The Adventures in north country-living carry on. This weekend’s episode was the Survivor-esque one in which the water tank ran dry. To top it off (no pun intended), the water filler dude had joined many other Ross Riverians on a weekend drive into Whitehorse. This meant between Saturday night and Sunday night, we played house without water.
At first, this was comical to me, in the sense of, “As if we are out of water! Like, a basic necessity, that water.” Our upstairs (and, as current, only) toilet was running when we came in from quadding Saturday afternoon, and this was the culprit of our woes. In the city, this is not so big a problem, mostly because water comes from city pipes that lead to a pretty large, seemingly infinite water supply. Our finite supply usually requires a fillup every couple of days around here. When things are running smoothly, we cannot expect to do laundry and each have a shower in the same DAY.
So, we used the reserve in the pipes to fill a few jugs and cups and resolved it wouldn’t really be so bad. After all, how much water do we need?
We soon found out. It wasn’t too troublesome to do our laundry at a friend’s house, as it was only a year ago I was having to do this anyway as a student who couldn’t afford the neighbourhood coin slots. We showered at the gym after working out, so our hygienic needs were largely met. But we grew frustrated we could not use our toilets, wash our hands, and boil water to prepare dinner or cleanup spills on the kitchen floor.
I joked we’d have to resort to laying plastic mattress covers on the back lawn to collect dew, like in real survivor shows I’d seen on TV. I took a drive past the water guy’s house just to see for myself whether he’d driven into Whitehorse. I left a yellow Post-it note on his door, hoping it would stick.
He came to our rescue after dinner time, which was helpful beyond just the convenience of having running water again. It also meant we didn’t have crusty dishes waiting for us the next day to clean by hand because, alas, a dishwasher would certainly not be water-efficient and so we do not have one.
Now, we are back to hydrated living, and basking in it.

Labels: water