Recent Posts
The ExploreNorth Blog
Return To Blog Listing
The writer is a resident of Canada's Yukon Territory with a passion for Exploring the North. This blog is one of the vehicles used to share that passion through words and images.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'personal notes'
Please Take Your $$ and Go Away
I’ve been dealing with the same tire shop in Whitehorse for over 15 years. I’m a pretty low-maintenance customer - they’ve always given me good advice, good deals and good service, and I don’t waste their time. Two weeks ago, ...
Renovations - Laying the Hardwood Floor
I’m in the middle of the next major step in our renovation - laying several hundred square feet of walnut hardwood. We got a good deal on what we needed almost a year ago and it’s been stashed in various places around the house since then...
Coward, or just no respect for Life?
This is a note to the person driving the silver SUV that ran over a little brown dog at Wolf Creek at about 5:30 last night. You are pond scum. While the little guy did run into your path, you made zero attempt to avoid him and then knowing full well...
A Look at Trust
Monty used to dislike our very affectionate male cat, Latimer, but year after year Latimer kept pushing the boundaries that Monty tried to set. Occasionally Latimer pushed too far and got warned with a snarl but it never dissuaded him for long. On Sa...
Free Woodworking Plans
One of the resources I keep handy for my ever-growing “to-do” list is the Web site for free woodworking plans at Google. These have been created using the very cool Google Sketchup program. I haven’t actually found time to use any o...
The Luckiest Guy in the World - That’d be Me
No, I didn’t win the lottery, but what I have received is even better than cash. I’m now seizure free with no drugs, despite the fact that the neurologist said it was not going to happen. He was going to take me off the dilantin in 6 mont...
Seizure Alert Dogs
Back in the Fall of 2003 I met a strikingly handsome but “thrown-away” husky named Monty at the Whitehorse shelter, and we adopted each other. He had a very, very difficult time as a youngster (you can read his story at Everything Husky),...
One Day at a Time
I began getting emails and phone calls a couple of days ago asking if I was okay, as I’d dropped off the face of cyberspace, with no blog entries and emails unanswered. The comments on yesterday’s explanation of what’s going on (and...
The Value of Perspective
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had an extremely hard time seeing my glass as half full. I haven’t paid much attention to the news, but have just been reading about the horrific wildfires in Australia and now feel pretty damn lucky. So...
Hospice Yukon & the Yukon Quest
This year, for the first time in several years, I’ll be home for the start of the Yukon Quest on February 14th so Cathy and I can both go to it (oh yeah, I’ll be home for Valentine’s Day too ). In this year’s Quest, my frien...
Winter is Back …….. *sigh*
Well, we knew it couldn’t last, but Spring in January sure felt good (even the misty rain yesterday morning did!). With 4 inches of new snow and a north wind last night, though, this is what it looked like as Cathy headed off to work a few minu...
Huskies - Cat Killers!
“Everybody knows” that huskies are cat killers. Somebody forgot to tell Latimer and Kayla apparently - I turned around in the computer chair a few minutes ago and saw this:...
The Gift
We have the most incredibly beautiful morning you can imagine right now. Cathy and I were out in the hot tub at 7:00, and it’s a full moon in a clear sky (sunrise is at 10:03 today), -26° C (-15° F), with the Big Dipper directly overh...
Build Your Own Ski Rack
I was getting tired of just sticking our skis into a snowbank, but couldn’t handle the price of ski racks, so built my own this morning. Total time in the shop was 50 minutes and total cost was zero (it was built entirely with scrap wood). I fo...
A Warm Spell for Xmas Light Hanging
The warm spell we’ve got happening right now seemed like a good time to put our first Christmas lights up on the house. “Warm” is relative, though - it’s been getting up to about -10°C, which still makes for cold fingers ...
A Kitchen Renovation Begins
I actually enjoy the creative process of house renovations, and this morning started a complete rebuild of the kitchen in one of our rental properties. From this angle it doesn’t look like a bad kitchen, but it’s quite worn out. This is t...
Fall Colours in the Yukon
Sorry, the reds, yellows and oranges you were hoping for dropped onto the ground many weeks ago. The photo below was shot on the way home from Whitehorse at noon today. The colours of Fall are now Black and White. I fired up my SAD (Seasonal Af...
The Recession - a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The more people read articles like Recession fears leave markets battered, the surer the guarantee that a recession is indeed imminent. The markets are being driven by fear, which is largely being driven by the media. It’s just like the paranoi...
Protecting Carcross Beach - and those who love it
The South Klondike Local Advisory Council (SKLAC) hosted a meeting in Carcross last night, to further assess public support for rezoning part of the beach of Lake Bennett. The rezoning, taking the beach from “Hinterland” to “Hinterl...
Pre-Winter Maintenance
With the temperature forecast to dive to far-below-normal in the next few days, much of yesterday was spent doing some pre-winter maintenance around the house. The “must-do” job was the semi-annual water change and cleaning of the h...
Let it Snow, Let it Freeze!
Winter can come now - I have 2 years’ worth of firewood in the yard, one year stacked and dry, and both cars are in the slightly-heated garage. The power outages that are becoming a regular occurrence are a minor nuisance, but the house will st...
I Don’t Read Enough
Stated more accurately, I don’t read properly anymore. Like many people with busy lives, I read snippets of information rather than complete articles - on the Web mostly. I seldom buy newspapers anymore, and often they sit on the table for days...
Where Wealthy Men Meet Beautiful Women
The modern world is full of paradoxical situations, and sex and dating is one of the oddest. In North America and Europe in particular, sex in the media is getting more and more blatant - the new TV series Californication being one of the best exampl...
It’s Not Working…
To all my friends who send me ‘best wishes’, chain letters, ‘angel’ letters or other promises of good luck if I forward something, NONE OF THAT SHIT IS WORKING! Could you please just send money, alcohol, chocolate or gasoline ...
Heavy Snow and Satellite TV
Yesterday we just got a few flakes of snow, but last night it came down heavy and wet for a while starting at about 7:00. I had never heard that heavy, wet snow could kill satellite TV reception, but when we totally lost the HD channels and then the ...
Deceiving Visitors
With the Internet and the proliferation of guide book publishing in the modern world, it’s tougher than it used to be to deceive visitors. To some degree, people have the ability to research to see if claims about certain visitor services and a...
Granger Executive Home For Rent
For rent, the upper suite of our executive duplex in Granger (29 Wilson Drive). It has 1300 square feet, 2 bedrooms plus den, extensively renovated since Feb./2005. No smoking and no pets. Huge fenced yard, 2-car garage. $1,500 per month plus utiliti...
