A new passenger

Meet Java. He is part of a litter of puppies that were rescued when they were 3 weeks old in Pelly Crossing (with their mom) by the Yukon Humane Society. The mom had given birth under the shed of a man who planned to get rid of them in a pretty drastic way (think river drowning). He is a mix of Brindle, Bear dog, Husky, Lab and probably many other breeds...

JF and the girls had been wanting a dog for a few years already. As much as I love dogs, it was not part of my plans to share our 150 square feet of living space with anybody else... especially not the shedding kind... but I could see how much my desire to not have a dog was coming against their desire to really have a dog. So I took a deep breath and trusted that it would all be fine.

So that's how we added a new passenger to our crew. And his shelter name - Java - was a perfect fit for the Red Bus café... oh and his little sister was called Mara... What's not to like?

A day inside

 Aïsha read Alexander The Great's story while Mathilde knitted and Mara did some origami. I call this a perfect rainy morning...

Watching Pollyanna

Today was a grey rainy day. We hunkered down in the bus and got ready for an inside day. I know many of you believe that our life is just one big giant holiday, and it is in a way, but come in, I’ll show you what most of our days really look like… Of course, summer is a bit different since we are visiting with friends here and enjoying the Yukon as much as possible, but there is still work to do… JF works more than full-time from the bus and when he isn’t, I do translation contracts (mostly at night). When we’ll leave the Yukon (in 5 weeks!) and head south, we’ll get back into more of a routine. Because, honestly, when you live on the road and every day is different, you need some kind of framework around your days.

When the girls were younger, we homeschooled using a Waldorf curriculum. Actually, when I started my old blog in 2008, it was mostly to share Waldorf ressources in French. I had the perfect Waldorf homeschooling going on. I told the girls stories I learned by heart with homemade needle-felted puppets, we baked our sourdough bread and made cheese, butter and crème fraîche from our cows’ milk. Yes, I know. I was a bit of an overachiever. But I like to call it passion. It sounds better. Here’s more of a background story if you care to read it.

Then, when we started traveling, we moved to unschooling since it felt like a better fit for our family. Learning is everywhere, and its even more true when you travel! A few years ago, the girls asked me to pick up the role of teacher again and with some doubts, I carefully tip toed back into it… do we still unschool? Do we homeschool? We live. We do a lot of what we love and this is different for all of us. But mostly, we find joy in our daily life.

I wrote this almost 3 years ago and it is still very true today :

Of course, there are days where I'd love my girls to love what we love. It would make our life easier. But above all, I want them to discover what *they* truly love. What makes them sing. Not what I think is good for them (whatever that means). What feels good to them. And that, my friends, is really at the core of unschooling. Finding that place where no one has to give up who they are for the others, but can soften enough to support one another.

Sometimes, it feels like we're a mish-mash little family all in limbo, but sometimes things just shine, and i see that i haven't failed in every way after all. That I actually did OK. And maybe even better than that.

Mushroom hunting at Fish Lake

The mossberries are almost ripe!

The bolets weren't out yet (nor did we find any other interesting mushrooms...), but the company was great, and nature was stunning, as usual. We found many bones from a big animal (horse or moose?), and beautiful wildflowers and berries. This place runs in my blood.

On housesitting and domesticity

A house with a slide beside the stairs? Yes, please!

Mathilde sewed that shirt for herself from an old shirt of mine and a pair of shorts!

If you follow Road it up on Facebook, you probably saw my little series about all the things I love about the Yukon. Here’s one more: housesitting. I had never heard that word until I moved here 12 years ago. It’s staying at someone’s place for free while they are gone and taking care of the animals, plants and garden, for weeks or months at a time. We are lucky to have at least a few offers every summer when we come here. This year, since the girls have 2 bike meets a week in town (and dance camp this week for Mara, music camp for Mathilde in two weeks), we are sticking to the housesitting opportunities that are close to town.

So this week, we are housesitting at our friends’ beautiful place, 3 minutes drive from Mara’s dance camp. I feel so domestic watering the garden, baking and feeding the cat and hamsters! There’s a washer and dryer, an oven and a dishwasher!! A mere two hours after we arrived, Mathilde and I were already baking cookies! The next day, I started with granolas, and soon I had baked a strawberry shortcake, cardamom-pecan-apricot cookies and apple crisp. That’s how I roll! Give me a kitchen, and I’ll feed you!

Oh! And the girls and I did an hour-long interview (in French) about our life on the road. You can listen to it on Soundcloud here. The first 2 minutes have some silences, but after that, it's all fine.

Goodbye Pine Lake

The soapberries (Shepherdia canadensis) are already out! The girls love to whip them into Indian ice cream (when whipped with sugar, the berries turn into a pink foamy concoction). The girls also love to rub the berries all over themselves (it creates foam!) and rinse themselves in the lake. It really does leave the skin feeling clean and fresh!

Yosemite, Sequoia National Park, Lake Tahoe, Joshua Tree: here we come!!

It was the grey jays fighting over a piece of rhubarb pie, the loon singing in the middle of the night when all is quiet, the mama duck and her ducklings that came to see me when I sat on the dock. It was the pain and shame that I shed on that very same dock. It was the healing tears. It was wild strawberries stained mouths and maps all over the bed, the planning of the next leg of our adventure.

It was the way I realized how I am walking the tightrope between old and new, familiar and exciting. It was the deep exhale. Breathe.

Another beautiful encounter and more friends

We left Whitehorse at 9:30 pm after a two hour bike ride in the rain. The girls fell asleep on top of each other on the drive back, between bike helmets, piles of clean laundry and bags of groceries. It was the perfect hour to drive the distance that separated us from our campsite in Pine Lake, near Haines Junction. I rolled down my window and let the warm hair dry my hair. After about 30 minutes of driving, we were completely alone on the road. We didn’t pass one single vehicule for almost an hour. Alone in that beautiful wild nature. 

We expected to be alone for our second week in Pine Lake, but we lucked out with awesome neighbors! I had met a nice family a month ago in the Whitehorse Library parking lot (she was taking pictures of our stickers on the Westy when I came out!) and we talked for 5 minutes and stayed in touch through Facebook. They were on a 4-month long road trip, heading towards Alaska. On their way down, they stopped in Pine Lake for a few nights and we had great conversations together about living intentionally, eating healthy and stepping out of the rat race. It is so easy to connect with people that really get you!

We also had the beautiful visit of the girls' Yukon grandmas on two separate occasion during the week. The attachment they feel for these women who took care of them almost every Wednesday night for 4 years while JF and I had a few hours to ourselves is so special. My heart is heavy with gratitude for all the love around us.

 

 

 

The Yukon light

As a photographer, I pay extra attention to the quality of the light wherever I go. The Arizona desert sunsets are unreal. The Utah rainstorm skies are the most amazing I ever saw. The Costa Rica early morning light is amazing and the way the light beams penetrate the Oregon Coastal forests is something I will never forget. But the Yukon light is just unique. The summer evening light, of course, but also the winter sun that hangs just above the horizon, casting its warm glow over the frozen landscape…

It’s all about the light. It’s always about the light.

The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows. ~ Brené Brown

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ~ Brené Brown

Life in the village: on luxury and privilege

Learning by doing: Mathilde and Joel decided to open a broken sewing machine to see how it worked.

As it is often the case in the Yukon, there was a bear hanging around the campground. One evening, we saw it right there where Aïsha was (less than 20 feet from the fire). We warned the kids to stay together. They just waved and said they knew what to do if they encountered a bear. Yukon kids...

“Luxury” is a loaded word.

Every time someone tells me we are lucky to live such a lifestyle a kitten dies somewhere. Yes, it is absolutely true that we are lucky that we both chose a career path 15 years ago that allows us now to work online. It’s true that we are fortunate to have been born in a rich country and be granted the famous white privilege, but the fact that we can live on the road is the result of conscious decisions and choices, not luxury. Please, remember that.

We are however very fortunate to have amazing friends to travel with and amazing friends and family that welcomes us back home, in the Yukon and in Quebec. We are incredibly lucky to be sitting around a bonfire at 2 am (because with the midnight sun, it's really easy to forget that it is that late...) with new and old friends, drinking good beer and eating cheese fondue.  You are completely right. That is luxury. 

A mudlicious nordic spa day!

The weather has been amazing and hot the last few days and we found creative ways to cool down (and to clean ourselves so we didn't have to go back to town, an hour and a half away, and stay in this beautiful camping spot in Pine Lake). We found a mud pit full of amazing soft clay. We made a slide and had mud fights! We washed our hair in the lake (yes, with biodegradable shampoo, of course) and the kids played on a homemade raft. Good times!

Kluane National Park: King's Throne Hike

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In white, you can see an approximation of the trail we did. A group stopped a bit before the bowl, while 2 kids and 3 adults went up into the bowl (Aïsha and Joel were determined to get to the snow!), then JF and I went up on the ridge to the left.

The Westy chose this beautiful spot to die. Good thing I am getting fast at fixing it with our little trick! Five minutes and we were back on the road!

Running with Kinder along Kathleen Lake. We borrowed this dog from our friend since it is much safer to hike with a dog in grizzly country. Kinder is an 11 yo retired sled dog - he was a lead dog! - and decided to turn around with the first group... We outlasted him!

Straight ahead on the lake, in the little bay, is where we started the hike.

Once we were high up on the ridge, the wind picked up and the rain started, so we turned around. Going down in that scree was very slippery and not easy... The first group that went down even got caught by a scary rock slide... But hiking in glacier-carved valleys sprinkled with alpine wildflower covered moss is a pretty unique experience. When you stand there and look around, you understand why this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is actually the largest internationally protected wilderness area in the world, that includes Canada's tallest mountain, Mount Logan, surrounded by the St. Elias Icefields. 

There is a pretty high concentration of grizzlies in the park and one of the popular multi-day hike, the Slim's River West, is often closed because there are too many grizz on the trail! 

King's Throne is actually the first hike I did when we moved to Whitehorse. I was at the very beginning of the twins' pregnancy, 12 years ago almost to the day. It's quite special to be back here with them to hike it... Once I am high up on the ridge, feeling the wind and the rain on my face, looking down at the tiny twisty trail I walked down below, I am reminded of the long journey I have undertaken, the slips, the falls and the scary parts, the exhilaration and the long tough stretches where I simply put one foot in of the other.

“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.” 
― Barbara Hall

Pine Lake

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Yukon swimming apparel: swimsuit and hat

As we leave Whitehorse, the grey sky opens up and the sun enters the bus and warms me up. Gophers dart everywhere on the road; one makes a nearly suicidal u-turn just in front of us. Then, a young brown bear crosses nonchalantly, swaying his hips like a sassy teenager. After a little more than an hour of driving on the Alaska highway the mountains of Haines Junction appear in front of us.

The campground is almost full, but a guy from Bend, OR, that traveled on his motorbike all the way to Prudoe Bay, shares his site with us since he’ll be back on the road early the next morning. Friends are waiting for us and we all settle around the fire, with port and dark chocolate as the sun slowly goes down over the mountains by Pine Lake.

On the days to come, there are Happy Hours around the fire (with Ludo's killer Gin and Tonic!), freshy caught pike cooked in aluminum foil and eaten with our fingers, lots of laughter and great talks, canoe outings at 9:30 pm and ferral kids with charcoal face paint having a blast (as long as there's a dog with them!) that we try to put to bed before 11 pm... This is why the Yukon just does not compare to anything else...

On healing and fireweeds

As I stand by the lake, looking at the mountains through the hazy glow of the forest fires’ smoke, I cannot help but think how those forest fires are an analogy to my life… How sometimes, a forest needs to burn to the ground to be born again.

I have heard many people say that the Yukon is a land of healing, and I feel that. I remember the first summer I was here and took a medicinal plant class, how amazed I was to discover that the boreal forest had so many wild healing plants among its relatively limited varieties. The Yukon national flower, the fireweed, is the first plant that grows after a forest fire. In the desolated black landscape appears that beautiful fuchsia flower and the land is alive with pink hills. And guess what the medicinal property of fireweed is? Anti-inflammatory, of course… Isn’t nature so fascinating and wise?

If you watch how nature deals with adversity, continually renewing itself, you cannot help but learn. – Bernie S. Siegel

Just like the land needs beauty and protection after such devastation, a bare soul needs to be comforted by the beauty of the world. Right now, I need to fill my heart with beautiful words from poets and authors. I wrap myself in their blanket of beauty.

Their words are my fireweeds.

Yukon friends

Braised fennel pasta with Josée's fresh spring onions in lemon pepper sauce with Riesling from The Columbia Valley. Good food. Always.

Music lesson in the bus with DanB.

Everywhere I go, I meet someone I know. It used to drive me nuts that I could not just run to the grocery store with my pj on or go on a coffee date and be anonymous. Now, maybe because I live anonymously for most of the year, I love it.

I am also extremely grateful for this amazing community of friends that welcomed me back with open arms.

They take my girls on bike trips and pool outings. They feed them and hug them. Most of them have held them when they were only little babies and I had my arms full (oh did I have my arms full!). Now, those tiny babies that once were, are wipping meringues together, creating dance shows for us and playing for hours on end while we catch up on the last year. Friends. What a gift.

“Empathy’s the antidote to shame. The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: me too. ”

-Brene Brown

On the water

Getting ready to leave in the dragon boat!

Father (Dan) and daughter (Julianne) in a C2! That young girl is GOOD!

Falling in the cold water is part of the learning curve, especially with the competition boats!

Our good friend Dan runs Canoe Kids, a summer camp that he offers for 8 weeks this summer on Shwatka Lake where children can learn to enjoy the flat water with canoes, kayaks, SUPs, C1/C2 and K1/K2 (competition canoes and kayaks, 1 or 2 seaters) and even a dragon boat! Those Yukon kids have so many great opportunities!

Around camp

Have you seen these legs? I mean, these girls are powerhouses! Their mountain biking teachers call them the mountain goats since they climb hills faster than them AND all the boys in their team (they are the only girls in their group). They sure are proud! You go girls!

I hope they keep bringing me heart-shaped rocks until I am an old grandma…

Taking selfies with a Nikon D700 is not for the faint of heart… Lots of laughter and not many keepers!

Getting down to the beach, Indiana Jones' style!

Our German neighbors had been fraternizing with the Americans camped beside them over a Duty Free size bottle of Peach Schnapps. They were loud and a bit obnoxious. When they started showing their kids how to throw knives and ninja stars on trees, it was my cue to move the bonfire down to the beach…

I read by the fire by myself for 30 minutes, then I saw her appear beside me, barefoot and dusty from the steep climb down to the beach. She snuggled between my legs on the little Therm-a-rest chair and started chatting. She told me she didn’t want to grow up because it meant she had to leave us. I said she could stay as long as she wanted (we’ll revisit that in 10 years…), then she said she didn’t want to become a teenager because she would become messy and rude (I told her she already sort of was, that seemed to comfort her… go figure!). As she collected wood to feed the fire, I asked her what she would do if we were stranded here and there was no food or shelter… She started sharpening a branch with a rock and said she would eat the squirrel that jumped in her bowl of homemade chocolate dip earlier today… I said I would definitely need a Wilson if she wasn't there, because I would go crazy... Then, I realized she hadn't watched Cast Away and I had to explain who Wilson was... This one on one time is such a treat…

Then, her sisters appeared a little after 10 pm (if you are not going to sleep anyways, might as well do it in a beautiful spot!)… Aïsha walked straight into the lake and stared at the mountains for a while. I looked at the 3 of them, all tangled hair and flithy. They have bruises and scratches everywhere from their numerous bike falls and spruce pitch stains on their hands and feet. They have big smiles and a fierce spirit. I love them so. My little Yukon wildflowers.

Hiking White Mountain

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Wild Orchid (Cypripedium montanum) also called Mountain Lady's Slipper

Little Atlin Lake

On Father's Day, JF and the girls went hiking to White Mountain. The view towards Little Atlin Lake was very hazy because of the many forests fires that are now ravaging the territory (there are 80 active forest fires in the Yukon right now...). On their way up, they met two couples from Alaska who had just finished a 9-day kayak trip on Atlin Lake all the way to the glacier. They said it was incredible! They also pointed out to them the wild orchids along the trail by leaving little cairns for the girls to discover.

All pictures taken by JF.

Midnight Sun at Marsh Lake and Solstice thoughts

This beautiful beach is right behind our camping spot up on a ridge, where we will be for the next two weeks... When we came back to the bus last night at 10 pm, we saw two boys on their bikes with their fishing rods, heading to the lake. Going fishing at 10 pm... The stories you'll tell your grandkids one day...

Photo taken at 11:30 pm on June 15th, no filter applied.

Photo taken at midnight on June 19th, no filter applied.

I was woken up by a raven pecking at something on the roof of the bus. It had been another night of restless sleep, hiding from the light coming in from around the curtains, trying not to hear our campground neighbors that are up all night sitting around the bonfire laughing and drinking... As I finally started to drift off to sleep, the resident mouse found something interesting to munch on... I turned on my back and exhaled, defeated. It would be another one of those nights... I grabbed the bear spray and headed to the lake where I could maybe find peace again...

I have adopted a little spot under a small poplar tree on the ridge where I am sheltered from the wind coming from the mountains. I curl on the soft carpet of bearberry bushes and yarrow, snug and warm in my puffy winter coat. Sometimes I read, sometimes I just look at the sky and listen to the sound of the crashing waves on the shore, feeling the earth that is still warm from the day under me. My hair and clothes constantly smell of wood smoke. I almost feel like I make one with this place. And there is peace in that.

 

Josée Retreat Center

Those who have been reading my blog for a while might remember my friend Josée who lives in a gorgeous house in paradise. I had the privilege to spend a few days with her, in what I ended up calling her Retreat Center. She had some great therapy going on. It started with Half Ass coffee therapy on her awesome deck overlooking Marsh Lake and the mountains, then there was steam shower spa therapy (Josée has the most amazing shower… such a treat for a bus dweller that is dry camping all summer!), then there was weeding her garden therapy and baking rhubarb-strawberry pie, and of course, laughter and wine therapy! All the while, the kids were doing their own creativity and board game therapy!

Why did I need therapy when I live such a perfect life you might ask? Well, life is messy sometimes and we stumble and make mistakes. And we fall apart. And there is pain all around. And there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, but to keep showing up.

“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.”

― James Baldwin

On Yukon Time

Chop wood, carry water, drink wine.

Arnica oil in the making, offered by a friend.

Hiking with a man that bends down to pick and eat rose petals. He tells me that the sweetest are the darkest ones...

Paddling down the Yukon river on a cold Saturday afternoon, that's living On Yukon Time!

There is a northern ailment called On Yukon Time, which seems to be culturally ingrained into our collective psyche. You can feel it when you get off the plane from Vancouver. It's as if the air is thicker and tougher to move through up here

No, it's not Pacific Standard Time, but a relaxed physiological perception of time itself. We call it Yukon Time. It’s the good, easy Yukon lifestyle.

The unit of a minute is deemed overkill and rounded to the hour. Some may even dislike the unit of an hour and may employ the morning, afternoon and evening system as their time posts. The extreme of this is simply throwing the watch in the creek and compartmentalizing to days (from here).

Here is one little video created by Boréale Biking, the company that organizes the junior program in which the girls participate this summer, that depicts pretty well what living On Yukon Time means.

Familiarity

Friends that come and go around our bonfire at all times of day (yes, we do need a fire at most times of day, even in the summer… good thing the territorial campgrounds provide unlimited free wood!), the shared food and stories, the distinct smell of poplar wood burning (so very different from the piñon and mesquite wood from Arizona and Utah), the wild rose bushes in the morning light. The fox that comes almost every night at 10 pm below our campsite. The way the horizontal 11 o’clock sunlight hits the tip of the spruce trees. And the familiarity of it all.