I’ve been wishing for a flea market locally for about a year now. We have pop up markets in the summer but nothing year round. I decided that instead of pining away for a nonexistent local market I could use my dormant Etsy shop for my creative outlet.
Oh and a new addition to the shop: Thing 1. Known elsewhere as The Lowest Pickle, she’s got some of her stickers and jewelry listed.
Head over to Bearthangel on Etsy and check it out. Sign up for notifications when we post new items!
One of my favorite poems, The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service is about a couple of old Sourdoughs, and how Alaska can chill you to the bone. Or maybe it’s not Alaska that chills you… It’s glimpse into a bygone time but a sense of humor that remains. The author himself perhaps qualifying as a Sourdough for surviving more than one Yukon winter in the early 1900s.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; … then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
The first person to introduce me to Sam McGee was my friend Pam. I met her when I lived in Idaho. Years later my friend Georgeanne, who lives in Fairbanks, reminded me of the cold dark humor of making do!
Found this recipe over at Detox Tips and I’m giving it a try.
Since we were out at the cabin, we used half green tea and half black tea and canned in fruit juice peaches because that is what we had, making do. We also added chia seeds because we can.
Guess what? It was pretty good. The girls and I liked it. We’ll be making it again. It wasn’t too sweet, just a hint of sweetness. The peach flavor was just right.
My cousin by marriage, Dana, of blessed memory, was a petite, sweet, fiery, passionate woman who shared many of my own likes & dislikes. We were the same age as well. We lived far apart but whenever we were together there was no shortage of conversation.
Today she would be 50 years young.
She passed 15 days after her 38th birthday, far too young.
I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one. I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done. I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways. Of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days. I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun; of happy memories that I leave when life is done. ~Afterglow, Anonymous.
Can a wood stove classify as a sourdough? If so, this old boy is high on the list. Someone’s handiwork, made of plate steel, it sported a 2″ boiler valve on the backside which we’ve determined was for air intake and long ago plugged off with ash build up. This old stove has kept Dad & his cabin warm for more than 30 years. (The floor was unpainted under the metal disks the legs sat on. I know he painted the floor right before I visited in ’92.)
This stove was repurposed from another location and at the time was a big improvement from what Dad had, which, for a while, was a homemade 55 gal barrel stove . In the true sourdough spirit, you use what you have until you can upgrade. Often those improvements were found, made, repurposed or gifted to you. You just weren’t in the position to go buy a brand new replacement nor able to haul it out easily. And all too often sourdoughs used some awful sketchy wood stove setups!
Besides having a small fire box and just not burning through the night, the old thing was so leaky we always seemed to smoke ourselves right out. Every time you opened the front door of the cabin a big puff of smoke would come out from the middle seam of the stove doors. Even with new gaskets it would still belch out smoke.
It does have the benefit of a cooktop and plenty of space for the water pots. And it’s hell bent for stout. It will have a new purpose to be sure.
We wrestled the heavy old thing out to make room for our new-to-us Earth Stove. I scored this one off Facebook marketplace from a nice fella named Dave. I’ll admit, being able to drive right out with it in the back of our truck made replacing this stove possible. I can’t image trying to pack it in any other way.
There’s just enough room for the two water pots on top of this stove. Or one water pot and the coffee pot. Priorities.
Come spring we’ll pull this stove outside, remove the rust and re-black it. It will look like new! Maybe we’ll paint the floor too.?.?
The old stove will make our new shop nice and warm next winter. That is, if we get it built this summer. 😉 A place where we don’t have to worry about things like smoke leaking out and such. The old boy will go on to warm us for a long while.
Alaska on my mind... 