When I arrived home from the book tour in 2008, a bull, left by the rancher when he rounded up his range cows in the fall, had died not far from the cabin. (I will spare you the picture of that!) The dogs were in the habit of snacking on it, as were coyotes, wolves and a cougar. The coyotes and wolves sang frequently, the cougar left large, round tracks. It was a low-snow winter (I never even had to plough the road) but often very cold and on the 40 below nights I had the dogs inside.

Nahanni, the white sled dog I got the year before, had taken to roaming - sometimes she would be out all night. She hated to be tied; as there was no livestock across the river I often left her free. One morning, at the very first hint of daylight, Badger (the only dog inside) asked to go out. Next thing he was barking furiously then tore into the porch and growled and barked and snarled like one demented. I squeezed past him and, sitting on the barely discernible snow between the cabin and the outhouse, was the cougar. Nahanni never returned; some days later Badger found an isolated small bone from a fresh kill - when I thawed the snow off it, there was a lump of white fur at the end. Poor Nahanni.

This meant I was now looking for another dog. And into my life came another rescued stray, Harry.

The next big event was when I put up my mountain business for sale in the spring. I have been thinking of it for some time, especially since I have started to develop my winter place. With the recession and the fact that it is a fairly specialized business I was not expecting a sale all that quickly: many resorts in Nimpo Lake have been on the market for years. Like so many of you, I wish to retire and give myself a bit more freedom in the summer. I want to explore other mountain ranges when the flowers are blooming. So Nuk Tessli is at present listed on a For Sale By Owner site. If you want to see the specs, go to http://www.fsbo.com/121316 . I have had three fairly interested enquiries, all of which have come to nothing, and several that were non-suitable, the best of which was: "Do you think it will make a good retirement home for cats and dogs?"

At Ginty Creek I own two properties. I was toying with the idea that I would sell one to get money to have someone build my house. But as I wandered around during the winter I realized I did not want neighbours so close (actually a kilometre away) so once again I am doing my own construction. (I cannot believe the number of times I have said "NEVER AGAIN!" This will be my 6th dwelling! I had some major help with the basement, though. It was mid May before an excavator could start the work - even so, parts of the ground were still frozen. I wanted to have a poured concrete basement with insulated polystyrene block walls. I hired a local carpenter to choreograph this and was also blessed with help from wwoofers and friends.

I needed to get the basement covered before I went into the mountains for the summer; also the carpenter had a deadline as he was a bear hunting guide and the spring hunt was imminent. I therefore had to have the concrete hauled before the road restrictions went off; as it had been so cold the ground had been frozen deeply and the restrictions were kept on late. This meant that the concrete trucks could not carry full loads so I needed four vehicles instead of three and each cost $800 just for the road time let alone the pouring time and the concrete. Things aint cheap on the Chilcotin. The ice went out at Nuk Tessli around the 25th May and I would normally have gone into the mountains then but I still needed to get the basement covered and that was finally finished on the 5th June, thanks to two friends' timely visit.

Thus I flew into the mountains much later than usual, and only a few days before my first visitors. That was the start of a crazy summer. I never had a single day to myself for the whole season. With the horrific exception of the first week of August.

After the very low snow year we had a hot, dry spring and a very hot, dry summer. Fires sprung up all over the Chilcotin, often closing the road to Bella Coola, and on the 31st July a major thunderstorm passed directly overhead. It started off many more fires, and as the wind got up on the afternoon of the 1st August I could see a growing column of smoke directly between me and Mount Monarch. I was able to report it by the internet and a shaky radiophone connection; within a couple of hours a fire crew arrived by helicopter and told me that the fire, although it was still small, was expanding fast and, because it was directly upwind from Nuk Tessli, with no alpine area or large lake in the way, it was almost certain to reach the cabins within two days. I had seen that kind of fire power in 2004 and knew very well how fast it could travel. There was nothing for it but to pack up and leave at once.

So I was evacuated for 9 days and was, at last, alone, but it was hardly a restful time as the air was full of smoke and there were fires everywhere. At one point, Highway 20 to Bella Coola was closed in 4 places. Suffice it to say, Nuk Tessli survived again but of course I lost income and the remaining season was a real strain. It was at this time that the most serious potential buyer for the hiking business backed out..... For the full story of this fire, see http://www.nuktessli.ca/2009-fire.html

As soon as I was out of the mountains in the fall, Britta, a wwoofer from Germany, arrived. She was very good at peeling!

She helped me start to erect the walls of my new house.

Not long afterwards, a woman called Wendy Wong wrote to me expressing a desire to live in the bush and she asked me advice on cabin building. I told her if she could get to me within the next couple of weeks she could learn a lot about lifting logs. She was with us for five hectic days. I also enlisted the help of Aileen, a local logger very experienced with a chainsaw. I had bought a load of lumber from a sawmill near Williams Lake and the four of us used ropes wrapped double around the big beams to lift them in place. (Britta on the left, Aileen in the middle, Wendy on the right). The double wrapping, when it is done correctly, makes the log act as its own pulley so makes the load a bit easier.

Wendy had left by the time we raised the ridge pole.  It was a really heavy brute.  It took two days to raise it.

Shortly after Britta first came to Ginty Creek, the temperature peaked at +32C.  On this day, less than two weeks later, it was -16C!

Britta had to go back to school (where she is studying fine furniture-making) and an ex-wwoofer, Sarah, came to take her place.  At 21 years old, Sarah was already a very proficient carpenter.

Aileen came again to help put up the metal

And two days after I left for my book tour, the girls put in the last screw. In five weeks, without any heavy machinery, five women had constructed a 1,000 square foot building. It was not planned that way, I would have been perfectly happy with a man's help, but I think we were all quite proud of ourselves to have a women-only building.

But now I have run out of money. Thanks to the BC Premier's new policy of withdrawing grants from libraries (and health, and schools) to pay for the Olympics, my book tour barely paid for itself. I would have been just as well off staying at home for that month and doing something constructive. Sarah house- and dog-sat for me while I was away, and also did most of the framing of the interior of the building. Fortunately she enjoyed being snowed in - there was a total of 19" on the ground at one point, and I had to get the road ploughed before I could get home. I haven't had the bill for that yet and it is supposed to snow again before the weekend.....

I will not be able to do much to the new house until the spring. Finances apart, it is now too cold to work efficiently most of the time, and the road up there is not ploughed so no more materials can be delivered until it is drivable again. This will be the perfect winter to write my next book: "Ginty's Ghost" (the story of Ginty Paul, the eccentric spinster who previously lived here, and my own endeavours to produce my ABSOLUTELY FINAL home).

In the meantime I can visit my new house, imagine glass in the windows and me sitting behind it, and dream.....

 

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