Cabin Life #1: The Beginnings

I am pretty sure that most people who end up living in cabins come about it fairly innocently. I know this cant be said for all people but in my experience this is the way it is. A friend tells you of the beauty of living the simple life. somewhere far away from all of the hustle and bustle of the world, where one can really reflect on their life, while getting their hands dirty and building up a strength, not only physically, but characteristically and emotionally as well.

I'm telling you: It's true... if you make it so.

It involves staying present, getting the mind under control, practicing love and compassion.  Clear your mind… Chop wood, Carry Water.

Living in the Yukon has been somewhat of a whirlwind for me so far. It has been very challenging mentally physically and emotionally. I never imagined that I would be living in a place like this, but I am excited to see what challenges it holds for me. I want to let the world show me what it has in store for me, and keep myself open to these beautiful new experiences with positivity and good vibrations. coming from a life where things shave always been, a,b,c... this could be difficult at times, so lets go on a journey.

I hope to document the progressions of the cabin life as i learn them. Whether it be accomplishments of failures or just learning curves. It might get dirty, but lets get into it.

The Cabin

So far, a general day includes:

get up with the sun. birds, squirrels and wind in the trees. the heaviness of the night worn off.
make some coffee and head out into the woods for a nice morning walk, and to say hello to my neighbors horse that often comes to the fence for a little snack and to say hello.
chop wood.
make fire.
carry water.
make a breakfast of whatever sustenance has been acquired in my fridge.
stoke fire.
chop more wood.
yoga in the woods.
depending on the day; go shower and head into town for work at the lovely book shop I have so serendipitously been afforded a lovely position at.
enjoy the smell of old books, and the company of my co-workers and the townsfolk.
drive home, careful not to hit any animals.
chop wood.
reset fire.
check out the interwebs for a while.
meditate on the day.
read.
nighty night.

There are many times when i find myself lonely and feeling lost in the woods. When I look around and I don't see all of the caring faces that I'm so used to seeing, when I come home and there is no one there to hug me and welcome me home. When i just need to see the beautiful smile of my amazing nieces, the one that can make even the darkest day seem sunshiny, or when I just need a glass of nice wine and an afternoon of girl talk. all of these things are out of reach. It's just me, alone. However, i am so thankful for these moments as well. I am on a journey, one that i never anticipated, one that makes me kick, scream, cry, and laugh at myself. I have beautiful moments to myself that i am learning to cherish.

Today I made a little video of the thing I seem to do the most of when I am alone, chop wood. It is unlike anything I have ever done, I often find myself laughing while doing it as the world just melts away and I literally generate a source of heat for myself. I'd like to see how I progress in technique along the way...  I have now filled three bins full of small wood as my fear of the encroaching winter deepens with each snow capped mountain range.

(please forgive my form, I'm slowly progressing, but I have only just learned how to wield an axe.)

A Brand New Adventure: Cross Canada

Ok, so its been a while since my last post. not to say that things have been un-eventful... they have been anything but... however I didn't have the capacity to write about them, and have now started a new adventure in my life, and am anxious to share all of the details about it.

A little spruce of the blog and we should be off and running.

So heres the dish:
I have taken a leave from my life in Ontario and decided to embrave (thats embrace and brave) the wilds of the Yukon Territory. I will be living in a small cabin about 30 minutes outside of the city of whitehorse on the yukon river.

I want to document the daily life of cabin living in the yukon. Back to a life more simple than the one that I have become so accustomed to. One with no running water or pumped in heat. A life less ordinary than we now live, but one that gives me all of the necessities in a way that I can be thankful for. I will try to share all of the specifics of this life, as well as the physical and emotional things that come along with it.

I decided to come to the yukon about as spontaneously as one can. A very dear friend offered me the opportunity to go, and 5 days later I was on the road to the most northern west corner of our beautiful country. it has always been my dream to see all of canada from the seat of my car, to explore the beautiful prairies, and marvel at the peaks of the rockies, stay under the stars in a tent, searching the depths of this old land for the spirit that lies within it.

Morning sunrise

The experince of driving across canada was a different one. Leaving behind so many wonderful things, people and experiences was a lot harder than it has ever been for me, due in large part to its spontaneity and my inability to make quick decisions. But as i set off in my little suzuki (suzie-q) early that Sunday morning, I knew that this adventure was going to probably be the most challenging one of my life so far, but also the most rewarding, frustrating, amazing, beautiful and honest journey ever.



I did the drive in 5 days, stats are as follows: 5576 km, five provinces, one territory, four nights, three seedy motels, 20 tanks of gas (i never let it get below 1/2), endless cups of coffee, and a lot of sugar from the goodie basket from mum. It was a journey with an intent... Whitehorse or bust!!

Here are the things that occurred to me throughout the country:

Lake Superior

when one is driving alone for so long, things that might not normally occur to someone tend to pop into your head. this was such the case for most of northern ontario. Northern ontario is a beautiful and majestic place. Especially after driving through the urban metropolis that is southern ontario. There are lakes and rivers everywhere, beautiful cliffs, incredibly old trees and a lot of wildlife.

Foggy mornings

Rest stop bliss

The trans-canada highway has many historical stops along the way and i wish i had time to stop at all of them.  It felt so amazing to begin my journey across the country on this part of the road, among the last to be completed, where men trekked through the forest from Wawa to Sault Ste. Marie, and were presumed lost and dead after 5 days to prove the desperate need for the road to be completed.

Wawa

With all of the lakes a rivers comes a lot of bridges. And for whatever reason, it seems that the summer of 2013 was the year they decided to fix the bridges. I wonder who thought it would be a good decision to close every single bridge in northern ontario across the trans-canada highway for several months... it occurred to me that I would like to find this person and make them sit in a sweltering car at 25 minute intervals for 12 hours. Not pleasant.. but hey, there are a lot of very large things to look at along the way; heres one.







My journey across the rest of the country was a quick one. I rarely stopped except to refuel, myself and Suzy-q. I laughed, sang, cried, screamed and talked for endless hours about this amazing journey that I was embarking on. EAch province brought a new landscape. The prairies brought a long slow calm that took hold of me in my car and made me the only one out there on the road. I began to see mountains emerging as i passed through alberta late at night. and i wondered how many other people had taken this very same journey, and what their intents were, and in-fact, what was my intent?

When I first saw a stone (or Rocky) mountain I was absolutely stunned. I had seen the mountains before but this was something else, something new. Perhaps it was the 4 days it had taken me to get there, the endless road in front of me, the lack of sleep, the anxiety of the unknown or the sheer beauty of this amazing place, but they brought me to tears. It was the last day of my journey and I was mere hours away. The rocks emerged when i came around a corner and I pulled over to enjoy this moment. so many things rushed through my head: where was i going, and where had i been. What was i doing?! could I make it in the quiet wilderness of the yukon? I would have to. They brought me calm and the whistle of the wind across the water let me know to let go of all of the inhibition, because this was a moment that I would want to remember. It was time to stop dreaming and start living.

 My new life was about to begin, one stone mountain at a time.

1000 Things to do before I die... work in progress

I have recently been asking a lot of questions of myself about where life will take me. I have begun compiling a list in my head of things I would like to do. Some of which, were goals in the past and  I have already achieved for myself. I needed a place to keep this list- I will add to the list and stories as my life moves forward.

1. live in a foreign country
2. visit a Buddhist temple and engage in meditative practices with monks/nuns.
3. complete my yoga teacher certification
4. study yoga in India in an ashram
5. visit the Angkor Wat in Cambodia
6. travel on the trans-Mongolian
7. give as much love as i can to the people around me
8. be happy- and find the happiness in each passing moment of each passing day
9. drive across canada alone, or with someone special
10. hitch-hike further than the next city
11. learn to play the guitar better, and write a (good) song
12. live in the yukon for a period of time
13. have something published
14. sky dive someplace magical
15. bungee jump in africa
16. go on a missions trip of some kind
17. fall madly and deeply in love
18. Trip to Bali
19. Pass on the knowledge of all that literature has done for my life... and can do for theirs.
20. learn ballet
21. be graceful and mindful throughout my life.
22. get married
23. own a house with a big yard not in suburbia
24. learn to sew my own clothes
26. fall completely in love with my work
27. achieve something that i have been dreaming of
28. visit egypt
29. write ... write... write...
30. keep in contact with all of the people who have passed through/become such a great part of my life
31. learn to bake all the delicious goodies from my Oma.
32. write my grandfathers memoir.
33. obtain a bow and arrow
34. live sustainably in the woods among the wild for an amount of time
35. grand canyon adventure
36. red-wood forest
37.  be at the Arctic Circle on summer solstice
38.

On being foreign...part 1

In the land of the morning calm, tucked away in the far reaches of the countries smallest towns hidden in the valleys, to the largest cities rising up from the mountainous landscape like a lego village you will find pockets of people who have come to this land from a different place. Sometimes they stick out like a sore thumb, their double eyelids causing quite a stir and their pale skin eliciting laughter and pointing from many a youngster. And as they pass by these pale faced beings a whisper can be heard with their wide eyes of wonder "Waygookin." which means "foreigner."
I find it amusing to think of myself as a foreigner. As someone who doesn't belong, and seemingly never will. I wonder what this can do to your psyche, constantly being called a foreigner until you identify yourself with this.

Identity changes depending on where you are. It makes you take a different point of view in your life. In any given place you could have several different identities, though usually one is the most prominent. It is a strange concept to identify yourself as ‘foreign.’  What does it exactly mean? The OED defines foreign as ‘strange and unfamiliar’ coming from the latin foras, or fortis which literally means ‘outside.’ So being classified as foreign automatically places the stigma of a strange being, something from outside, that you don’t necessarily want inside, an alien. How does having this stigma placed on someone, and never removed, affect the way a person identifies themselves.

I can classify myself as something different depending on where I am. When I am with my niece I am a loving aunt, with my brother I am a sister, and my mother I am a daughter. when I am at school I am a student, a writer, a researcher and an idealist.

When we are called foreign again and again, as we are in Korea, we come to identify ourselves as such, foreigners, and end up calling ourselves the word. This word, for me, has developed somewhat of a negative mean. It has become a dirty word in a sense.

It is only recently that Korea has begun to welcome and embrace different cultures. They prided themselves on being ‘pure’ and un inhabited by these outsiders.. these foreigners. But with a recent influx of military and teaching staff to their country they have had to adapt this attitude.

One of my friends who lives in Korea recently told me that they find being foreign in this county a “strange, horrific and wonderful experience” all rolled into one. She continued to point out that on one hand you get the experience of bringing yourself into a place that hasn’t dealt with you which is awesome, because you get to give them the positive impression you hope to create about these outsiders infiltrating the streets, but on the other hand, its difficult on your psyche to constantly be treated as an outsider, and often ignored, shooed away or blatantly yelled at because your background is different. I suppose coming from a non Asian country where most people have various backgrounds, and we are still of the generation where this is common, that it never would occur to us to identify someone as ‘not the same’ just because they look different. After all, aren’t we all just human beings? 

A little taste of home...

It's no secret that I love food. My expanding waistband is proof of that.
Food food food, in all shapes and sizes (as long as it doesn't contain meat). I love eating it, looking at it, tasting it, smelling it. i just really love food.

I have found over the past few months that my body has been craving the strangest types of food. But nothing more than comfort food. Here I plan to explore a few of my favourites...

There is something about a large pot of chili that just makes you feel so cozy and at home... A big boiling bowl of some extra spicy veggie chilli topped with fresh shredded cheese and a side of Salty Nacho chips. nothing says home like that.
along with this goes tacos. delicious tacos that take you back to when you were a kid. In my house, tacos were always somewhat of a treat, and were usually consumed on a special occasion (or it felt like a special occasion) like a birthday or something. It was a great feeling being able to custom make your own meal and fill your taco shell with as many, or as few delicious things as you wanted.

Rollkuchen and Watermelon... my most favourite summer treat. For those of you who weren't fortunate enough to grow up in a Mennonite household with lots of delicious homemade baked goods and fried breads i will enlighten you on this amazing food. Its basically... fried dough.. a fritter if you will. but when made properly (my mum makes the best ones i have EVER tasted.... no joke... its not just me) you end up with a deliciously light flaky fried good that when you bite off the top, the inside is hollow. This doesn't happen with every one, in my family we call these pieces "puffers." and if you happen to find one that is puffed from top to bottom, you had bet you will be fighting for it. its here the watermelon comes in. Sliced into perfectly long, medium sized pieces you can place the watermelon INSIDE the baked dough.. that's right, INSIDE. once the Rollkuchen is stuffed with sweet red watermelon its time to indulge. Once you take your first bite you will be hooked. The sweet, cold watery flavor of the watermelon mixed with the salty, dry taste of the Rollkuchen is pure ecstasy! I seriously reccomend it.

There are other people who make it different and roll it in the middle.But this isnt the way to go for me, you don't have the opportunity to get a 'puffer' and stuff the watermelon inside. The best part is that if you dont finish all your Rollkucken in one meal, they make a great treat for a few days to come with some more watermelon or spread with you choice of fruit jam!! oh my, there is nothing left to be desired with this delicious summer treat!





I wasnt always a fan of avocados, but in the past number of years they became a staple in my diet. full of healthy fats, and delicious flavour, this vegetable is so versitile it can be used with, on, accompanied by anything! My two... or three favourites though, have to be a tomato, cheese and avocado sandwich, with just a little bit of hummus .. or mayo if you prefer. Its the most delicious sandwich that you could ever eat! I'm picky about my tomatoes so they have to be sliced thin; add your favourite cheese and some nice thick slices of avocado and you have got yourself one killer sandwich! The next would have to be avocado Sushi. there is something to be said about the mixture of rice, seaweed, and avocado, top that with some wasabi and soya sauce and prepare your mouth for a flavour explosion. and the final avocado treat, that we all know and love guacamole! affectionally called guac, this staple can be used for a spread or a dip. You can make it many different ways to accomodate your preference towards garlic, onions, tomatoes, sweet, spicy, salty. I prefer a basic approach with no frills, garlic, salt, pepper and lemon juice, with some baked naan. yum!  Avocados are so versitile that they simply scream home!

Lastly, the good old fashioned breakfast. Bacon (none for me thanks), Eggs, Toast, hasbrowns and orange juice perhaps a tomato (or avacado slice) if you are so inclined. This brings you back to the days of sunday afternoons when the family would get together to sit around the tube and listen to the sound of the eggs crackling and the smell of delicious butter in the frying pan. It always seemed so still in those moments, like nothing could distrub the peace... as time passed this breakfast became a staple 'greasy' meal, something simply necessary after a night out drinking. But, it always remains the same... something that you can look forward to of being familiar and homey. Making you feel better simply by its existence.

These foods are all so tastey and homey feeling that if you are ever feeling homesick or in want of something familiar, each one will bring you just that much closer :)

Students... kids!

Elementary level students are adorable and horrible at the same time. Any native teacher in Korea (or possibly the world) will agree with me. When you look at them, their little rosy cheeks and angelic smiles almost fool you into believing that they aren't tiny devils in disguise... almost... ;)

This morning walking to school I was thinking about the day ahead and dreading the horrible after school classes that always take SOOO much energy and patience out of me. when I happened upon a kid... who is in said after school class... and probably the worst one at that.He was riding his little pink plastic Winnie the Pooh scooter to school. It seems he had seen me walking behind him, and had slowed down in intervals so I could catch up. When i got near to him he stopped and smiled back at me, waving his hand furiously, his little eyes shining sweetly. Since we don't have much ability to communicate with each other he pointed to me, and then the scooter, motioning me to take the handlebars (which are at about waist level). i started laughing at how hilarious this situation would be.... i thought. why not? grabbed the scooter and scooted a few feet ahead... the kid running right behind me laughing and shouting WOOO HOOO!! this was seriously the best start to the day I have ever had. I stopped a few meters down the road and gave him his scooter back. he took it with a huge smile and rode slowly beside me the rest of the way to school. he stopped when we came to an intersection and didn't go until i said it was okay... so cute! we parted ways when we got close to school and he went to show off his scooter to his friends and let them have a whirl.

however, this afternoon was a completely different story. said child comes rampaging into my classroom, screaming his head off... and throwing things all over the place, hitting the other kids and tackling them to the ground (this is a common Korean child pastime I have found- nothing to be too worried about) I sighed and thought about the great one-on-one morning experience i had with this little one... how did his bright shining eyes turn so red all of a sudden? and where did those horns come from? I certainly didn't see them there before. The class continued and he never seemed to settle down. causing disturbances and not listening to a word i or anyone else said. I tried to hold on to that feeling i got this morning,  but it was slowly fading away into the abyss of my memory.

After the class ended and I plopped down in my chair, completely exhausted, the same student came over to me and held out his hand. in it was a tiny chocolate, and said to me "happy teacher? for you" I smiled and melted back into his cute little face. as i took the partially unwrapped chocolate from his hands he smiled at me and walked calmly away...

Its these moments that we must remember when we are looking for the patience to get through the hard times... like every Friday afternoon for me.and they are little angels.. just young and all they want to do is have fun, instead they are stuck in a classroom 6 days a week, 8+ hours a day reading/writing/and arithmetic! TGIF



side note... as i was editing this post- a little grade 1 student (about 5 years old) just came in and gave me a pen with a little handmade flower on top of it..... i suppose its for teachers day tomorrow..he is literally one of the students i talk about when I say they are soo cute! his mother has given him a perm, highlights and he wears the most fashionable clothes... haha. anyways, what a great way to end my Friday.

#78 Why Korea Sucks: It doesnt....

So when i think about leaving Korea I am filled with a total sense of joy and happiness. going back to my familiar town, living near to my family and friends; these ideas fill me with happiness and a desire to leave as soon as possible. But then i think about the things that ill miss when I am gone, and how being in Korea isn't really that bad at all, and that thought is kind of scary. I am immersed in a completely different culture, and i have allowed myself to get swept away into some of the more beautiful habits that this country holds. 

first: Food- A lot of foreigners complain about the food here in Korea, and wish it to be more like American food. Usually the complaints are about the fish based meals; I can understand if you don't have an affinity for fish how this would cause a problem. But living in Korea, I expected to eat Korean food, not western food. Now, I know I sometimes crave familiar foods- but its just that... I crave something familiar, and food just seems to be the easiest thing to rag on- it wont talk back.

It seems to me that a lot of people have dissociated themselves with that fact and just completely given up on even trying to accept and eat Korean food, and thus adapt to the place that they are living. They are trying to create their old world in this new place they have landed. This is a perfectly natural thing to do, to an extent. It feels to me that when we choose to live in a foreign country that we must take the good and the bad, and rather than simply refusing to try something; give it a try, you never know what will happen. In accordance with food.. think of all of the things you loved when you were a child- i can guarantee your palate has changed quite a bit since then; just as it can change with you acclimatise your palate to these new flavors- it might not like it at first- but after a while your taste-buds will settle in, and you can enjoy a truly authentic experience.

"Korean food is delicious and nutritious." We hear it all the time from our co teachers and friends; but have we ever taken the time to stop and listen? To wonder how this could possibly be? Most of the food here is fresh! so fresh in fact that sometimes its still moving on your plate. I know its not always the most appetizing thing to think of eating every part of an animal (including the bladder, blood, feet brains and tounge) but every part that they eat has a 'reason' behind it. there is a nutrient found in these foods that helps you maintain health. Im sure not ALL of these statements made are true.. but some of them must be; and I cant see why they wouldn't. I am served fresh fruits and veggies at every lunch hour, and a soup that couldn't possibly come from a package  or a bag (like most soups would back home in our school caf's)

I am a veggie, so i don't have to deal with a lot of the gross meat related food here, which may make me an hypocritical observer. But I find that there is such a backlash against the food in Korea from the foreigners that it begins to bother me. I almost WANT to try these foods to see what all the fuss and muss is about. Every day I am served a large plateful of fresh veggies (usually in some strange sauce of sorts) and often i find myself thinking about why they prepare these dishes in the way that they do. I look over to my co workers trays and notice huge hunks of meat and fish baked to perfection, bones still in. I look at their shiny hair and great complexions and seemingly healthy disposition and can begin to understand where it might come from. Its not very often you see an obese Korean... whereas in America the obesity rates have risen to such a high level that the centers for disease control estimate that at least "110,000 people die per year due to obesity and 1/3 of all cancer deaths are directly related to it."

"Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona remarked that obesity is a more pressing issue than terrorism, 'Obesity is a terror within. It's destroying our society from within and unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9/11 or any other terrorist event that you can point out...'" (killeratlarge.com) [those interested in learning more about this epidemic can go here obesity in America]
I know this is an entirely different issue here but it is a pressing one. and one that i think about when i am deciding whether i want to eat the north American option or the Korean one. I feel that Korean people are more aware of what they are putting into their bodies (a mass generalization i know) and i want to be too.


The food is healthy here and i will surely miss it... (even when I'm eating my delicious poutine... haha)


brings me to my next topic.


Price: The cost of going out to eat here is EXPONENTIALLY less than at home (provided you are going for the non-American option of the yummy Korean food). Tell me a place in North America where you can get a bowl full of veggies and rice, a healthy and filling meal, with all the soup you could ask for, and several side dishes including kimchi, beans, radish, green garlic etc etc. and perhaps even a bowl of hot spicy soup with tofu for under 5$... I dare you to tell me where this exists in America. It simply doesn't! the cheap options include ... fast food, fast food, and more fast food. To go out and get a salad outside of the home costs about the same as it would for 3 people to eat out in Korea.  This is something my wallet and I will dearly miss when we depart.


These are some superficial things ill miss about Korea. within these ideas there are a few other things about the culture that come to mind that will be a happy memory to look back at. the fact that everything is "healthy." the funny little sayings that even the most inexperienced English speakers can say. Ill keep thinking of things as time goes on... but hey, I've still got another year left ;)