Wood Yearning Life Below Zero

2m read

·Nov 11, 2024

Coming with me, getting a boat, dog. I'm gonna go down river. I'm gonna go get firewood, and I'm gonna take my chainsaw. I'm gonna hunt and kill trees, and I'm gonna come back here with some tree flash. Come on, good girl.

The hailstones spend their summer in Kowalik, gathering resources for the months ahead. Harvesting firewood is essential to providing camp with heat, drinking water, and food preservation. Logs here come from about 20-25 miles upriver, and by the time they get down here, it takes them a few years. This what I call a mighty fine log. This is a good dry piece of knotty twisted wood that has really no carving value, no splitting value. If you split it, it wouldn't split and make two halves; it wouldn't make a big twist like a rifle barrel. So this is gonna be firewood.

My chainsaw fired up! We need firewood all the time to keep ourselves warm, dry ourselves out, because we've got caribou to dry up. Pretty soon, there's gonna be seals, and skins and oil to put away, and whatever else we gather on a half-caf. Firewood is just part of the process. The only time the girls ever take any notice of my firewood-getting abilities is when there is no wood. Then they remember!

Come on, dog, join me! Some nice-looking logs you have there. Can't have too much firewood. My next step is putting up a meat rack. Around here, they call it mini something, and we need a place where you can hang meat up off the ground, away from the dogs. We're not to tie the dogs up soon and keep the wind and the breeze on them and the flies off. Let's just get her done.

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