7+ months worth of food at a time. someone who Loves driving a river boat and snowmachine. someone who can save up and arrive with at Least $30k+ on top of initial land purchase to invest in their setup (the more money, the easier). someone who is either extremely comfortable with solitude, or who is bringing friends. plus all the other standard characteristics of a good, rugged homesteader: adaptability, strength, follow through, ability to research, comfort in wilderness surroundings (including w/big predators), hardiness in extreme weather, commitment to sound tool/equipment maintenance, ability to entertain oneself, skill in hunting/fishing/foraging/trapping/gardening. etc.
so that’s some of the tough stuff, yes. but do we regret coming out here? absolutely not. did we enjoy ourselves? you bet we did. if just a few small things were different, we probably wouldn’t be leaving. and we both knew that our first year (as Anywhere) setting up and building would be the hardest. we’ve set up homesteads in other parts of the country. we’ve lived through similarly tough conditions. some of the particulars were new to us, but not the level of difficulty. and i INFINITELY prefer this form of challenge/struggle to ANY presented by a city, a 9 to 5 job, a multi-lane highway, or the confines of standard american buildings. my life has always contained frustrations - they’re simply things that exist to be dealt with. i’ve chosen to put myself in places where the frustrations i meet are the ones i am best suited to handle.
to counterbalance all of this, here are some of the Positive aspects of our life here so far:
it’s quiet. we spend all day and night listening to the wind, birds, rain, squirrels, the river… and the occasional plane, and normally we’ll get a 'waggle’ because the pilot is a friend.
there’s no traffic, no driving, no sirens, no hum of electricity, no leafblowers or snowblowers or lawnmowers.
we get to see wild animals who don’t know to fear humans. the beavers play in the river with us nearby, the swans glide calmly by, the squirrels come to within a foot of our hands. the moose watch us from two dozen feet away. we get to hear the martens growl over their meal because they don’t feel we pose any threat. the gray jays will land on our hands and look for a treat. one of our closest neighbors is an eagle. we’ve been able to share our lives and our harvests with these animals in a way that’s impossible anywhere else in this country.
we don’t know what day it is. there is no schedule, weekdays and weekends are irrelevant unless we’re heading downriver to the village. what’s important is the weather, and what we want to do that day, and when the sun rises and sets. our clocks are irrelevant. we need no alarms.
our window is our television. we can still choose to watch the occasional movie on my laptop, but mostly we look out the window for the 'news’, or we read the headlines while walking in the woods. the news that’s important to our lives is whether the river has thawed or frozen yet, where the nearest standing dead trees are, whether the moose are still around, whether the hares have turned white or brown yet, where the grouse are this week. we are surrounded by The Real World, and the images it lays out before our eyes are immediately relevant to our survival, unlike the visual cacophony of many other places.
we have TIME. our survival is our only job here. period. so during the summer we spent our time building our shelter. we spent our time assisting the neighbor in his salmon harvest, which he shared. we butchered the moose he harvested, and received half the moose. so we spent time gathering food to sustain ourselves through winter. we took the boat downriver to harvest berries. i harvested herbs many days through summer, which kept us in healthful teas and seasonings and medicines. every few days we harvested water from the river or snow from the beach, and firewood from the dead trees in the woods. so we spent our time getting water and warmth. but those things didn’t actually take very long… so then we get to fill our time with Anything We Want… making baskets, wandering the woods, tanning hides, sewing, carving, knitting, felting, reading, telling stories, listening to music, getting into deep philosophical discussions… whatever we want. we have all the time in the world.
we get to be Ourselves. i hate having to mask my human scent because other humans don’t want to smell like animals or remember that they are, in fact, animals. i hate having to use flush toilets that wreck ecosystems, i hate driving, i hate advertisements and normal buildings and disposable consumerist bullshit. we don’t have to worry about any of that here. and it is IMMENSELY Restful to get away from that. qualities of self emerge after months out here that i would not have encountered otherwise. there is no Press, no Compulsion, there are no masks, and no facades. it sounds simple, but its effects on the human brain over time are profound.
this reply is already incredibly long, so i’ll simply stop here. moving here has brought about more changes in our lives than i ever could have dreamed possible, and i wouldn’t trade it for anything. but i could ramble about it for days, so feel free to ask any other specific questions you’d like. we knew that coming out here was something of an experiment, and are glad that it’s shown us in even more detail what works for us and what doesn’t. there’s very little we’d change if given the chance… so we’ll be staying in alaska, and maintaining Most of the qualities and felt-experience of this lifestyle. though our surroundings will be different, our values, adventures, habits, and practices are still ultimately the same.
