#drycabinalaska

Hi it's me,

I've been iced into my cabin from winter rains turning to mirror-slick ice on the roadways. Most everyone has been cleared out, but my road is one of the last holdouts until it can be graveled and sanded and made passable again.

That being said, I've had a LOT of free time at home this week.

I live in a dry cabin here in the interior. It's a pretty common way of living in Alaska, and you can find and build them with all different levels of amenities. Some are powered by generator and heated by woodstove, some are on the electrical grid but not wired for internet, and some are just bare bones, woodstove heat, no electric or water.

Mine is pretty luxurious comparatively. I'm not "roughing it" by any means. I have electricity and an oil-drip heater, so I don't have to keep a constant fire going. I have 3 pets, so I want to be sure my house is always warm when I'm not there, and if I'm away from home for awhile, I want to know all my things didn't freeze. -30 is not a good temperature for most electronics.

It's a two-story cabin with a full kitchen, a living room, a loft bedroom space, and a front room that I use as a gear room, dog room, and extra closet. The only thing missing is running water!

I use an outhouse beside my cabin to use the restroom, and really it's not as bad as you'd imagine. The "seat" is foam insulation, so your bootybutt doesn't get cold. You're warmed a second time when you burn your toilet paper in the burn bucket (I know. I know. I was horrified too. But it's kind of nice.).

For cooking, cleaning, drinking, and pets, I haul 14gal of water in 7gal jugs from town. It typically lasts me a week to two weeks unless I try to get funky and do laundry or something. We have these water fill stations that operate like gas pumps, except water comes out. It's something like 3c a gallon. Last winter I had two 5gal jugs-- I had to fill more but they were much more manageable for my weak little arms.

The shower situation is definitely one of the bigger adjustments to dry cabin living. There's a singular public shower about 3mi from my house at the general store, where there's also a laundromat, a weed dispensary, and a bar. What more could you need? Despite the local amenities, I normally drive into town and shower at a very kind friend's place.

Dishes in a dry cabin are the absolute bane of my existence. Never in my life will I complain about emptying the dishwasher ever again. Everyone has a different system; I normally use a two-basin approach-- one with hot, soapy water, and the other with clean water for rinsing. When the clean water gets too soapy, I dump the first basin and fill it with clear water and swap them. It takes forever and my motivation to take care of my dishes is usually gone before I even get the water warmed up on the stove. The process irks me.

Laundry is kind of fun. I take my big items to the laundromat, but a friend of mine generously gifted me a "camper washing machine" this summer that has changed the game for me. I use it for the bottom layer of my clothes that have to be washed more often-- base layers, socks, and undies. It does use a few gallons of water so I have to be prepared for that, but one compartment washes and the other spins the clothes "dry." Obviously they don't come out of there like the Arizona desert, but I am impressed with how dry they get and simply hang everything near my heater until it dries. Last winter I had to go to the laundromat once a week.