The Long Snowy Road

So I had arrived in Haines, Alaska. I was both nervous and excited, as my new life was officially beginning at this point. Joining the caravan of cars off the ferry, I headed into town, which was located approximately seven miles from the ferry terminal.

I had arrived on a crystal clear day. The snow sparkled against the bright blue sky. Everything was pure and pristine. It was also very cold. I had been smart to make that expensive Kohl's purchase--a long, two-layer puff coat. I may have looked like a marshmallow, but I felt toasty warm, bundled in my downy layers.

The town didn't look like much as I pulled into it. I had committed the town map to memory, so I had no trouble at all finding Market Market. Located on a corner, it stood out as one of the only food shops in town. I made a quick call to Tamsen to tell her I had made it into town. She was at the homestead, 26 miles down the highway at Mosquito Lake. I told her I'd stock up on some provisions before making the drive. She sounded excited that I had made it off the ferry and was on my way to see her. Good old Tamsen. Without her, I never would have ended up in this remote place.

First Impressions

Having exchanged correspondence with the owners of Market Market for over a month, I thought they'd be thrilled to see that I had arrived. Nobody really paid attention to me as I stepped into the cafe/shop. This was unusual. As I had been in customer service for so many years, I'm used to the standard eye-contact and greeting from workers to a customer when they walk through the door. But the workers at the deli counter just kind of ignored me. Finally, some shaggy-haired guy greeted me. He worked in the liquor section. I fell into conversation with him, telling him I'd be working there. I was full of bubbliness, as I was looking at this experience as a real adventure. I couldn't have been more happy to be in Haines. "Be careful," the guy told me. "You might like it so much, you'll decide to stay here." The guy's name was Ashley--the first decent person I met in this town.

The manager, on the other hand, didn't seem so open to talking. A short, stocky woman with glasses and purple hair--she looked cool and quirky, but she was obviously busy. "I made it!" I pretty much heralded when she stepped up to the counter. Her response? "Oh...I see," almost confused, with what seemed like a forced smile. I guess it was kind of a let down after that enormous buildup. Not everyone was sharing my enthusiasm of being there. Little did I know at the time the turn-around rate at Mountain Market, and how new workers are a common occurrence. That lack of enthusiasm kind of served as a warning though--Sarah, you're no longer in the Midwest. Here, the people were hardened.

Another thing I learned from my first experience at Mountain Market--prices are high in Alaska. I had somehow prepared myself for this. I mean, I knew I wouldn't be popping into the nearest Walmart (especially seen as how the nearest Walmart was over a hundred miles away). I also knew that Haines received freight from barges which traveled up from Bellingham, Washington. So yes, everything was going to be a little higher priced than say, something you'd pick up from a shop in Northern Illinois. I knew this, and still I was unprepared. My grocery list was small, but came to over $30. Yikes. I guess it was good that I'd be working at food place where at least I'd get a discount. $2 for apple? An organic apple, yes, but still--$2? Yowza.

As I pulled out of Mountain Market, I traveled a few blocks up the highway and came to a 2-pump gas station. An attendant came out and sought to fill up my tank, but I had already started. I'm not used to having attendants pump my gas, and it kind of threw me for a loop. I felt kind of useless, standing there, so I made conversation with the guy. It was disheartening to find that the price of gas was over $5 a gallon. This is a staggering price compared to the Midwest, where it was around $3 a gallon. With all the oil being pumped out of the North Slope of Alaska, you would think that gas would be cheap in the state it comes from. Well, this clearly wasn't the case. As I was to find out, even though the oil is pumped in Alaska, it has to be sent down to the Lower 48 to be refined. Then it gets shipped back up to Alaska. It doesn't make much sense, but there you have it. At least Alaskans benefit from the PFD--the Permanent Fund Dividend--the payout from oil production. This is dispersed equally to every Alaskan each year, sometimes as high as $2000 at a time. This provides a nice offset for the high cost of living (though with oil prices plummeting, and Alaska in a financial crisis, the PFD may be a thing of the past).

Past the gas station, the road heads out of town. The name of the road is Haines Highway, and from the town of Haines, it extends 40 miles to Canadian border, and then onward to the Yukon and the great beyond. Mosquito Lakes (a small community) lies 13 miles shy of the Canadian border. Closer to Canada than to Haines, I knew where I'd be staying would be the furthest of civilization I'd ever been.

I immediately got the sense of the wild while heading down the road. Haines Highway follows the Chilkat River, a braided river running thick with glacial silt. A line of mountains towers over the side of the road that doesn't hug the river. There isn't a lot of wiggle room on either side of the road--it's pretty much mountains and river, with a sliver of road in between. I saw that very few houses were interspersed with dense forest which blanketed the mountain sides. The Chilkat Valley is very wide, as the river has widened it considerably over time. On the other side of the river stretched a vast wilderness, edged with even higher peaks. Just beyond those peaks, as the eagle flies, is Glacier Bay National Park.

The highway read 55 mph, but it was hard to even go that fast, as I rounded sharp curves. Thankfully I had much of the road to myself. The few cars that did come my way had drivers which waved at me. This was something new to me. I've never lived in a community where everyone waves to each other. I came to love this about Haines--the waves and the smiles, with everyone assuming that every person was a neighbor.

At around Mile 20 (how distance is measured on Alaska roads), I came across my first eagle. Perched high in a tree, he served as a signal that I had entered Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.  I had no idea what I was in store for. I nearly lost my shit just seeing that first eagle, I nearly crashed the car. I started laughing crazily when I came to tree after tree of them, lining the river. So many of them, just chilling in trees--I don't know how I kept the car on the road. Thankfully there were a few pull-outs for drivers like me that were overwhelmed by the sight of so many eagles at once.

Haines boasts the world's highest population of bald eagles. Though they flock to Haines at all times of the year, they're especially populous in the winter months, when other Alaskan rivers freeze over. Because there's a section of the Chilkat River which is fed by warm underground springs, it doesn't freeze, and therefore salmon spawn and die, leaving plentiful food for winged creatures. Where there's salmon, there's wildlife--that's the general rule in Alaska. And the stretch of the river between Mile 18 and Mile 24 is a haven for these bald eagles, who hang out in the trees, often ten to a tree.

It was hard to process that this was going to be my every day scenery. For real, I'd be driving this highway back and forth between town and Tamsen's each day. I'd be seeing this river, these mountains, these eagles--with almost no traffic! I wanted a place that was different from Northern Illinois and Norther England; I guess I got it!

The road, with all the beauty it revealed, was also daunting to drive. Though it seemed well-maintained, it was long and windy, with few houses alongside it. You got the feeling while driving it, that you could go off into the river or crash into a cliff if you took a curve too fast. Also, there were signs for avalanche zones--something to bear in mind. I always held my breath while driving through these areas, especially after a fresh snow. There was evidence all around of rock slides and downed trees. The idea was never far from my mind that Alaska could very easily kill me if it wanted to.

But Alaska rewarded me more than it ever scared me. Even on that first drive, the reward of the scenery was well worth any of the apprehension I felt in driving through a vast, dangerous landscape. Though the land had a somewhat humbling effect on me, it also empowered me. I had conquered the long drive to Alaska, and now I was going to make it in Alaska.

The Homestead

Past the Tlingit community of Klukwan, and a bridge over a rushing tributary of the Chilkat River, the valley narrows considerably. There's a different feel to this part of the river, as if you're climbing towards something. In fact, the road is climbing towards the Chilkat Pass, just miles past the Canadian border. The coast is left far behind, the trees close in, and you get the feeling that you're deep in wilderness. The snow is deeper than it is in town. This makes sense, as the further away from the coast, the more difference there is in climate. Along the coast is a more moderate system, with less range in temperatures and more rain; further inland, there's more of a range and less rain moving over the mountains. Ok, this is the weather geek in me, but I thought these changes over a small distance were pretty cool. Also, many micro-climates exist along the Haines Highway, with pockets of calm, and pockets of bad weather. To experience all this along one road is pretty damn cool.

But I wasn't to know all this while driving to Tamsen's for the first time. I just let the landscape wash over me, everything larger than life. I came across the sign for Mosquito Lake, and I pulled off onto a road. There to greet me at the entrance of Mosquito Lake Road was a rusted bus--Chris McCandless style. I found this fitting, as Chris and I were both McCandless fans; his ideologies and love of nature had influenced our decision to move to Alaska (Chris's blog Bus 142 is an overt tribute to McCandless, celebrating wanderlust). Of course, this wasn't the Chris McCandless bus (that bus is still on the Stampede Trail outside of Healy), but the idea that buses can be used for something other than public transport is very much an Alaskan concept.

Just before I reached Tamsen's, two fierce-looking dogs jumped in front of my car, barking and circling. Fluffy, big brutes, they looked like sled dogs to me. Though I didn't see them as real threats, I was thrown by the idea of dogs left to their own devices. I come from strict-rule doggy land, where it's illegal to have dogs off leashes, unless they're in designated off-leash areas. Already I was sensing that Alaska was very much "we make our own rules" territory. This was awesome. Never having been a big fan of "The Man," I knew I could breathe a bit easier in this part of America. Yes, people had guns here, but they used them to hunt, and perhaps to even to take justice into their own hands, but that was fine by me. After living in the nanny state of Britain for years, and experiencing the liberal, constantly-offended, white-guilt, side of America for so long, some Ted Nugent types were a welcome change. See--I'm open-minded!

Tamsen's house wasn't far down the road. I recognized it instantly from Google Street View. Split-level and red-sided, it stood out brightly against the snow. The driveway was more of a parking lot, as it shared space with the country store next door. Thankfully it had been plowed, and I was able to cruise right in, parking behind another Subaru (Subarus are king in Alaska). Tamsen met me out on the porch and we embraced, happy to see each other in the flesh after all this time.

A big, sturdy woman, Tamsen looked every inch an outdoors woman. Even though she worked two jobs in town (a baker at Mountain Market, and a dispatcher at the police department), she lived as self-sufficiently as she could. Not completely off the grid, she still chopped her own wood, milked goats, raised chickens and geese, and made food completely from scratch. She had a deal with one of the grocer's in town, where they gave her all their outdated produce. This was both a good and bad thing, I was to find out, especially as I stepped into her abode. The place smelled of rotting fruit and veg, and the boxes were everywhere. It threw me a little bit, but then I realized why Tamsen had been requesting helpers. This was a place where nothing went to waste. Indeed, Tamsen informed me that there was no garbage pickup in Mosquito Lake (and in most of Haines, for that matter) so residents had to take their own garbage to the dump. For Tamsen, this was event only happened twice a year. By far, every scrape of garbage was either made useful or composted out in the backyard. I admired this--how resourceful. I knew I'd be learning a lot from Tamsen in the way of self-sufficiency.

I was the first helper to arrive, she informed me. I wasn't sure what she meant by this, as I had believed I'd be the only one. Oh no, there were two more helpers on the way: a young American girl named Irene, and a young Canadian guy named Jared. This news left me speechless; I was led to believe that it would be just me and Tamsen. Having grown up in a house where personal space was sacred, communal living wasn't exactly my thing. At least I was given the loft--the upstairs portion of the house. This space was generous, and truly felt like a haven away from the cluttered downstairs. Tamsen had gone to lengths to clean this portion of the house, and I truly appreciated this. I made myself at home, lugging bags and boxes through the door and up the stairs, figuring this would be my home for some time. I had originally planned to stay with Tamsen for six months. This would give me until April. Because I had already secured a full-time job, I'd only be helping her on my off time, but I'd be making up the difference with rent. It seemed a perfect arrangement until I knew what I wanted to do--to stay in Alaska or to travel down south. This also gave me time to see what was going on with Chris. It was still up in the air whether or not he was getting his Green Card. There was constant anxiety about that issue.

As I was getting settled in, a visitor came to call. One of Tamsen's friends--Randy, a true mountain man. He looked like something off the Discovery channel, on one of those real-life Alaska shows (which are superfluous, thanks to policies put down by Sarah Palin, encouraging networks to come to Alaska to film). Randy took a seat by the fire--by that I mean the woodstove, which was the only real source of heating at Tamsen's. Pulling up a chair--a log, actually--I listened to Randy's stories. He was the real deal, with his long beard and Mad Max-style truck with a beast of a dog the in back. I wasn't sure if he was there to make conversation with Tamsen, or if he had been summoned to woo me with Alaskan tales. I was visibly impressed by this guy, as he regaled tales of living off the land and his close brushes with nature. What especially got my attention was his mention of White Fang, the Disney movie rendition of Jack London's tale. Starring Ethan Hawk, it had been shot here in Haines. Randy had played a large part in the filming process. Sets from the film had been saved and used to set up a makeshift town--Dalton City--on the outskirts of town. I had only seen the movie once before, but my interest in the story had been renewed. This definitely was in Jack London territory. I hadn't seen much of Haines, just the highway really, but was looking forward to seeing so much more.

That night when I went to bed, feeling like I was living in a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. The heat from the woodstove failed to reach the heights of the loft, so I went to bed with a hot water bottle. I had changed in front of the uncurtained window--"Don't worry, Tamsen had told me, "Nobody can see you." The dark panes of glass stared at me. Beyond them were miles and miles of spruce and fir trees, and mountain peaks. I wondered if the Northern Lights would be out, but I was too tired to investigate. I crawled beneath the quilts and curled up with the hot water bottle, trying to keep the cold at bay.

In the morning, I woke up with a bus out in the driveway, one of those short yellow ones. Another of Tamsen's friends had come to call. This one was a bus driver, and the wife of the police chief in town. As I got my breakfast ready, I listened to more tales. These ones dealt with wildlife in Alaska, and quite frankly, they scared the crap out of me. Haines not only had brown bears, but moose. And the moose were all angry as hell, according to this women. They were big enough to take a bus down. I was advised that if I ever came across one in the road, to wait until it passed. A vehicle would only enrage them, and they'd kick and butt, toppling the vehicle over. If you were on foot, too, they'd chase you down. I was advised to run in zig-zags and hide behind a tree if this ever happened. I had never been afraid of these massive, clumsily-looking beasts before, but after some of those stories, I was now seeing Bullwinkle in a different light. I seriously wondered if I'd ever be able to hike in Alaska with the threat of all these death machines on the prowl. Most people hike with guns, I was told. Well that's just great, I thought. All this land to explore, and I had to explore it with fear. It didn't seem fair.

After Tamsen's friend left, I learned the ropes of life on an Alaskan's homestead. Warmth was primary, that much was clear. I learned how to build a fire and keep it going. As Tamsen worked five nights a week as a dispatcher, it would be up to me to rise in the night to rekindle the fire. At the time, I knew that would be a problem, I'm not one to rise various times in the middle of night, especially when I'm snug under the covers. I also had to learn how to chop wood--a definite first for me. Having never held an ax before, I felt out of my depth as I swung away, picturing me amputating a leg. It turned out that I was good at splitting wood, as long as there was a wedge in the log, but when it came to the actually chopping, I was crap. Good thing Jared was coming.

In the kitchen, Tamsen showed me how to go through the various boxes of produce, separating the bad stuff from the really bad. Then we took the moderately bad stuff out into the backyard to the goats. Cheeky creatures, they seemed genuinely happy to munch away on anything. Off to the side of the yard was a shed in which the ducks and goose lived. None of them wanted much to do with us, though we threw rotten veg in their direction. Since I was a very little girl, and being chased by a goose at a resort in upstate New York, I've always had an unhealthy fear of these winged creatures.

With the goats, the geese, the ducks, and Tamsen's three dogs and two cats, it was very much a small farm out on Mosquito Lake Road. I was somewhat glad that we were getting two more helpers, as there wasn't much I could do while making that long drive into town for work.

There was also the issue of the bathroom at Tamsen's. At least she had an indoor bathroom with running water (a lot of places don't even have these luxuries in Haines). Because her septic system, wouldn't allow for toilet paper, she had installed a bidet. A state-of-the-art bidet too, I might add. In all my bum-splashing in Asia, I had never encountered a device such as this. With its own remote with various buttons, it would heat water up and aim jets of this heated water in various directions. Though this took some getting used to, I found it quite nice to have hot water spurted up in my bum area. Perhaps I enjoyed this because the bathroom was so cold, just to have some heat was appreciated. Still, you had to dry your bum off with a towel, and those towels added up. That meant laundry needed to be done almost every other day. The new helpers certainly had their work cut out for them.

Having just a few days to adjust to life at Tamsen's, I was scheduled to work at Mountain Market. On that first day, I was due in for work at 6:00 in the morning. Of course, it had snowed overnight, so I had to face the 27 mile drive, not only in the dark, but on an unplowed road. My headlights caught scant tire tracks in the snow, and I tried to follow them, but I was never quite sure where I was on the road. At one point, I saw headlights coming directly at me. A plow! Thank goodness, I could follow it the rest of the way. The only thing was, it was on my side of the road, coming directly at me. I had to swerve around it, risking driving straight into the river. I was shaking. Never having been a fan of driving in snow, this was nerve wracking to the max. I was crawling at 30 mph, with the odd car or SUV passing me. I had risen at 4 in the morning, predicting the drive would take me 40 minutes or so. I had underestimated the time, and on that first day, I was late into work. I was shaken to the core by the impact of this drive. Not only did I have to do this once a day, but twice. This was major stuff. Was I truly badass enough for this?

Tamsen told me to always drive in the center of the road when there was snow. It would help drivivng off into a ditch or the river. Also she told me of times where she couldn't make it home. As there are only three snow plows in the whole borough, sometimes they couldn't keep up with the snow. There were nights when Tamsen would try to get home, but the snow was too deep, so she'd sleep in her car and wait for the plows to come. She told me to always be prepared, to have food, water, and a sleeping bag in my car. And also a shovel. Because of her advise, I always drove with these things in my car, even well after I moved into town.

Communal Life

Irene and Jared arrived in town on the same day. Both in their early 20's, they were both ready to take on life at Tamsen's. Jared was eager to chop wood and Irene was Tamsen's helper in the kitchen. It almost felt strange, me coming home from work, having dinner prepared for me. It was always something interesting that had been rustled up from the dredges of the produce boxes. One thing was for sure, Tamsen was innovative. And she made everything from scratch, even milling her own flour. She had a massive pantry where she stored staples, huge bags of grain, sugar, beans, rice. Her refrigerator was packed full of canisters of goat's milk, which she would either drink or make into butter, cheese, or sometimes, even ice cream. I have never been overly fond of goat's milk, and was put off by the film of milk which covered everything in the fridge. It's to be noted that Tamsen didn't own a microwave. This was actually good, as it challenged our cooking skills. But for someone who just wanted to heat something up after a long day at work, I found my options were limited. Sometimes I wasn't turned on by the food that had been made from scratch, especially because I had seen the before product of rotting fruit and vegetables. Still, this was a kind of living I appreciated, though I found myself longing for comforts and conveniences I had once known.

I'd eat my dinner directly in front of the fire, on the log I had claimed. If I wasn't in front of the woodstove, perched on that fine line between toasty warm and burning, I'd be shivering. Irene and Jared seemed adept at living this lifestyle, as they had been in the Help Exchange program for many months before heading this far north. They seemed willing to endure anything. Irene slept in the small bedroom off of the living room, and Jared slept on the couch. The responsibility fell on them to keep the fire going through the night, but when I rose at 4 in the morning to get ready for work, the fire was almost always out and the air was so cold you could see your breath.

They were quiet, the helpers. Thankfully Tamsen had shelves upon shelves of books to read, so we'd find ourselves many evenings just reading books in front of the fire. There was no TV, though Tamsen did have a radio that she'd turn onto KHNS, the local radio station. Every now and then, a local DJ would do a brilliant show. Classic rock seemed to be the music of preference at Tamsen's, and this provided some background noise, as I was feeling overwhelmed by the silence of my roommates. They didn't seem interested in drinking, or in swapping tales; instead they seemed content to wrap themselves up in blankets and read. Or Jared would go out and chop wood, providing a thump-thump to our evening. Sometimes I would join him, and we'd wordlessly whack away. It was a good way to release energy, and offered variety to those otherwise quiet evenings.

On clear nights, we'd go out onto the road in an attempt to view the Northern Lights. The darkness was absolute, with civilization so far away. We'd stand out on the road, waiting for the sky to start morphing into shapes, listening to the sled dogs howl several houses down (on my first night, I had mistaken them for wolves). One night, the three of us walked a mile or so down Haines Highway, to an overlook at the river. There were massive piles of snow built up, so we climbed them and looked up at the stars. We sung out at the top of our lungs, free of the quiet solitude of the homestead.

Tamsen had said on several occasions that she had seen the aurora driving into town late at night, but those lights eluded me. I thought I may have seen them over the mountains, but often it was the light of the moon glowing off snow. As I often drove home in the evening, when the sun had long gone under, I kept my eyes peeled on the sky. The light was always changing. Sometimes I caught the sunrise while driving into work, with that majestic light shining down on mountain peaks. At times like this, I felt I had arrived in some corner of heaven--the beauty was almost too much to register. I loved that drive. The distance no longer intimidated me. With music blaring and the ever-impressive scenery, I owned that road. Still, I'd find it a relief when making that drive in the morning. I knew as soon as I hit the airport, around Mile 4, that I was safe. The highway was always maintained from that point on, and road was bare. Also, the valley opened up and you could see all the way to Lynn Canal. This was the most majestic of views, that corridor of water leading to the sea. In the morning, the sun would rise between those layers of mountains, hitting the peaks with shafts of light you swore were beamed straight down from heaven.

My drives were the most peaceful parts of my day. The quietness at Tamsen's was confining, as I couldn't laugh and sing and joke around--basically I couldn't be myself. I had to be a more polite, subdued version of myself. Even at work, I found myself surrounded by coworkers who weren't interested in talking to me. Mountain Market was a sanitized environment, with everything in its exact place and everyone on their best behavoir. There was no exchange of ideas, no imagination. Everything was robotic, as if working on an assembly line. I had been hired on as deli manager, but found myself at the bottom of the ladder with workers who didn't give a shit about me or where I had come from. Maybe arriving in my pristine white poof coat and fur lined boots hadn't earned me any points. I don't think anyone took me seriously. They probably didn't even believe I'd last the winter.

After a day of not talking at work, I'd make that long drive home and eat my dinner in front of the fire. Sometimes I go up to the loft and try to write. I had internet only some of the time, as I was using the wifi from one of the neighbors who had been lazy with their password (yes, shame on me for stealing). I found myself looking up all kinds of weird stuff. When Jared and Irene decided to talk, they'd be talking about really deep stuff, such as "What is truth? How do even we know?" I'd read sites such as "The Truth Contest" just so I could offer a voice on the subject. I've always been one to discuss serious subjects, but this was almost too much. I had done a lot of my deep pondering on my way up to Alaska. How much more could I explore the meaning of life? I missed Chris and his dark humor.

Thanksgiving arrived and we had the most interesting of meals. I played my part by going out to the shed with Tamsen and capturing the main part of our meal--a duck. What a commotion that caused! Feathers were flying. The ducks were panicking and the geese were being protective. I really appreciated the geese, even though they were hissing and snapping at us. They were acting as the duck's guardians, which definitely made me feel guilty for being an accomplice to this crime. But once Tamsen had one of the ducks thrashing around in a heavy sack, we were out of there.

Irene helped Tamsen prepare our Thanksgiving dinner (I had pretty much given up in the kitchen at that point, as there was no counter space or floor space, due to all the incoming produce). Along with the duck, we had eggplant parmesan, and for dessert, persimmon pudding. Everything was tasty, but it was eaten in the usual quiet manner, in front of the fire. It was over before we knew it, and there was nothing else to do for the rest of the day. Seen as how the weather was clear, I decided to go for a walk. I had never walked to the end of Mosquito Lake Road. The temperature was below zero, but I couldn't stand another minute of looking at the fire, so I bundled up and set off down the road. It was a long walk, several miles. I came across a fire station, a school, and scattering of houses. Packs of dogs came out to bark at me, which was truly scary, but they seemed more bark than bite. I also passed by Steve Kroschel's Wildlife Center, which was closed for the season. This place is world famous, Steve having worked with National Geographic and various film companies (Chris and I went to visit this place sometime in 2013, and yes, it is quite amazing). The end of the road was anti-climatic. I thought there'd be an awesome lake where kids were skating or playing hockey. But the lake was covered in snow and couldn't be reached due to the line of houses surrounding it. I did find a road which led off into a campground. The snow was incredibly deep here, but I staggered through it to the lake. From a pier, I looked out over the expanse. The wind was blowing way up in the mountains; I could hear it, even though the air was still on the ground. That sound was the most haunting sound ever, reminding me just how far away from home I was. I wondered if that land up there had ever been touched by human feet. How many bears were up there right now, hibernating beneath the snow? The sheer size and remoteness of it all left me feeling very small.

I saw Jared on the way back. He had needed to get out as well. I told him to watch out for the dogs.

Jared and I had gone for a walk another time together. We went snowshoeing on a trail down the road, up the side of mountain. I had wanted to do this alone, but Tamsen had said it was better to hike with a partner, due to moose encounters. The moose thing was really scaring me. The hike was good, but I was clumsy in snowshoes.

Despite spending time together, I couldn't say I really bonded with Jared and Irene. Not that there was anything wrong with them (they're lovely human beings) but they were so quiet, as if holding their true personalities back.

I felt in limbo. Though I had made it to Haines, I wasn't really settled in. As long as I was living at Tamsen's, I wasn't settled. The thing is, I didn't want roommates; I didn't want communal living. Also, I couldn't put up with the clutter any longer (I love Tamsen, I really do--but she is a hoarder). I wanted nothing more than to be able to relax in my own skin. The writing was on the wall--I needed to get out of Tamsen's.

I started looking for places to rent. In winter, this was a real challenge, as most everyone was settled, having either come or gone for the season. I did see that a hotel in town was renting out rooms for $600. This sounded fine for me. A TV, mircrowave, heat--bring it on, I said. I could do with some convenience. I especially wouldn't have to make that drive anymore. Not that I didn't love that drive--I did--but it would save me both gas and time.

Just when I was considering renting this hotel room, an opportunity came up. I found it on the Haines Community page online. Some guy was renting his house out for three months. The rent was approximately the same as the hotel, only this was an actual house, with an actual kitchen, and a bedroom, and a laundry room. How could I possibly say no to that?

I had to break the news to Tamsen. This wasn't easy. I knew she was counting on me to stay until April. But there were signs of unease at Tamsen's. She was stressed out by so many things. One day I hadn't properly shut the woodstove door, and the logs had been burning faster than they should have. "No no no no!!!" Tamsen had cried in such a way that I thought she had found one of her dogs had died. I was longing for some proper heat though, and I confess that times I did open that door to let more heat out. Things were also breaking, like the washing machine, with the overload of our dirty bidet rags. But what got to me the most was the clutter which continued to pile up, despite the help from three helpers (no matter how we rearranged things, Tamsen would fill up any empty space with more stuff). Yes, peace of mind was coming in the form of a semi-detached house downtown, just two blocks from work. I had already talked to the guy, and we had already made a deal. I'd be spending the rest of the winter in town.

I told Tamsen it was the drive--I just couldn't do that drive everyday. She took it well, saying she understood. She already had more workers lined up. I was relieved to hear this.

Still, I knew I'd miss that drive, that long snowy road which scared me and enthralled me at the same time. What a way to break me in to life in Haines!