Alaska News

Photos: Living the dream in Fairbanks dry cabins

Imagine you're sitting in a log cabin in the middle of Alaska. It's the middle of January, when temperatures can plummet to -40 degrees. It's 5 p.m. and pitch black outside. You're waiting for water to boil on your stove, so that you can wash last night's dishes. You pour boiling water on the dishes, and rinse carefully with water from a five-gallon jug balancing on the sink lip.

The rinse water washes down six inches of pipe into a bucket beneath your sink. Dishes done, you carefully pick up the bucket-full of rancid waste water and inch outside, mindful not to slop any on the floor. You fling the water from your deck and it freezes instantly in the air.

You prepare to brave the cold for the bathroom, an outhouse a few feet from your doorway.

You're living the dry cabin lifestyle, just like several thousand others in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Full story: Cabin dreaming off the grid

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