Here is a bit of a review of our gear following this year's episode.
We have become a Scepter brand ambassador if only because of the investment. Besides carrying two 20 litre and one 10 litre MWC (military water container), we had five 20 litre MFC (you guess). Two of the fuel cans sat in the holder and we were chuffed that the other three fit easily inside our rear ski box, along with 2 pairs of skis! On the water front (see what I did there), I mounted a marine hand pump on the small 10 litre container, which we keep on the counter (remember, we are winterized so our water tanks are dry) and refill as needed.
Fuel-wise, we had sufficient to reach the end of the road and return BUT that would compromise our Bingo of 100km/20L. Hence, the 750km return to Yellowknife instead completing the road all the way to the Ekati mine gates. Future possibilities include a hitch-mounted carrier that would accommodate up to nine MFCs but I'm leery about that much weight hanging off the back. Still with fuel, I ordered Scepter's MFC lid wrench as soon as we got home. The wide temperature swings and resulting expansion/contraction of the cans left us struggling to open them more than once. Lesson learned. Our Scepter pour spout suffered a failure when the hose simply popped off, again I'd attribute this to the cold. Luckily it slid back on and did not leak but we had to be careful. I called Scepter's tech line once home to see if they had a recommended adhesive but they simply offered to replace it for free; nice.
One gadget we brought was an Aranet4 carbon dioxide meter that we find very helpful at home. It was interesting to see the levels of CO2 inside the camper, both for air quality and condensation, and adjusted ventilation accordingly. Alas, because of cold temps outside, we spend more time in the yellow zone than I'd tolerate at home. Hey, bonus points if someone recognized the location of our wall art (edit: hint, its in a national park).
Getting to the bottom of a more sensitive topic, we were both thankful for this hand-crafted toilet seat cover. I was particularly pleased not being forced to hold out in the mornings until my partner pre-warmed the seat for me ;-)
The real drama didn't occur until our homeward journey. We returned to Hay River, intent on using the same boondocking spot in town as before. On the way, we diverted to the local nordic ski club to scope it out. Always amazed by the high class facilities that can be found in seemingly out-of-the-way spots and this was another example. Got to chatting with a course volunteer who was busy setting up for their annual race the next day. Hearing we were eager to try out their tracks, he suggested we ski till dark and perhaps even the next morning before races begin. To that end, he offered the parking lot to camp overnight with the bonus of an electrical connection. Yeah, I'm for that and indeed we enjoyed a marvelous sunset in near total isolation and silence, but for some acrobatic ravens that couldn't understand why we weren't dropping a few granola crumbs.
Après-ski, I shut down the Webasto and plugged into an exterior outlet of the clubhouse to run our electric space heater. Big mistake; within an hour we could faintly smell sulphur, like someone had struck a match. I opened the battery compartment - the batteries were hot! Idiot!! I'm an electrical dummy but instinctively had never run the space heater on anything less than 30A and shouldn't have done so now. Put the Webasto back on and by morning you couldn't tell anything had happened; the batteries were cool and voltages were normal. I think we dodged a bullet there but full credit to the Victron AGMs; they are tough. I've since picked up a digital volt meter and will test all outlets before using in the future. Fun fact: all alarms on the Victron Connect app are deactivated by default.
Still learning...
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