Here in Willow we don’t have access to natural gas (the cities do). We have a few options for heating our home. Most people use heating oil. It gets delivered to a big tank somewhere on their property, and then is plumbed into the house to either a forced air furnace or a direct vent heater like a Toyo stove. Some houses have a couple of those. A few rare people use propane or electricity to heat their homes, but that is very expensive.

The other 10 percent or so use something different, mostly wood. We burn both wood and coal. The wood we burn comes from our own property as we cut down dead trees, mainly spruce. This keeps the fire danger around our property lower. But the our main source of heat is coal.

We have a boiler system in a shed about 200 feet from our house. This boiler heats our house, my husbands shop, and the storage shed that it’s in. Overall it’s about 6000 square feet of space.

There is a source of coal closer to home, but they source their coal from Healy and charge extra because of their cost to get it down here. My husband prefers to go get it, as the gas is cheaper than getting the coal locally, and he can get how much he wants all at once. Usually it’s a 5 yard dump truck and then a trailer on the back of his truck.

My son-in-law drives the dump truck and my husband drives the pickup truck. They usually go by themselves, but my husband has been after me to go so I know how it works. Just in case something happened to him. I finally had the chance yesterday. We didn’t drive the truck yesterday however because we didn’t need more than the dump truck load to make it through the rest of the winter. We don’t currently have anywhere to store it for the summer.

We were out the door a little before 8 AM and headed north. We stopped at a gas station about 30 miles north to top off the tanks on the dump truck and my car. Then we settled in for the 3 hour drive. My daughter came along too as she loves a road trip no matter what it’s for. She and I road together on the way up, and then she road with her husband in the dump truck and my husband drove me on the way back.

It was a beautiful sunny day down here in the valley, although quite cold at -31 degrees. But as we headed north it got cloudy and the temperature came up to the negative teens for the rest of the trip. About 30 miles before Healy we could see the clouds starting to descend and we were soon driving through a light snow.

Once in Healy we headed out to the coal mine and got loaded up with coal. There is a big front end loader on site that they load with. When we got there they were just finishing up loading the bed of a truck. We pulled up, and 3 scoops and 10 minutes later we were all finished and the next pickup truck was pulling up to get loaded.

We headed back into town and stopped by the local grocery store, Three Bears, to grab a bite to eat, use the restroom, switch my daughter and husband and then headed back home.

3 1/2 hours of driving, one more stop at the gas station, and we were home. The snow had stopped by the time we left Healy, and the clouds had moved further north. Our drive home was in the beautiful sunshine, and it’s finally got some warmth back to it, so it was a very pleasant ride home.

Once home my husband and son-in-law filled the trailer that we park in the boiler shed with coal, and we were back in business. Coal is not as inexpensive as the wood we get, because when we get wood we do it ourselves so it’s just time. But, it saves time, and it’s still cheaper than heating oil, especially for the square footage we’re heating. The 3 -5 trips to Healy don’t amount to even half the time it takes to get an entire years worth of wood. So we are further ahead as far as wear and tear on our bodies.

This was a fun trip. I enjoyed my daughter’s company on the way up, and my husband’s company on the way home. I also am now more prepared to take care of myself it that happens (hopefully not anytime soon!).

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