The Basics of Survival - the Bush Lifestyle

8 February 2012
5:55 PM

Sunrise at	9:14 AM	in direction	125°	Southeast
Sunset at	4:57 PM	in direction	235°	Southwest

Duration of day: 7 hours, 42 minutes (6 minutes, 48 seconds longer than yesterday)

Not much else gets done around the old homestead when a major race is running.  Teresa, my daughter, and I chat back and forth for over an hour easily in the evenings about events during the race.  Right now, the really big deal is that Allen Moore is in first place and Hugh and Mackey, the two that always seem to run together, are gaining on him.  Will they catch him by Dawson City?

This is a question of great interest to me, but following the race is not how I spent my day.  Nor did I take photos of the gorgeous day or walk at noon, or work my regular schedule.  For those of you who may read my other blog, "Parenting Parents", you know that my mother suffers from dementia and she has been in my care for several years now.  We have reached a place where she has declined to the point where she needs support almost all the time when moving and she has begun to refuse to do things we need to do for her .. like get dressed, get cleaned, take her medications.

I spent the day not focused on a powerfully interesting race, but on how to manage Mom's next stage of care with the few options available here in Fairbanks.  The state does not regulate assisted living homes in terms of safety features, maintenance, or minimum space allotted to an individual.  There are programs that serve the elderly well, such as Fairbanks Resource Agency, where my mom has stayed during the day for several years, but the spirit of knowledgeable and consistent care has not translated into enforceable regulations for privately run senior residences.

But, I made progress today and now I am back on my armchair mushing sled and quietly watching the progress of three mushers up the river to Dawson City.  Here is an old favorite of earlier times with a nice slide show that brings more of the reason for this mail route into focus.  Mining and other resources are what populated Alaska in its inception - North to Alaska, by Johnny Horton ...

This is what I want to stress about this race and about this state.  Alaska is still a place for the hardy.  It is still the frontier in ways that you don't see from the Outside looking in.  When a person visits, they see cars, small shopping malls, houses, Mac Dough and they think it is like anywhere else - but it is not.  I am not out killing moose for dinner, or using the outhouse at 40 below, but I am dealing with 40 below problems and eating jams, moose and fish my family harvested.  Those who need major surgery frequently need to go to Anchorage or Seattle to have it done.  An elder in her 80s, who suffers from dementia is one you do not necessarily go to great extents to keep alive, but rather let nature takes its course.

I won't say Alaskans are unkind, backward, rigid, or unforgiving.  That is not the case, but, there is not a lot of fluff - no interest in it.  There is an attractive, inspiring side to appreciating nature and one's ability to live on little.  And sometimes, this willingness to live at a minimal leads to no more than sub-standard housing conditions.  And a person who has lived in a dry cabin for much of his or her life may not perceive a home with crowded sleeping quarters, plastic over the windows, and peeling paint as inadequate.

But, the inspirational acts by those who leave a small footprint while creating beauty, offering deep and long lasting relationships, and living out acts of kindness are the type of person who honor as representing the spirit of Alaska.  During the running of the Yukon Quest this year, several mushers and followers of the race recalled Carl Cochrane who offered hospitality to mushers needing to rest near his place.  Carl lived in his cabin along Birch Creek for many years.  He was a good carpenter, good friend, and an artist.  When he sickened last spring, he was encouraged to seek medical help and live with others.  He refused and was found in his cabin by a friend who came to check on him.  He chose to let nature takes its course and breathed his last in the home he loved.  The Sourdough and the way he chose to die typifies Alaskan's attitudes toward aging and dying.

While this is not a photo of Carl's cabin, the 40 Mile cabin near Dawson is typical of the way Bush residents in both Canada and Alaska live.  It is a part of the Yukon Quest Photo Stream, 2012.

Sebastian Schnuelle was told by a resident of 40 mile, Sebastian Jones, that his cabin flooded during the ice jam that wiped out Eagle Village down river in 2009.  Schnuelle noted that the cabin was 20 feet above the current river level.