Working In Bush Alaska

I know it is difficult to imagine accurately, but try to think of going somewhere to work and having to think of everything you might need to bring with you and anticipate what unexpected things you might encounter that would prohibit you from accomplishing your task. Then try to do all with a very small weight limit. Those are the constraints you must deal with in working in bush Alaska. The team members are limited to 25 pounds of personal gear - that includes your sleeping pad/bag, changes of clothes, personal hygiene and any specialized gear like rain gear. This leaves no room for your own tool kit. Tools on a trip like this are community, which means there is not always enough to go around. So you take turns using certain tools and making the best of it all.
You bring things like different kinds of nails and screws of different lengths, tape, string, extra saw blades and drill bits. It is sometimes the craziest little thing that can bring progress to a halt. Then, there is no guarantee you will be able to find what you need at the village store, and as I have already mentioned in a prior blog, if you do find it, it will cost you dearly. So, you pack and pray for the best. On both trips our teams ran into trouble with plumbing parts. Out of the infinite number of possible plumbing parts which ones might you possibly need?
While pulling out the old kitchen cabinets a hot water line was broken. What we discovered was that ALL of the valves in the building that controlled water were so old and corroded that they did not work. EXTREMELY hot water was pouring out of the wall with no way to stop it. To shorten a long story, there was a lot of drama while a way to shut off the water was found. Then a search to find a copper fitting 3/4" necked down to 1/2" was the need. Impossible to find but a project stopper. The kind men of the village water department gave us one out of their inventory. A working shut off valve was sourced by going into an abandoned building and hacksawing off one off the wall.
Then, there is the obvious, you have to deal with the weather. It is usually raining and most of the time blowing, both hard. If you are working outside, you are working in water. If you are on a ladder 50% of the time you are standing under the edge of the roof where the water drips off besides just being in the rain. If you are on the ground, you are standing, kneeling or sitting in water. This all has implications for safety and things electrical. The picture I included of the decking between the buildings may not seem interesting of itself, but the person who decked this area made it so much more livable. Without the extensive decking, it would all be standing water you would have to slog through. Actually, there is standing water but it is under the decking.
One thing I could not get an effective picture of was of the brave men who actually leveled the building. If you look at the picture, you can see the building is built on a LOT of individual posts. This is the foundation. Not like the foundation under your house. These posts rest on some wood timbers that are literally laying on top of the ground. There is no reason to dig into the ground as there is nothing solid for a very long ways. So the building actually "floats" on these timbers. With the freeze/thaw cycles, they get out of level pretty quick. This creates cracks in sheetrock, doors that won't close, floors that slope and windows that crack. So, every so often you have to jack up the building and level it again. It is a hard, dirty job. I was assigned to this detail with two other men. I felt pretty useless as I don't kneel well for long periods of time and I am pretty much built to change light bulbs not get under buildings. I did try to be a good go-fer and lug the heavy timber to the needed spots while the 20 ton jacks did their work. Speaking of jacks, it is weird to jack something "up" but be actually jacking the jack into ground because it is so soft. As you can imagine a two story building is pretty heavy so it is easier to push the jack into the mud than jack the building up. Yes, it is a hard job.
You will notice, we got new paint on the building. The moment we arrived, it was nice weather and we got right to work scraping and prepping the building. It was a good thing as we barely got paint on and the rain began. Had we not gotten right on it, it would not have gotten done.
Maybe this gives you an idea of what such work entails, not everything is so difficult and most things go quite well, but you can't take it all for granted. Creativity, resourcefulness and prayer all play a part in getting things done in the Alaska bush.