Current Events

 Some of the mushrooms we collected this Summer. Dried and pickled lots. Ate them many times! So good. Plus it is really fun to find them....like a treasure hunt.

 This is what happens when a Chun glaze is downwind of lots of copper glazes in a kiln that won't stop reducing. There was a huge green flame coming out of the chimney. From last year's horrible firings. Fixed the problem by cutting out bigger primary air holes in the new door. Refired this guy and wowie! The photo does not due justice to it.

 Another pot that got refired. Love it.

 The copper glaze that sells, sells and sells. It goes blue, green, purple, turquoise and every shade in between. Sometimes a pot will be sea green on one side and purple or turquoise on the other.

 My table before the big sale in Whitehorse. People buy LOTS of handmade objects in the North. Any of my customers that are reading this, THANK YOU! I went home without most of this stuff. Can't see my scarves in this photo. Rack was close to empty too.

If you ever wondered what we do with all those berries we pick......this is how some of them end up. High bush Cranberries and Mossberries. 12 gallons of very fine wine!

Snow Kiln

Snow, snow and more snow. In fact it is still snowing as I write. The past few days I have been spending about an hour each day pulling snow off roofs. Then shoveling it away. Another few inches and it will be waist deep on me. This is about twice what we usually get in a Winter. This is supposed to be the rain-shadow of the Coast Range. Now my poor kiln is also covered in the stuff. Only good part is that the water content is pretty low. Plus the fact that it would be -46 C like it is a bit to the North of us and beyond this storm track.
I was asked about the measurements of this kiln. Inside the chamber is 64 inches by 28 wide and 24 ish high. 9 courses high on the inside. Because it is made of used (very used) hardbrick there is mortar between the courses and that adds to the height. It is 9 inches thick. The Bourry Box has hobs. On top I use kiln shelves, a layer of soft brick then several layers of fiber blanket. The plans for this kiln were in Laid Back Wood-firing by Steve Harrison. I would recommend both the book and the kiln to anyone wanting to build a simple yet easy to fire kiln.Steve is very accessible and helpful. I have seen pots he fired for 16 hours in one of these kilns that are ringers for 4 day anagama fired work. Tons of ash and great flashing. I fire both 'naked' and glazed work and it works well for both.
It was so cold after my last firing that I neglected the usual clean up, thought it could wait until the Spring. As my studio is closed up until March it won't be until at least May before we fire again.
In the planning process for building two new kilns. One will be a gas conversion of an ancient Duncan electric and the other a 14.5 cu. ft.Flat Top. One will be updraft and the other crossdraft fired with propane. Too many days with the fire hazard up in the high and extreme range for wood firing so this will give me some options. Also will be able to do more frequent testing.
Meanwhile it is back to tend the wood stove and watch the snow come down.

-40 Today, Time for Summer Memories

 A bit fuzzy, but the cranberries were huge this year. Best crop I have seen in over 40 years of picking them.

 More than 40 lbs. in this photo. Altogether we picked over 130 lbs. of different kinds of berries. All now frozen, canned or dried.these are Lingonberries, also know as low bush Cranberries, our favorite.

 On the Takhini River, east of Whitehorse and a little South, near Kusawa Lake. Camped, fished and picked berries. Quiet and beautiful.

 Some of my 'Stargazer" Oriental lilies. The blooms are huge, fragrant and just plain beautiful!

 We have gone soft in our old age. Pretty much had it with sleeping in a tent on the ground. Got our "Hawk" 4 Wheel Camper in June. Spent lots of time in it. Very minimal but all that we need.Much higher level of comfort than we're used to. We lived in it for over three weeks in the Fall on our trip to Alberta and B.C. Loved every minute! You do need to be organized in such a small place, but really, a furnace? Wonderful!!

Last but best. New change rooms and deck at Liard Hot Springs. Went down there a couple of times for multiple days. Never gets old!!!!

Christmas Sales

 Cleaning shelves, got to be the worst job in pottery. This time it was angle grinder all the way.

 Kiln was in super-reduce mode, not good! Lots of refires in the back due to not enough air in the front. Did two back to back firings in the most horrible weather.

 And this is why. When I 'fixed' the top I made the air holes smaller than they were before. They were much bigger because the metal was warped and had opened up really big.....maybe that was why I got to temp hours faster than ever before??? Duh, and the fix was a f.....up.Off to my welder friend to open them up. Wish I still had all the wood I wasted. Oh well, live and learn!

 Don't have very much of this stuff left. I had left some home for the following sales and it's all gone too. Had lots of orders plus the sales. Really happy about it all. This was the first, over 4,000 people came. Considering the entire Yukon population is 33,000 I'd say that was good attendance!

Scarves, pots and dog fur hats. Ready for a rest. My next project is either buying or building a small propane fired kiln. I have 150 soft brick. Getting the bricks is the hard part. Sure I could make something that would work. Anyhow, now is the time to think and plan, building would be in the Spring. Tonight is supposed to get to -25 and colder the next few days. Last day of school is the 20 th.Time for a holiday!!

Big Fly Order Finished!

There were so many boxes of flies that it was difficult to photograph them. From the smallest grayling/trout fly to the huge pike flies, here they are. Or were....all are now in the store in Whitehorse. After 30 years this is the last order for Sports North. They sold their building and are winding down the business in November and moving to Costa Rica!! Meanwhile there won't be any place to buy fishing stuff left. Who knows what will be happening next year!!
Back at the ranch I will start making pottery again tomorrow. It was -15 last night but will be warming up over the next week. Also silk scarves will get underway. Lots of developments coming up for the Summer.
Today was a typical Yukon spring day. Blue sky and lots of warmth in the sun.The swans are back. Won't be long and we will have leaves and all the birds will be back. Then the next flock will be the tourists. That will really be Summer!

Another Visit to the Slab Pile

I spent the day glazing pots, getting ready for another firing. Actually it looks like two firings back to back...... It takes a while to recover.Be nice to have some help.....guess I am lucky to have some in getting the wood.

This pile used to be lots bigger. I thought I had a lifetime supply if no forest fire got to it first. However it now seems like some of my neighbors have discovered it as a handy source of firewood. We need someone to do some saw-milling, too bad the government makes it so difficult!!

Snow has come and gone a few times. It probably won't be long before we get some that stays put. More later!!

Freezeup/Breakup

Took these photos around 3 pm. After the -35 C it looked like we had freezeup coming along nicely. Then one of those huge storms from the Gulf of Alaska moved our way. The temperature went up to 0 C and the winds howled. Some of the ice held, but there is going to be quite a mess at the edge. The sound is amazing, all that bashing and crashing of the ice chunks.
Cooler weather is on the way....won't take long to refreeze and hopefully stay that way.

Getting Ready for Fishing

I finally was able to twist some arms and buy some tools for fly-tying for the school. We were able to get 8 sets, thanks to our school council and some help from my materials supplier in Vancouver, Micheal and Young Fly Shop http://www.myflyshop.com/ .

The kids are using up hooks at a furious rate. It has exceeded my expectations for popularity. They force every adult that comes into the school to have a go at making a fly. Next week when we have the Bison Feast to celebrate the results of the bison hunt I will be donating a couple hundred of my hand tyed flies for sale. All the money will go into more fish hooks!!

We are using lots of materials that are native to where we live, grouse feathers, diffrent furs, hair from the bison hide and anything else we can find .When I told them to pick up any dead squirrels off the road it didn't go over too well.


The first two pictures are from afterschool. We have used one of our pottery tables for flytying only. The last one is from the Native Language classroom. I did the first lessons in there so I could use the chalk board. I got three of the bigger kids to help with the younger ones until they picked it up. Now everybody can tie the heads. Because we only have 8 sets of tools the kids have to group up and share. They really do help one another learn this way. As you can see by the pictures they are really having fun!

Return of the Swans

On our way home from Whitehorse we went down to the "bridge " to pick up our mail. There were a few swans feeding in the 6 Mile River (it connects Tagish and Marsh lakes). These are just the first arrivals. In the next couple of weeks there will be so many of these beautiful huge white birds that they cover the river. You can see then flying over between favorite feeding spots in Carcross, Tagish and at Marsh lake.

The river is quite shallow and the water stays open most of the winter. Upwelling from the big lake brings up warmer water. It is NEVER safe to cross it, no matter how iced in it looks. These first birds are the Trumpters. The Tundra swans come a bit later. You can tell their 'kids' from last year as they are still greyish. Once, about 15 years ago, we got a very cold snap at the peak of the migration. The first birds couldn't move on and the later birds just kept on coming. There were over 2,000 big swans in the river at one time. I drove my dogteam along the edge and got a very close look at them. The noise was amazing. Snowmachines scare them so you aren't supposed to drive down there when the birds are in. Loose dogs are another very bad idea. Dogteams don't seem to bother them.

The days are really getting longer. Woke up to sunrise at 6ish, working outside in the light until 9:30 last night. Above freezing in the daytime, snow malting and we are finding all the stuff we forgot to pick up in the yard last fall, all things we needed during the winter of course. The sun is so bright and the sky so blue, the best time of the year, impossible to work in the house or shop.

Tomorrow will post some pictures of the kids at school tying flies, now that is some fun!