A mid-septuagenarian Yukon retiree, 75, has three readily apparent options for a productive summer fitness program: 1. Fishing, 2. Golf or 3. Firewood.

For the purposes of this piece, your participatory journalist chose the latter because he felt certain he needed at least a 10-cord pile of good firewood close to the front door of the funky old cabin located northwest of Whitehorse, in the electoral district known as Grizzly Valley, within the considerable shadow of Pilot Mountain.

The contractor, 38, who supplied the raw 16” logs over the course of the cutting season is a total marvel at his chosen profession and a Rembrandt in the ancient artform of shrinking dead trees to fit into pits and/or stoves.

For the fair price of $250 a cord, he delivered nine cords, one at a time, in his modified one-ton wood wagon. That fee is a rarity in this remote northern territory, well-known for speculative woodcutters, many of whom charge far more for tinder-dry swamp wood that burns like cardboard.

The fitness fun begins when the wood flies off his trusty truck upon delivery. It takes this old splitter/stacker 20 hours of slow, steady work to process each cord. That means 10 days total because here is the secret to success with old, life-battered muscles: If you only work at it two hours per day, you can go all summer, May through October, from Monday to Friday with Saturdays optional and Sundays a mandatory day of rest, no exceptions. The pudding’s proof is in the pics. Remember this: Firewood is a marathon, not a sprint.

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