Yukon author Helene Dobrowolsky had high ideals and low overhead when she began building her own log cabin in 1978. "I was a purist," she says. "An axe, a swede saw, log dogs, a draw knife and level were all I needed. Not to mention many friends."

As Dobrowolsky recalls in the Great Northern Lost Moose Catalogue (Lost Moose $26.95), her main expenses for survivial in those days were food for volunteer workers and sharpening fees for borrowed tools. "I became very friendly with the nice man at the sharpening service," she says.
Now married and living in a townhouse, she maintains her cozy cabin in the bush as an essential refuge, a sanctuary for spiritual revival. "Sometimes it seems I've spent the last 19 years fixing all my original mistakes," she says, "and I still have a long way to go. But at the cabin, we are most ourselves."

The new Lost Moose compendium has countless survival tips about northern gardening, axe maintenance, making willow furniture, fermenting berry liqueur, tepee living, camping cooking, woodbox construction and an ode to peeing in the snow.

[BCBW 1997]