Whitehorse, capitol of the Yukon, 60.649121° N, 135.017221° W at Pioneer RV Park, day three.
It took me a few days on the shore of Kluane Lake to reflect on the path to take when we reach the fork in the road—there is literally only one road for days, but the fork grows closer all the time. Home, or down the West Coast?
I tried to let the murky waters in my mind clear as I walked along the edge of the glacier-fed lake surrounded by gorgeous mountains. The mountains are different colors, some with bare cliffs and rockslides revealing the diverse minerals locked inside them. The strikingly clear water reveals all varieties of colorful pebbles, giving the extraordinarily remote destination a surreal quality. I had long-finished my coffee and was dropping pebbles into the metal mug, each making a satisfying sound. My pockets were full.
After some surprisingly deep soul-searching and reflecting on the last few years, I said some things out loud that I have been struggling to make sense of and overcome. I don’t keep secrets from Kevin, but we all keep things out of our own minds, not daring to overthink them—afraid of the should-haves, could-haves, and what-ifs.
I missed the life we’d walked out of in June 2023. Enough time has passed now to see the things I miss, not so much regret—I hate that word. I don’t miss all the things, just some of them. I think we were both healthier while working on the farm. This morning my sweatpants fit a bit too snuggly and my chest felt tight after a brisk walk. I thought back to my severe case of pneumonia that put me in the hospital for a week a year back. Back at Base Camp, living rustically is work.
We had a lot of friends and a fun social life back on our old mountaintop farm—something hard to come by as an RV gypsy and as a recluse in Bradford at Base Camp. We were only 15-minutes from Bangor back then and would zip to town for date nights. That’s harder to do in Bradford, 40-minutes from Bangor. We would have bonfires every weekend, on a whim, with friends and neighbors joining us by the pond. We’d set up drinks and snacks on a wooden spool and watch the tall flames set sparks into the night sky from lawn chairs deep into the night.
I was just starting to turn a good profit with the farm when I took a graphic design job in Searsport. Suddenly I had to travel to work all winter. That left Kevin doing the farm chores and working full time. It was freezing and dark when I left, then freezing and dark when I got home—the curse of living in the north. We would be up until midnight wrapping eggs in bubble wrap for me to ship on my lunch break at work the following day. It was all too much.
We had lost those close to us—in addition to nearly losing our son and both of my parents. Things were rough, but never between us—just all around us. We did the right thing to take a break from it all.
What do I want? To trade the RV in for a truck, the motorbike for a log trailer, and my little Jeep for a sawmill.
I want a garage where we can work on projects together, and to have a simplified version of our old life. One without a terrible mountain road to maintain. And I asked Kevin for his help to keep me on track. I have never been able to keep to a schedule. I’m terrible at preventative care and regular maintenance—things that bite you in the ass with a farm. I put things off, let messes pile up, and easily lose track of dates and the time of day. Kevin was kind enough to point out that everyone does this some. Chippy and I do it to an extreme.
So we have decided to return to our homeland, the place with trees and birdsongs I can name. Where there are no animals in the forest that scare me. And where the mushrooms grow—there are very few to be found in Arctic tundra. We miss family and friends, especially with Kevin’s mother being sick recently. And we have to prepare the cabin for winter. Right now it cannot freeze, it would ruin our solar batteries, burst our pipes, and crack our jars of canned goods I so meticulously put up all last winter.
I don’t regret the far-flung places and implausible situations we have found ourselves in since asking Kevin to sell everything we own and live on a boat in May of 2023. Without them, I would not have had the opportunity to grow as a person as I undoubtedly have.
We have traversed deep underground caverns, walked the edge of an active volcanic caldera, picked cocoa fruits right off the tree on a tropical island, survived a storm at sea in a boat that suddenly felt quite small, and driven through treacherous mountain ravines that overlook ancient glaciers. We have sank our toes in the pink sands of Bermuda and the black sands of Hawaii.
For now we will enjoy our slow journey home, just the two of us. We have booked a few more nights here at the RV park to get Kevin through the work week. On Friday we leave for a cruise through Lynn Canal, the continent’s longest and deepest glacial fjord for a marine wildlife tour. The ship meets a bus for a trip to downtown Juneau, then to Mendenhall Glacier.
I guess we aren’t done with boats after all. At least someone else will be docking and maneuvering around rocks.
