Life in a Dry Cabin

When was the last time you were thankful you had a flush toilet? A shower in your house? How about running water? Showers, flush toilets, dishwashers and running water are often taken for granted. We don’t think about them until they stop working and we have to go without.

Living in a dry cabin (or house or trailer) makes me appreciate all the amenities of running water. Life slows down because daily tasks take more time. Water needs to be hauled and dishes washed by hand.

We have two six-gallon jugs to haul water. Every other day I load the empty water jugs onto my purple sled and pull the sled down the road to the well-house. (Hopefully our well is working by the time the snow melts.) After filling the jugs from the spigot, I load them back on the sled and pull it back to the house.

The water is used for drinking (for us and the dog), cooking, watering plants and washing dishes. Washing dishes uses the most water and takes the most time. First the water has to be heated on the stove and then the dishes washed. We’ve gotten a system going where I wash and Ryan rinses using a pitcher of water that has to be refilled a few times depending on the number of dishes. We try to minimize the number of dishes we use so we only need to wash once a day. We can’t forget to empty the bucket under the sink either—all that dishwater has to go somewhere and it isn’t down the sewer pipe—it goes in the outhouse.  

The most well spent time is the time we take for showers. No quick shower before bed here. A very generous friend is letting us take showers at the bathhouse she has for her rental cabins. So a few times a week we walk half-a-mile to her place to take a shower. I truly feel clean from head-to-toe after every shower.

An indoor toilet is what I miss the most. During the day, the outhouse is fine but at night it isn’t as handy. As you can imagine, bundling up to go outside (as the temperature still drops below freezing at night) and going outside wakes you up completely. The one advantage is seeing the stars, northern lights and the faint glow of twilight on the horizon at 2 a.m. The seat isn’t the least bit cold thanks to the one-inch blue foam insulation seat I made (a rectangle with a hole).

Living in a dry cabin is nothing new. There was a time when indoor plumbing didn’t exist just like telephones, computers and electricity. Many people in Alaska still live in dry cabins year-round because plumbing isn’t practical or is a hassle (don’t have to worry about pipes freezing). Living in a dry house has made me appreciate running water. Even though it is an adventure, I look forward to the day our plumbing is hooked up.