When the time came to search for a new place, my preference was to stay in the valley. Despite being in a low area that usually was 10 degrees cooler than in Fairbanks, it was nice having a big ridge between as a barrier. I did receive some pressure to move to a cabin that was in an even colder pocket of the valley, but that one would have been quite difficult. It was a very small two level cabin with an oil drip stove, but it was well more than a mile off the road with no other traffic using the drive, no electricity near, and would have proven near impossible and expensive to maintain and use a vehicle for trips into town, at least from the standpoint of me being there all alone and not having a snowmachine, atv, or a sled to tote things back and forth. I also looked at a place that was on the end of a drive that likely would have become impassible in the spring, and besides, it was no better than a run down farm shed. Another possibility was a small subdivision of cabins that were being sold on land contract for $1,500 down and they would carry the note. Being on permafrost, as most of the valley was, there had to be a workaround for outhouses, and in this case they had above the ground holding tanks and perched on top reached by a flight of steps was the outhouse, kind of resembling some odd sort of throne, which would need to be pumped out every so often. For the owners of the development it was pretty much like rentals without any of the headaches as most people there seemed to stay for a couple of years before moving on to another place, so the payments they received on the places were no different than getting rent, but with a nice move in bonus and not having to make any repairs with minimal maintenance to the subdivision.
I expanded my search, looking at places near the university, and to the west, not quite finding something that felt right or could compare to what I was leaving. One in particular was just off a small aeroport with a landing strip and float pond on a side street with quite a few other cabins. Across the street was a bathouse with showers and laundry, so that would have been quite a convenience (instead of having to drive into town or elsewhere to go to a laundromat with showering facilities). What was odd about this cabin, was that it was rather narrow, kitchen along the back wall and a loft overhead with a big picture window facing the street. While it was certainly nicely constructed, I just couldn't get over the impression that it would be like living in a department store display window.
I looked at a cabin up by Curry's Corner, that would have had water, but it was much like a tourist court, just one row a cabins set side by side that had all the charm of living in a motel without common walls. Another subdivision, on the south slope of gold hill had smaller cabins that were packed in fairly well, but at least in this case they were along a winding lane that made it a bit less crowded feeling, but from coming from a place where the next neighbour was 1/4 mile up the highway around a corner where mostly all one saw was cars zipping past usually unaware that they passed by a cabin or teams of dogs pulling sleds and snowmachines going past on the trail, this too was still a bit much of a change back to the city life of condos and apartments of the past.
In the end, I settled on a subdivision of 16 X 24 cabins with half lofts all on quarter acre lots on the north slope of goldhill, and picked one that was situated so that one couldn't look directly into the windows of another. I still was on permafrost here as this was on the edge of the goldstream valley, but here there were large trees instead of the little bush sized ones that grew on the valley floor. And here I would stay for 3 years.
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