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Ach it’ll be reet

May 2017 - April 2018
A 332-day adventure by Mandee Read more
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  • MandeeAch it’ll be reet
    Day 44

    Dawson city, Yukon

    July 11, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Our endless conundrum when travelling has been to what extent we book in advance. Do we plan and avoid the of risk being stranded somewhere without transport or accommodation or do we wing it and find the best places along the way? Dawson City was one of those mistakes. We spent too long in Fairbanks and only found out when we were there that Dawson City had more to offer! But we enjoyed our 1 night there - watched the tourists line up for the sour toe cocktail (yes, you literally drink a shot with a human toe in it, being super careful not to get the toe in your mouth - not only is it A TOE, but it's also being slobbered on by over 100,000 people apparently..). Suffice to say we didn't try it. Had a few drinks in Bombay Peggy's - nice atmosphere and great beer!Read more

  • MandeeAch it’ll be reet
    Day 48

    Sow's ear

    July 15, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    We arrived at Cory and Jodi's farm and we brought the beautiful weather with us. The farm was amazing and we had our own little scamp caravan for a couple of weeks. We got into lots of things here from feeding the animals to cutting trees down and clearing areas for the new duck pond and the mega greenhouse going up (engineered by the unflappable Gary who I think we all want to be when we grow up,!). Cory and Jodi are a great couple who made us feel very welcome and from very early on it was apparent how hard they both worked. Cory being a pilot and Jodi a librarian, both having to juggle this with what appeared to be a growing farm. We looked on them as super human beings! It was great to work with the animals (pigs, ducks and hens). They had two pets, Oscar the faithful, but naughty 'guard' dog and the lazy cat, Woozel. One of the funniest things, was how Oscar eyed up Woozel the cat. For six years he has stared at Woozel with knife and fork eyes.. Jodi says he's confused why they pet and feed a huge fluffy ground squirrel! You had to be there, but unusual and hilarious. The farm sits overlooking Lake Laberge and we had some stunning dawn and dusk views. Starting to get dark a little for the first time since we arrived! Near the end of our visit we camped out in the woods on a bluff, listening to coyotes and having on one occasion something sniffing my (Andy) head through the tent. We also met Elisa, Heleen and Dion here who were all, also travelling Canada and the world. A full month of hard physical work for us which is new for Madeleine, but we've both really enjoyed it, learnt new things (so much from Cory and Jodi who are experts in horticulture, biology, construction, solar, languages, accents... the list goes on) and had time to reflect on what we want from our life back in the UK. Seeing how Jodi and Cory live off the land and are self sustaining has been inspirational and we have so many ideas of what we now want to build and grow back in the UK. And Cory has already been volunteered to build our strawbale house, although this might be the first he hears about it...Read more

  • MandeeAch it’ll be reet
    Day 68

    Whitehorse, Yukon

    August 4, 2017 in Canada ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    So we left our tent in the woods at the farm and booked an airb&b in Whitehorse for a Saturday and Monday. On Sunday we would travel back to the farm for our group farewell of Sow's ear and one more night in the tent. Whitehorse is situated on a very fast part of the Yukon river and is the biggest town in the Yukon - 32,000 or so people live in the Yukon and 27,000 of those are in Whitehorse! It's a lovely town with quite a lot going on given how remote it is relatively. We visited the Beringia museum which was fascinating (although I'd give the transport museum a miss..), the Canada Games centre which has an AMAZING pool, plenty of lakes around the town which are beautiful to swim in and even played piano at the salmon run thanks to one of Cory and Jodi's friends who's installed public pianos!
    We ended our visit on a high with two great leaving meals, one at the farm and another at the Rib and Salmon in town to say goodbye to Gary and his wife Bev. We're sorry to have to leave the Yukon!    Read more

  • MandeeAch it’ll be reet
    Day 73

    Madeline Lake, NWT

    August 9, 2017 in Canada ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    And so we arrive at our second placement - just a short plane ride over to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. We purposefully picked a few places up north that were quite remote - it's a part of Canada we were really keen to visit, but it's not that easy to do on the cheap. Wwoofing seemed like a good option. Although Yellowknife itself is fairly isolated and remote, it's big enough that we didn't feel at all isolated even out of town on Madeline Lake.

    Our host, France, lives 25km out of Yellowknife on the road to nowhere in the summer, but extends to an iceroad in winter! Her farm is immediately impressive - up here, soil is hard to come by so all the beds are contained and artificial with a lot of effort going into creating good soil for growing. Which France and Marie (her business partner) do in abundance! We couldn't even count the number of beds or types of produce they're growing, but the whole thing took the two of us 3 hours to water everyday if that gives you an idea of the scale!

    France and Marie sell their wares (produce, cheese, baked goods) at the Yellowknife Farmer's Market once a week. We were parachuted right into the market as soon as we stepped off the plane and to say we were impressed is an understatement! It's a huge affair with 30-40 stalls all selling a wide wide variety of foods. It's a really popular social event too and hundreds of people turn up each week. France and Marie have a queue every week at least 10 minutes before the starter bell goes and there can be some tension in the queue as to who gets the beautiful Romanesco! France is currently the president of the market and she founded it 5 years ago amid conversations about food security in NWT. She's a great activist and well known figure in Yellowknife! We even met someone in the Rockies who knew her!

    We learnt a hell of a lot from France and Marie about growing and have taken plenty of ideas for ourselves. Marie has signed up along with Cory to come and set up our farm for us when we get back to the UK :) We were fortunate to be there when all the produce was reaching full growth and we really really enjoyed picking and preparing the produce for market. But I think we have a long road ahead of us before our growing can match theirs!    Read more

  • MandeeAch it’ll be reet
    Day 77

    Yellowknife, NWT

    August 13, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Yellowknife has not had the greatest recommendations from most people we spoke to before we arrived. The Northwest Territories has rave reviews, but not so much its provincial capital. It's pretty industrial, being built around the mining industry, but definitely has its charm. The farmer's market is a real hub of activity, the bars and restaurants are plentiful, have a good atmosphere and serve great beer and food. They even have a pretty big local baseball scene - Marie being the star player :)
    It also has a great health service which we had the unfortunate opportunity to sample when Maddie went in for emergency surgery to remove some painful ovarian cysts. It could have been a very scary time in terms of health and expense (we did think it might be the end of our trip a couple of times), but the care we received was just fantastic. Get sick in Yellowknife everyone!
    It's also apparently one of the best spots to view the northern lights which we didn't know before we got here! Even in August, we saw it several times very clearly! It's a place that transforms in the winter - the lakes completely freeze (including Great Slave I think which is the size of the south east of England!) opening up the iceroads and tons of winter sports! Would love to come back in March which is the party month apparently. It's cold, but not as inhospitable as people think. Although I'm sure that's a secret Yellowknifers want to keep to themselves!
    It has its fair share of wildlife.. we were visited by a few bears whilst at Madeline Lake who were after France's compost, came too close to a howling coyote on the highway at 1am, watched the eagle's, ospreys and beavers on the lake, got woken up a rowdy family of lynx and heard tales of wolf packs terrorising and befriending the dogs!
    One very sinister aspect to the area is the legacy the huge gold mine has left - tons of poisonous arsenic spewed into the atmosphere, polluting the lakes. It's an incredibly sad story which has a lasting legacy. Millions of tons of arsenic are being contained below ground at great expense. If it ever leaks out, best case scenario it makes the area uninhabitable, worst case.. well there's enough to kill every human on the planet several times over. Arsenic will never decay either so it's here to stay. For ever and ever and ever...
    But it's pretty safe right now and perfectly fine for a visit! Forget freezing nights watching a cloudy sky in Iceland - get to Yellowknife!    Read more

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