The last of the firewood has been chopped and stacked in a pile outside of our home. My darling strained his back many hours to keep me warm through the cold months. In early spring locals begin to gather logs for next winter. They venture out in the flooded waters to collected drifting fallen trees and pull them back to land. Our lovely tundra landscape lacks adequate firewood so timber floating on the river is the only selection. For the entire summer piles of logs will sit scattered neatly along the banks of the Yukon, tangled with old salmon nets and lost children's shoes. And the next year before the river freezes everyone will cut and gather the wood to set in their front yards. Ours is now fully stacked. Although the work was not of personal strain to me, I acknowledge it was in general to those around me. And as each other woman in the town would be, I am especially grateful to my darling. For he truly in the most literal sense will keep me warm in the cold.
