Things are still going well for me here in the Arctic. Summer is quickly coming to a close and in the coming weeks, the people who are here only for the summer, as well as the tourists, will start to dwindle down. Not much has changed since my last update. I still try to get out hiking and packrafting whenever I can, but I don’t feel as if I’m going as much as I’d like to. This full time job still feels somewhat like slavery to me, even though I don’t mind it for the most part. As I’ve written elsewhere, I’d just like to have the freedom to do what I want, whenever I want. Whether that is reading, hiking, doing projects or just sleeping all day.
As Borsodi said in This Ugly Civilization:”For time unnecessarily spent in labor which we do not enjoy is a crime against ourselves and against civilization. While we live we have only one thing to spend; time.” Although I think my time is still necessarily spent in labor at this point in order to obtain leverage in one sense to get my freedom.
I’ve found out if I advance to certain positions at my current location, I could double my pay. And with the ability to work almost whenever you want, the ceiling for income would be very high. With outgoing expenses near 0. Certainly a fast track on the financial side of the equation. Something for me to ponder.
Speaking of expenses, for the 3 months I’ve been here my total expenses amounts to $289. It’s broken down as follows:
Gas: $122
Books: $91
Food: $32 (food from in town)
Gifts: $21
Phone card: $18
Miscellaneous: $5
Anyways, in the coming weeks I plan to collect 10-20 gallons of blueberries and lingonberries (low bush cranberries) for the winter time. I’m looking forward to that. Our coworker garden here has been doing quite well. We’ve been harvesting all different types of greens since late May. Carrots and sweet peas have come up in fairly good quantities lately and I just made some borscht out of some beets that I picked today.
I’ve also scored some nice tools that I found inside some abandoned vehicles/trailers around here such as a double bit axe, multiple saws, an old Yukon woodstove and some other miscellaneous items. I’ve been thinking of building a woodstove (a bigger one) soon, but I’ll see if I get around to doing that. If I do that I think I’m going to try to live in one of the tent/plywood cabins here (after installing the woodstove) throughout winter. I think that’d be a neat experience.
Here are some more photos from the area:
Hope everyone is well!