Life on the Inlet Part 1. January 2011

Well isn't this interesting?  I was inspired by some friends who have moved from Rivers Inlet to a remote fishing lodge on the  Queen Charlotte Islands. For those of you who think I live 'away from it all', they only have access by boat or helicoper! There are no schedule services AT ALL and Heather had to do 9 months worth of shopping to begin the job.
We are not that remote. To some it is the ideal location. To others a nightmare of planning and organisation. Not having shops just down the road can have its drawbacks, but we love it and can't quite imagine being anywhere else.
Back to my resons for blogging.
Many people are interested in our life here. We send emails and Christmas letters to bring everyone up to date. It is still hard to explain things in a short one page, end of year misive, so I plan to blog about once a month and include some pictures of 'Life on the Inlet'
Not sure how it will turn out but here goes.

To start 2011 the weather was, and still is cold, snowy and frosty. We also have some sunshine but as we live in Sunshine Bay that is to be expected!
As you can see the wood stove in the house is smoking nicely. Wood is our only form of heat, hot water and cooking so a full wood pile is essensial. During this cold weather the bay does freeze over and the water is in danger of stopping but we keep taps running all the time and that seems to do the trick.
For those of you who are new to where we are I will explain.
We are approx 60 miles north of the tip of Vancouver Island. Rivers Inlet is a fijjord type inlet going inland aprox 30 miles. We are at the mouth of the inlet attached to Ripon Island.
Population during the winter months is 17. Six of those are caretakers and move out during the summer.
We have a local store where our mail goes and they also have food, fuel, post office and liquor store and is the general meeting place.
The rest of the residents are scattered over a large area so we don't get to see each other too often!
Transportation is by boat or sea plane if you want to go 'to town'. There are no roads, electricity (except generators) and one store.
The children are, and have been educated by correspondence. They grow up with a very good sense of independance and maturity. Not much in the way of peer pressure here!

Over the next little while I hope to tell you more about life here, tell some funny stories and post pictures so you can see what I am talking about.

Till next time.

Robins Nest.