Kindle Ebook Giveaway from Powell River Books

Special Gifts from 

Powell River Books

From December 22 to 26
we have FREE 
Kindle book gifts for you. 

Pick one or all for free 

and enjoy them into the 
New Year.

The book that started it all! 
 Up the Lake

Coastal BC Stories

Always Free at Amazon.com

Description: Head up Powell Lake to experience life in an off the grid float cabin, take a boat to world famous Desolation Sound, ride a quad into the back country and fly overhead for a unique view of this incredible place. Read Up the Lake by Wayne Lutz and see how much fun it can be.

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift.

 

Farther Up the Lake

Free from December 22-26

Description: Farther up the Lake follows in the footsteps of Wayne's most popular book, Up the Lake. Read about living off the grid in a float cabin, the beauty of Powell Lake and the many different ways you can enjoy the backcountry. 

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift.  

 

Flying the Pacific Northwest 

Free from December 22-26

Description: Airports of Western Washington and Oregon form the backdrop for adventures in the Pacific Northwest. Take the controls of a Piper Arrow, as your personal flight instructor leads you to out-of-the-way spots.

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift.

Up the Strait

Free from December 22-26

Description: It's cruising time again. Jump in the boat and head up the Strait of Georgia with us to magnificent anchorages and exciting adventures. Drop your hook in world famous Desolation Sound, discover hidden coves and meet some of the locals.

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift.  

Up the Inlet

Free from December 22-26

Description: Come boating up the inlets of coastal British Columbia, where the mountains drop into the sea. Follow along as we cruise northward from the Strait of Georgia to Cortes and Quadra Islands, and beyond.

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift.

Across the Galactic Sea

Free from December 22-26

Description: Spaceship Challenger is on mankind’s first galactic voyage using a high-tech blend of space jumps and cryogenic hibernation. Captain Tina Brett leads her ship towards the ultimate goal, first contact with alien intelligence, until a navigational glitch changes everything.

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift. 

Anomaly at Fortune Lake

Free from December 22-26

 

Description: On a remote lake in Canada, Ashley and Justin live off-the-grid. But their idyllic life is interrupted by two mystifying anomalies. A distant galaxy exhibits unusual characteristics in Justin's telescope, and something under the lake is stirring.  

 Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift.

Echo of a Distant Planet

Free from December 22-26

Description: How would a distant intelligence contact earth? Shawna is an Air Force officer with remembrances of the future. Trapped in a structured military world, her unearthly memories persist for nearly three decades, culminating in a message from the stars. 

Click here for your FREE Kindle book gift. 

 

Check here if you need a Kindle or free Kindle App.

 

Merry Christmas

and Happy Holidays 
from Wayne Lutz
Powell River Books

PowellRiverBooks.com

Summer 2023 Update

It's amazing how fast Summer 2023 is flying by. We're back to our regular summer schedule here at our float cabin on Powell Lake. We arrived mid-May and plan to depart in mid-October. That gives us enough time to prepare for our winter Snowbird trip to Tucson, Arizona.

I've been remiss in writing blog posts regularly, so here is a recap of summer highlights to bring you up to date.

May

Getting home is always exciting. The days were sunny but cool and mornings called for a fire in the woodstove to take the chill off.

Spring flowers that reseeded themselves including Poppies and Penstemons gave us a riot of colour to enjoy.

June

By June we settled into a routine. Each morning we had coffee on the porch to watch the sun rise over Goat Island backlighting tall trees.

Weekly town trips included stops at the condo to check mail, shopping for groceries and a few special events like the "Paint and Sip" party led by local artist Ursala Medley at the historic Old Courthouse Inn.

July 

July brought warm weather to enjoy outdoors. Summer concerts at Willingdon Beach included the PRISMA music academy and a fund raiser for River City Kids.

Our Xplore satellite internet went out in May. It took until July to get a repairman up the lake. We are happy Lee is now available locally for future needs.

I harvested my red currants to make a small batch of jelly.

 Up the Lake by Wayne Lutz

 If you are interested in learning more about float living, use the category list on the right to select topics of interest. You can also get a free e-book or Kindle copy of Wayne's first book in the Coastal BC Stories series titled Up the Lake. It tells about how we discovered our float cabin home and introduces you to the region where we live. It's a great holiday destination in all seasons.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. -- Margy

FREE E-Book: "Up the Lake" by Wayne Lutz

The book that started it all!

Up the Lake

Coastal BC Stories

from

PowellRiverBooks.com

Head up Powell Lake to experience life in an off the grid float cabin, take a boat to world famous Desolation Sound, ride a quad into the back country and fly overhead for a unique view of this incredible place. Read Up the Lake by Wayne J. Lutz and see how much fun it can be.

Print for $9.95
Kindle for Free
E-Book for Free
(prices may vary in Canada)

Visit PowellRiverBooks.com 
for more information and 
additional titles in the Coastal BC Stories series.

Summer Sunrise Up the Lake

Wednesday is the first day of summer, a time of year we look forward to with much anticipation. One reason is long sunny days. Here's a wide angle shot to show you the difference between winter and summer sunrise at our float cabin at Hole in the Wall on Powell Lake.

Sunrise over the peak on Goat Island on the first day of summer is at 7:54 a.m. Sunrise on the first day of winter was well to the south and at 9:45 a.m.

Summer sunset over the Bunster Range to the west is at 5:34 p.m., making our summer sunlight last for nine hours and forty minutes. Compare that to less than two hours in December. Like Goat Island, the Bunsters are pretty tall. Even though direct rays of the sun are gone, it is light until well after 10:00.

What are you doing with all your glorious summer sun? -- Margy

AC/DC Portable Electric Cooler

Wayne and I are on a short winter trip to the cabin. It's quite cool, but we are staying warm thanks to our trusty woodstove. 

Normally, we use our propane refrigerator for fresh food, but because this is a short trip we are using ice chests.

To maximize space we are using a variety of containers. For ice cubes and drinks we are using insulated coolers with blue freezer packs. For fruits and vegetables, a plastic tub. These remain outdoors where it's cool.

Indoors for dairy, meats, cheese and condiments we are using our new knox gear (k-box) electric cooler (it also has a warmer feature that we don't need right now).

It's well insulated on all sides and the lid. The cooling unit on top runs with either a 110V AC cord or 12V DC cord and power adapter plug. 

For ease of use, we have ours connected directly to the cabin's battery bank.

It could also be used with a vehicle power port. 

The inside fan distributes cold air throughout the interior. 

It works best with pre-cooled groceries. For extra cooling, I froze large water bottles and two blue freezer packs.

One of two large water bottles I froze in town to augment cooling.

During our six day cabin trip, all of our foods stayed cool and fresh. I even had ice cubes left on the front porch for my last evening cocktail. 

The 48-quart model has plenty of room. They also have a smaller version.

I would say this has been a successful test of our short-term winter refrigeration needs. What kinds of strategies do you use on camping or off-the-grid trips? -- Margy

Shared with Your the Star at Stone Cottage Adventures. And Tuesdays with a Twist at Stone Cottage Adventures.

Hop on over to the Simple Life Mom and see some great ideas for homesteading and simple living.

And Sunday Sunshine Blog Hop at Ridge Haven Homestead.

Float Cabin Living Series: Tiny Home on the Water

Float Cabin Living Series

Tiny Home on the Water

In 2018, I wrote a series about float cabin living. Below you will find links to each of the posts. I invite you to visit (or revisit) the articles to see why Wayne and I love float cabin living so much.

Wayne and I purchased our float cabin home on Powell Lake in BC in 2001. It was the best decision we ever made.

Our float cabin fits the tiny home definition. In fact, it was featured in Lloyd Kahn's book Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter.

Our float cabin is past First Narrows at picturesque Hole in the Wall where we pay annual lease and property taxes.

Click on the links below to go to the posts. If you have questions, please leave a comment.

1. Float Cabin Living: The Series (an overview)
2. Does the cabin move around the lake?
3. What is the weather like?
4. What happens during storms?
5. How do you stay warm?
6. How do you get power? Propane, Solar, Alternatives
7. Do you have a telephone, television and the Internet?
8. How was your cabin built? Float, Cabin
9. Why did you choose to live in a float cabin?
10. Can you have a garden?
11. How can you live in such a small space?
12. What do you DO with all your time?
13. How do you handle waste?

For more information there are posts under Float Cabin Living in the sidebar. You can also visit the PowellRiverBooks.com website for information about my husband's Coastal BC Stories series of books. Many include chapters about cabin life and Powell Lake.

If you have questions, please leave a comment or use the email link in my profile. I always enjoy sharing about our life up the lake. -- Margy

Book Review: "Murder Rides a Gale Force Wind" by Yvonne Maximchuk

The author/artist in action at our float cabin.

This month I'm reviewing a new book by my favourite local author, Yvonne Maximchuk. I've read all her non-fiction books about the people and places near her off-grid home in Echo Bay on Gilford Island in Coastal British Columbia. Murder Rides a Gale Force Wind is her first novel.

Yvonne is an author and artist. She's a master at capturing the beauty of Coastal BC in images and words. You can see more at her website.

Murder Rides a Gale Force Wind is set in Echo Bay, nearby islands and North Vancouver Island. If you've read any of Yvonne's other books, you'll recognize her inspiration from real-life people and places like the Echo Bay Marina and Lodge and legendary Billy Proctor.

Review of Murder Rides a Gale Force Wind

Echo Bay is a small hamlet of cabins in a protected cove cut off from Vancouver Island by kilometres of sometimes dangerous ocean. Like all small villages, everyone knows everyone, sometimes too well. Woody's lodge and marina is the heart of the community. It's usually a quiet place, except when summer boaters come to cruise the nearby scenic waterways. In all seasons, it supplies residents and fishermen with fuel, mail, supplies and gossip.

Tim is a colourful character. He's settled into being a government agent checking prawn boats for legal catches. He has conflicting love interests, Margaret an RCMP Sargent in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island, and Kit who runs a boat taxi service out of Echo Bay. There's also a tangled web of other characters from Echo Bay, the First Nations village, and recent arrivals to this isolated region.

Several story lines unfold to introduce the characters and the beautiful land and sea. They come together crashing together when a body is discovered washed up on the shore of a neighbouring island. The big question, is it murder or something else.

Yvonne knows this area well.  It's been her home for many years. Her extensive knowledge of boating, off-grid living, commercial fishing, logging, painting, First Nations, hiking and exploring shows in her descriptive narration. I'm amazed at how much I have learned over the years by living in the region. For some readers, a few terms might be unfamiliar, but add to the authenticity. 

Congratulations to Yvonne on an exciting novel. You are a master of words to paint pictures in the minds of your readers.

Murder Rides a Gale Force Wind is available in e-book and print formats from a variety of online booksellers plus several Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland bookstores. Watch her Facebook page for upcoming in-person readings and presentations.

Posts I've written about Yvonne and her books:

Yvonne Maximchuk: Painter, Potter, Author and her visit to our Powell Lake float cabin

Her memoir Drawn to Sea

Books co-authored with Bill Proctor: Full Moon, Flood Tide and Tide Rips and Back Eddies

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Would you like to own a piece of historic and scenic Echo Bay? Yvonne's custom, state-of-the-art off grid waterfront home is for sale. For details visit Realtor.ca.

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Visit the monthly Book Review Club for teen/young adult and adult fiction over at Barrie Summy's blog.

Also shared with Your the Star at Stone Cottage Adventures.