October 9, 2011 - Last River Voyage of the year

On October 8 (Saturday) we spent the morning doing some work on the wood boiler.  Last year we had shut it down because the fire was not staying lit.  It kept going out.  But with the extra high price of fuel oil this year, we want to get it going.

I had tried to find someone here in town to come out and look at it but couldn't find anyone who would work on that boiler.  So, on Oct 6, I had sent an e-mail to the company in Winkler Manitoba to ask them if they could refer me to someone.  They called me on Friday morning, the 7th, and said that they didn't know of anyone here but that they would be more than willing to talk us through figuring out what the problem was.  They gave me a few things to look at and then said to feel free to call them back if we needed further help while trouble shooting.

We discovered that it needed more water added and although we didn't start a fire on Saturday, we feel it will work when we need to fire it up.

We then headed to town to run a few errands including filling up the propane bottle for the kitchen range and stopped by the Chowder House for soup and sandwich.  Afterwards we went to the Carlson Center to check out the Winter Expo.  There were not a lot of cars there and when we went inside and started looking at the exhibits we determined it was not that great.  It is one of those been there, done that and can check it off our list of things to do.

Instead of coming home, we decided to pick up a few groceries including a couple of t-bone steaks.  The cost for the 2 steaks was $28 and some change which is why we don't buy a lot of beef up here.

October 9th, I wanted to go to church but John had made a comment on Saturday about spending all our free time on the weekend doing errands and stuff so instead, I told him we should take a drive.  Within 20 minutes, i had changed that from take a drive to let's put the boat in down here and head up the Chena River.

We got ready and instead of stopping in town, we decided to go ahead and drive past North Pole and put in at Chena Lakes.  When we arrived at the boat ramp, I was a little concerned as there was absolutely no one else there.  JW backed the boat a ways down the ramp and stopped to make sure the plug was in and to unhook it from the trailer.

Preparing the boat to put in the water.

He then backed the trailer further down the ramp - breaking through the ice in the slough and got into the boat while I got into the driver's seat of the truck.  He started the boat (it started right up even though it hadn't been used since our July adventure on the Salcha).  He let it warm up a little then he backed it off the trailer into the ice.  I parked the truck and trailer and walked back over to get into the boat.

Crunching through the ice to get to the open water.

 JW slowly drove through the 1/2" thick ice to get to the river.  In fact, he was moving so slowly that just before we got to the river, we hung up on the mud and came to a dead stop.

Boat stuck in the mud.

 He went out on the bow of the boat and rocked it a bit which broke it free and we headed on up the river.

A short distance up the river we had to go under the spillway.  Earlier this summer when we'd gotten a lot of rain, we heard that the river was so high that you couldn't go under this.

Captain JW

 

It was nice and peaceful to go up the river.  There wasn't anyone else around so we had the whole river to ourselves.

One thing we noticed as we went along is that there are an awful lot of trees leaning way over toward the river.  I can just imagine the log jams there are going to be during next springs break up.

It was only 30 degrees outside but with the proper clothing and the canvas cabin it wasn't bad at all to just sit and enjoy the ride.

A little over 36 miles up the river (according to the GPS),  JW pulled over to this gravel to stop for a few minutes.  He said that the water was getting pretty shallow.

Looking into the water, we could easily see the rocks and dirt at the bottom.  We decided it was in our best interest to turn around and head back down river.

We had brought some hot drink mix in case we got too cold but decided it really wasn't that bad.  As a matter of fact, right there in the sun, it actually felt pretty warm.

It seems like it didn't take too long to get back to the spillway.

Then turning into where the boat ramp was, we could see where we had broken through the ice about 3 hours earlier.  The temperature was still only about 30.

JW parked the boat and I stayed in the boat while he went to get the truck.  Then we swapped places and he drove the boat onto the trailer.

It was a great trip.  No major problems.  We didn't see any animals except for a bunch of ducks - one would think they would have migrated south by now but there are some that hang out near Chena Hot Springs for the winter.

It's time now to put away the boat for the winter.  Just have to remember to buy new tail lights for the trailer before next May since we learned today that backing a trailer through ice is hard on lights - oops.