SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Their home is frozen into the ice about 300 metres from the ice road to Dettah, about half-kilometre from downtown.

Tandi Wilkinson sits in her houseboat living room, where she and her husband, Martin Garcia, have been living for the past 2-and-a-half years. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo Martin Garcia works in the kitchen of his houseboat, which is among the largest on the bay.

A doctor, Tandi Wilkinson, a carpenter, Martin Garcia, and two golden retrievers have spent the last two-and-a-half years between the wilderness of Great Slave Lake and the home-styled comforts of Old Town, living a charmed life as houseboaters. The couple previously called Nelson, B.C. home, and made the move after a friend tipped them off to the benefits of living and working in Yellowknife.

The couple arrived in the summertime, fell in love with the city, and were soon living in Houseboat 28 - a modern two-storey home.

"It was so beautiful," said Wilkinson. "It's such a wonderful time of year to be living on a houseboat."

But with the intention to spend more time in the mountains of B.C., the couple is endevouring to sell their houseboat. And because it's not a typical home sale, they have created a blog - Houseboat 28 For Sale - to do so. In it, they explain that because one can't get a mortgage for a houseboat, it must be paid for in one lump sum. They also promise in the blog to be on-call for a year to help with the transition from urban to on-the-water living.

Wilkinson, who works in the emergency department at Stanton Territorial Hospital, said they settled in quickly to houseboat life, but soon found they had a lot to learn about living on the water. Learning the nuances of their new-found buoyancy, fixing things as they broke down, learning how to service their solar-power system and figuring out how to commute to town throughout the changing seasons - took some time.

"It was a bit overwhelming ... living off the grid," she said.

Garcia said one of their big learning experiences was finding out how - and when - they should commute to town.

"Depending on the wind, the main concern is to commute," he said. "In the spring and fall, it can be really stormy ... you can get 80 or 90-kilometre winds, so those days you don't really go anywhere."

He said during the changing seasons, when the ice is forming or melting, it can be difficult to get to town. But the houseboat community - which has been figuring it out for more than 30 years - has come up with solutions for the problem. One of their neighbours invented a floating push-sled, which can skim overtop rotten ice, but will float if it falls through. Solutions like this are things you just have to figure out as you go, said Wilkinson.

"Once, during our first winter, we were out there in our boat, trying to push it up over the next section of ice ... so we could get to town. It was taking us a really long time," she said. "Then we looked over and saw one of our neighbours walking along the ice, and we thought, 'we are not doing this right.' Those are the things you just have to learn."

Their home is one of the more modern houseboats on the bay, said Wilkinson. They have running water, supplied by a tank they fill once a week, and three solar panels help to power their appliances when the sun is shining.

"We are completely solar for six or seven months of the year," she said. "In the winter months we are pretty much generator dependant, and that gives us all the power we need."

This, combined with not having to pay property taxes to the city, means few bills.

"Compared to Yellowknifers our cost-of-living is very cheap," she said.

But being offshore means city services aren't available when things go wrong, said Garcia.

He said he recently saw an ambulance on the ice road near their home, but doubts a firetruck would risk falling through the ice to come to the rescue of a burning houseboat. He said it's difficult to get repair companies to come out to the home for the same reason.

He'd pay property taxes if it meant more Yellowknife services were available to the houseboat community.

The city doesn't have ownership over anything on the water, which is why it doesn't collect property taxes from houseboaters, said Wenyan Yu, acting-director of the city's planning and development department, but added the city is in the process of getting water parcels secured so they can begin charging.

"It takes some time and we're still working on it," she said.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.