So, my wife and I bought a thing...
@arcticgypsy and I have purchased our first cabin! It's a teeny tiny shack that's made from a converted wooden Satellite Dish crate and finished off with 2x4's and plywood. It is 12 feet by 12 feet inside and doesn't leave much space for two people and two dogs. But we have plans to expand! Below you can see our makeshift fireplace (replacement purchased and will arrive in the fall) it is made from two fire extinguisher inserts for commercial buildings. Bolted together and gooped up to seal against escaping fumes. A true product of the ingenuity it takes to survive in the north. (Don't worry I have a Carbon Monoxide Detector out there)
Our plans for the cabin expansion are relatively simple, at least on paper. We purchased an 8 foot by 12 foot shed from a teacher that is leaving this year which we intend on converting to a bedroom sticking out of the "back" of the cabin, facing away from the ocean. We will cut and frame an archway in the main cabin and butt the existing door of the shed up to the cabin. My friends up here will help us seal it from the elements. After that we plan to use overlapping pallet boards to finish off the exterior of the cabin. And then do similar to the inside, but with ship-lapped boards. My wife wants to white wash the interior, but I am unfamiliar with her plans for the exterior.
It always looks easier on paper. That shed? It was in town just a few doors down from our home. Last week two friends and I used the wonderous powers of Leverage and Fulcrum to jack the shed up some 16 inches off the ground in order to slide a Qamutiik underneath. You know, those fancy wooden Inuit sleds I mention every second blog that are made with rope instead of nails to allow for the flex of rough terrain. After putting it onto the sled I then towed it out to our cabin along the coast of our island. But I wasn't on land. Here is a YouTube Shorts video of us initially towing the shed from its initial spot down to near the oceans edge. My friend used a rope tied to his truck in order to prevent the heavy shed from sliding down the hill too fast and overcoming the snowmobile, spinning me around and towing me, or worse!
Moving the shed across the ocean was super simple! The plastic teflon runners that are on the bottom of the sled make it easy enough for two people to push the shed across level terrain. So we were able to make quite good time and we had the shed off the sled within an hour an a half of leaving town. I was impressed. On of our friends that was coming out to help us was impressed too, since he showed up about 10 minutes after we were finished. Unfortunately, we had to place the shed quite far from the cabin for the time being since there is a large pile of pallets buried in the 5 foot deep snow behind the cabin where we would want to place it. Pallets are our only source of firewood, so I'm not too horribly sour. Free firewood, just add saw! With this part out of the way we went home and I collected a few things to take out to the cabin so that we could start utilizing it immediately.
While at the cabin I took a break and enjoyed one of my downloaded YouTube videos. Yeah, I'm that kind of guy, who makes sure he has some sort of media to consume in the downtime. It was good to have on in the background as I split some wood for kindling to use at a later date. I watched a video made by @oblivioncubed about a build he is creating in his Minecraft world to help automate several processes we all find tedious. Here is Part 1 of the build process of automating pumpkin and bamboo farms. It was followed up by Part 2 today!
The cabin is a patchwork of off-cut materials and garbage dump finds. Milk crates for shelving, a bar table with a broken back leg, the windows were found at the dump as dual pane windows with the outer layer smashed. Adding an external layer of plexiglass gives them a second life now. My friend once said "any things that come to the North stay in the North" and a quick tour of our landfill would show you exactly that. Every single truck that was brought to this community that can no longer be stripped of parts lies in the dump. All the old garbage trucks, the water trucks, every appliance, television, refrigerator, etc. Many of these things see a second life down south via recycling metals. Or they at least get disposed of in more environmentally friendly ways, with refrigerators being required to be placed separately so they can have their refrigerants drained properly. One man's trash... Right?
Thank you for taking the time to read my blogs. To show my appreciation here is a sleeping Millie, my chocolate puddle of cuddles.
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Smaller space means less space to heat I guess. What a nice addition, and how cool you were able to slide it where you want it. Here in Cambodia when a cabin needs to be moved the whole village has to put their shoulders under it. What an intense landscape, and with the door open you are basically wearing the same amount of clothes I wear here in the mountains of Cambodia. Well, I have seen my share of -40 temps back when I lived at 11,000 feet in Colorado, but it's relatively cold here compared to hot weather I'm used to nowadays.
That was so fuckin cool to see on video. And I'm glad you guys were able to continue the tradition of a cabin trip for ArcticGypsy's birthday!