The cold version of vanlife

The cold version of vanlife. Realising that your home on wheels ain’t rolling anymore, when its -48 C is kinda hardcore. But after hours and hours of trying we simply had to accept that. And so there we where again. Stuck once more. The owners of that cabin were already back and we could only sleep in our rusty, old van. One surprisingly comfortable night later (considering that it was actually -48 C outside) we decided that we would have to wait for warmer weather. And that it would be better to wait in Dawson City. Without the van. Comfortably and warm in the old, crooked and charming Pit.

And so we enjoyed a cozy week there, listened to live music and ate fabulous pizza. We took short walks across the frozen Yukon river and we waited. When it finally warmed up to only -12 we decided that it was time to try the van again.

The cold had blown our starter and we couldn’t start it. So we tied the rusty, old Van to the back of a pick up truck and tow started it. After dragging it for several kilometres on slippery icy roads the van started again. And we knew that our only option would be to drive the whole distance to Whitehorse in one rush. We would find everything we need in Whitehorse. But if we would turn of the engine our Van might never start again. We still had that bad alternator which occasionally kills our engine. We couldn’t risk that this time. Yet disconnecting it meant that we would drain our battery while driving. No charge would come in.

Without any options we dared it. We turned of the headlights, and every extra draw on the battery. And we plainly ignored the „headlights on at all times“ rule. As long as twilight allowed us to find the road we were rolling. But as soon as a dark winter night was covering everything around us we had no other options. Our headlights had to be on and we could only hope that the battery would last long enough.

Soon enough our lights started fading and our confidence slowly diminished… but luckily so did the distance to the city. And after 12 hours without a single brake we reached the city of Whitehorse. Exhausted, hungry, with a dead battery, just a few drops of fuel and pure luck we rolled to our parking spot. Right there in downtown. Not too far away from our favourite coffeplace and probably a good place to sleep for a couple of nights…

See you on the open road one day

Peter & Sophie