Month: November 1982 (Page 1 of 6)

Our journey took us through a great variety of landscapes and conditions and although at no point is it supremely demanding, the sheer scale of the trip required careful planning.

Maps are absolutely essential. We used the 1:250,000 scale maps and found them completely adequate. It might be wise to have 1:50,000 scale maps for the delta areas, which can be very confusing.

The canoe is the most expensive piece of equipment and should be chosen carefully. I paddled an open solo canoe, 16 feet long with a beam of 26 inches. Constructed in fiberglass, I found it very good. It’s important to check the seating arrangements carefully; after all, a person is in it for over eight hours a day.

I found a nylon spray cover to be a very handy piece of equipment because it kept the packs dry during the frequent rainstorms and more than once kept me from swamping.

I used a laminated spruce bent shaft paddle with a length of about 51” and a blade area of about 160 sq. inches. I carried one spare bent shaft paddle and one double-bladed kayak paddle. I much preferred the single blade.

Four nylon packs and a Kelty pack frame carried my gear. The packs measured approximately 25x18x12 and opened at the top. They were not completely waterproof, and I relied on garbage bag liners to keep the contents dry. For portaging I strapped the packs to my pack frame. This arrangement worked very well, and I could carry very heavy loads with ease. Usually three of the packs were crammed with food and the other one with the rest of my equipment.

My cooking equipment consisted of:

• 1 1/12 quart saucepan
• 1 ten-inch frying pan (cast iron)
• 1 spoon
• 1 fork (quickly lost)
• 2 cups
• 2 small Tupperware containers
• 1 coffeepot
• 1 optimus Mini-oven (marvelous invention)
• 1 MSR stove (rarely used)

Food is the most talked about, griped about, argued about item on a long-distance wilderness trip. For breakfast my staple was cooked oatmeal made with my recipe. I used approximately equal quantities of oatmeal and dried fruit added to boiling, salted water. When cooked I added a liberal dose of sugar or honey, fresh fruit in season, and drowned it in powdered milk (the stuff with cream is vastly superior). A cup of hot chocolate was almost always included in the menu. Hot chocolate made with mint tea instead of hot water makes a super beverage. Some mornings, pancakes and maple syrup were on the menu. Granola and cream of wheat (I hated it by the end of the trip) added variety.

For lunch crackers and bannock with peanut butter, jelly, and honey were standard fare. We usually stopped to eat lunch and often built a fire to cook a pot of soup. Chocolate bars, candy, granola bars, dried fruit, nuts, and other munchies rounded out the lunch menu.

I enjoyed the widest variety of food for supper. One of my favorite items was pizza. Ordinary pizza mixes cooked very nicely in the Mini-oven. Spaghetti was very good also, especially with a good sauce. Rice was a frequent menu item either with gravy or as a side dish for a big fillet of fish, which were a big part of our diet at certain points of the trip. Usually we would fry them, but we also attempted to roast them over the fire on a stick several times, without too much success. Lentils, chickpeas, and beans made good additions to a meal but took too long to cook. Macaroni is said by some folks to be edible, but I have my doubts. Mashed potatoes, oriental noodles, soup, and vegetables filled in the corners of a meal.

Drinking a good hot cup of tea after a long day was often the last thing we did before going to bed.

On a long trip, often one begins to crave sweets. For deserts I had pudding mixed, Jell-O mixes, cakes, brownies, cookies, fig bars, and lots of sugar to put in bannock.Edit

Clothing

The main purpose of clothing in the wilderness is to keep a person warm and protected without restricting movement. Looks are less important. My clothing list looked like this:

• 3 pairs wool socks
• 2 pairs cotton socks
• 1 pair long underwear (wool)
• 3 underwear
• 2 blue jeans
• 1 cotton T-shirt (worn almost constantly)
• 2 wool shirts (one very thick)
• 1 down jacket (a rarely used luxury)
• 1 rain suit (pants and jacket)
• 1 wool mitts (very nice on cold moorings)
• 1 pair leather gloves (good when lining)
• 1 wool hat (never on my head once)
• 1 felt crusher hat (never off my head)
• 1 pair tennis shoes
• 1 pair hiking boots

We had a four-man tent for much of the trip. It was big enough for three people easily, but still, given the same trip to do over again, I would be tempted to take one tent for each person.

For sleeping gear I had a Frostline down sleeping bag with shredded foam insulation in the bottom. It is undoubtedly the most comfortable bag I have ever slept in. A full-length 3/8-inch blue foam pad added to the comfort.Edit

Other essential equipment included

• Compass (and the knowledge to use it)
• Water bottles (bleach bottles or plastic pop bottles work well)
• Knife
• Axe (very handy on wet mornings to get that fire going)
• Saw
• Rope (enough to line a canoe and hang food away from bears)
• Toilet paper
• Matches (store them in several waterproof containers)
• Bick lighter (I rarely used matches since the lighters werequicker and more efficient.) Flashlight (superfluous in the Arctic in summer)
• Head net
• Mosquito repellent (high percentage of active ingredients)
• Note book and pens
• Candles
• Fishing gear
• Gun (very optional – we carried a shotgun loaded with slugs)
• Soap
• Washcloth (only if you want to be clean)Edit

Survival Kit

• Matches
• Needle and thread
• Tinfoil
• Water purification tablets
• String
• Wire
• Fishhooks and line
• Whistle
• Flares
• Fire starter
• Plastic tarp
• Sun block lotion
• Sunglasses
• Signaling mirror
• First aid kit
• Emergency foodEdit

Bibliography

Hancock, Lyn. The Mighty Mackenzie. Hancock House, 1974

Mead, Roberts D., Ultimate North, Canoeing Mackenzie’s Great River, Doubleday, 1976

Morse, Eric W., |Fur Trade Canoe Routes – Then and Now, Information Canada, 1969

Nickels, Nick. Canoe Canada, Van Nostrand Reinhold Ltd., 1976

Nickerson, E. I. Kayaks in the Arctic, Howell North Books, 1965

Wright, Richard; Wright , Rochelle, Canoe Routes – Yukon Territories, Antonson Publishing Ltd., 1977

Although we had a wonderful feeling to have done what we set out to do, to my surprise I found myself ready to go back. It had been a marvelous life, a wonderful experience: effort, peace and happiness, sunshine and rainbows, but now I knew it was over and time to go home.

Byron had the luck to sell his canoe almost immediately on our return to Emonak. Doug put an advertisement at the store while I made arrangements with the store manager to have him sell my canoe for me and send the money later. A public shower and sauna were our next stop and for two dollars I took a wonderfully hot shower. The steaming water flooded over my skin and soaked into my pores. Dirt seemed to be a permanentpart of me, and I scrubbed and scrubbed to get completely clean.

Then we set up camp on an island in the river to get away from the hordes of little kids who surrounded us when we reached a town. As I scrubbed my canoe inside and out, I felt a bond that linked me with the sleek boat that had carried me all the way and felt tempted to put it into the river and let it drift out to sea. However, the canoe was the only way I had to get off the island. Our campfire grew as we went through our packs throwing out garbage of all descriptions, sort of a solemn ceremony prior to reentering civilization. After cleaning every piece of gear, we stowed it in our packs.

Doug had not sold his canoe and decided to wait until he did. He and Byron planned to stay in Alaska, and we had already decided that I would not wait for them. So next morning I delivered my boat to the store, bought a ticket on the daily plane, and soon was on my way to Anchorage.

Before arriving in Anchorage I began suffering culture shock. From the slow, peaceful pace of a canoe and the wilderness, I had been flung into the speed of a jet and the hustle and bustle of an airport. I walked into the Anchorage airport feeling very out of place in my worn-out boots and clothing toting a battered and faded pack. After buying a ticket, I wandered around wanting to talk to someone, but nobody seemed to give me more than a second glance, or if they did, it seemed to say, “Just another dirty hippy.” Then I saw her. She had a faded packpack at her side, and as I walked over to her, instead of looking the other way, she smiled and said, “Hello.” I sat down and we spent the next hour and a half talking and laughing like old friends. I’m sorry I didn’t get her address as she was on her way to California, and when I boarded my plane I knew I would probably never see her again.

Soon I was at my grandparents’ place in Surrey, B.C. settled in front of the roaring fireplace, telling about my travels.

We said good-bye to John and Corin to travel the last hundred miles to the sea. Only twenty went by before we stopped for the night about three days from the ocean. Not feeling well, Tom went directly to bed. Steve said, “He’s been pushing himself pretty hard to keep up with you guys.” ‘

Byron replied, “That’s funny, we’ve been just loafing along the last couple of weeks. Although come to think of it, Ill be glad if I can keep up this pace when I’m sixty.”

Because this would be the last night with Tom and Steve, we kept the fire bright and teapot hot on the last night as we reminisced about the wild and wonderful things we had done. Sometimes, as on cue, conversation stopped, and the sounds of the night did the talking. Waves lapped on the sandy beach, the wind whispered through the willows, and an owl hooted his lonely song.

Next day we stopped at Fish Village but didn’t turn up any demons in the ramshackle buildings. Good friends and traveling companions Tom and Steve disappeared into the light shimmering off the river with a wave and “Have a good life. See you someday.”

I stopped several times to climb the banks of the delta and walk, run, and skip across miles and miles of big grass, soft plains with cranberry bushes carpeting the ground below waving grass.

Next day when we tried to find the channel taking us to Emmonak and the ocean, our observations didn’t match the map because a big channel just wasn’t on the map. We saw a barge moving down the channel so we followed hoping the pilot knew where he was going. When we reached the town, uncertain of where we were, Doug spotted some guys on a tugboat and went over to ask, “Are we at Emmonak?”

They laughed and said, “Yep, you are here. Why don’t you come on up for a cup of coffee?”

After chatting for a few minutes, we excitedly pushed down the channel toward the ocean. In a pleasant daze we stopped for the night barely six miles away. We could hardly believe we were actually going to get in our canoes next morning and paddle to the Bering Sea.

A seemingly endless stream of boats came up the channel all evening, and nearly all stopped for a few minutes to chat. One of them gave us some whitefish so we could have a fish feast to celebrate completing our journey. Tired as I was, I couldn’t go to sleep. I wanted to scream with joy one moment and cry my eyes out the next.

I lay in my cozy sleeping bag and remembered — those first paddle strokes, the huge and beautiful mountains of jasper, the green Athabasca flowing beneath them, the fear and excitement of the first white-water, the dry feeling in the mouth when the first waves cascaded over the canoe. I thought of the quiet beauty and wildlife of the Little Buffalo and our wild bout with the ice and wind of Great Slave Lake. I remembered the mighty Mackenzie, its bigness and wild weather, the tough ascent of the Rat River and the incredible glory of the Richardson Mountains—what a memory! I pictured the Bell and Porcupine Rivers meandering through the green valleys and the majestic beauty of the Yukon River. Yet the inconceivable marvelous experience had to come to an end. I wrote in my journal by candlelight in a mood of outrageous exuberance yet tempered by the knowledge that the trip was almost over.

“The time came for us to go and so we went. The whole world lay in front of us. We did not own a single acre, and yet the earth was ours. We pierced the heart of the season, traveling with our canoes into the very core of the season. Our journey was a journey of new beginnings, a voyage of new expectations, a quest for a new happiness. We flung ourselves totally into the wilderness. And we did not come back sorry.”

It had seemed impossible that we would actually one day paddle into the Bering Sea. But of course, if happened. The last few miles were fittingly against a strong headwind. And then we were there — 4,000 miles, 4 1/2 months, 2 million paddle strokes — it all ended when I pulled my canoe on the beach, climbed the low bank, and stood with my partners gazing over the Bering Sea.

We had traveled for 134 days to reach this goal, yet it was not the end that counted. It was all the magic moments in between the beginning and the end. We were silent and lost in our thoughts, remembering all the good times and feeling both sad and glad at the same time. A shower passed over, and in its wake a beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky. I smiled with a quiet joy. We had seen a lot of rainbows.

“Mike, wake up, wake up!”

“Okay, okay, what’s up?”

“Steve’s at you.”

I sleepily said, “What’s going on around here?”

Steve answered, “It’s raining and I figured you guys would want to put your rain fly on.”

I muttered back, “I think we’ve already got it on. At least we’re still dry, and that’s good enough for the middle of the night.” I went back to sleep wondering why Steve had insisted on waking me when Doug was already awake.

Strange things can happen in the middle of the night when everybody is tired. I remembered a night on the Pacific Crest Trail when I awoke to hear Doug loudly clapping his hands and something rustling in the bushes. Byron sat up and asked, “What’s happening?”

“There’s something making noise,” replied Doug.

“Yeah, I heard it too. Something clapping his hands and crashing through the bush.” He grabbed his flashlight, shone it on Doug, and yelled, “I’ve got the varmint blinded. Quick, Mike, hit him over the head with a big stick so we can get some sleep.”

First thing in the morning Steve apologized. “I don’t know why I thought you guys hadn’t put the fly on the tent. And for sure I don’t know why I insisted on waking Mike.”

The day remained a cold damp trial, and for the first time I wished the trip were over. I felt like throwing the paddle overboard and catching the next jet plane to the Mojave Desert. We had been on the move for four months, and I wanted a warm, dry place for a while. But our huge driftwood fire that night helped restore my spirits. Flames leaped twenty feet into the air, and we stood twenty feet away watching the great white heart of the fire and the quivering enthusiastic flames shooting aloft.

We met several natives the next day who were out fishing with a drift net. One had been out for two hours, and when he pulled in his net, he came up empty-handed. But he cheerfully said, “Oh, I go out again this afternoon; maybe I do better.”

A friend had about twenty fish and generously said, “Here, you guys need some fish. I give you two.” We wondered if they were Eskimos or Indians but hesitated to ask having heard that calling an Eskimo an Indian or vice versa insulted them. Doug went ahead and asked, and we learned they were Eskimos.

They told us, “All the villages down near the ocean are Eskimo people.”

Our progress slowed as neared the delta, and occasional strong winds combined with a weakening current meant harder paddling I thought of my life and the something powerful within me that gives me the desire to see and experience and cram as much of what I call life into the short time I have. An inner longing to be different, to do wild and crazy things, to be unaverage, to do what other folks will not or cannot do cries out to be fulfilled.

The Eskimos seemed friendlier than those we had met in Alaska. Several teenage boys stopped, and Doug asked, “What’s the river like on the delta? Will we have some current all the way?”

“Oh, yes, lots of current,” they said, “but once past Mountain Village the winds can be very bad. There’s nothing, no mountains or hills, between the river and the ocean and the wind off the ocean. Blow those little canoes right off the water.”

As we neared Mountain Village, nothing like weather or wind could curb my rising feeling of elation. It seemed impossible that after all the long days and months of travel, we were nearing our goal. As I battled rough water getting very wet from waves splashing in and pouring down, an old Eskimo came up behind me. “Pretty rough water for canoeing,” he said, “but it will be worse once you go around the bend beyond the village.”

“We’ll make out okay,” I said. “We’ve seen some rougher water.”

Then he told me a story about a place called Fish Village. “It’s right where the channels all split in the delta. You shouldn’t even stop there but most of all don’t stay overnight. It’s not good for people like yourself to stay there.”

“Why not?”

“Two, maybe three years ago, three canoers like you stopped there, and they got sick and one died. It’s a bad place. The demons are very strong there. Don’t stop.”

My curiosity aroused, I wanted to stop just to see what would happen. When I met the others, they were all ready to camp just past Mountain Village at the invitation of two people getting their winter’s supply of firewood.

We stopped at the rather decrepit camp, not exactly ideal because of the strong smell of drying fish permeating the air and eight hungry dogs howling for food.

Our host and hostess, John and Corin, came in with their raft of logs, and I wasn’t disappointed to hear about their fascinating adventures. John had a dilapidated fifteen-foot boat with a tiny cabin, a 50 h.p. outboard, and two barrel rafts. They had built a plywood shack on one of the rafts and put all their possessions, including the dogs, on the other. They had secured the rafts to their boat and set sail on the Tanana River near Fairbanks. After spending the summer drifting down the river, they were married on an island near Ruby. Now they planned to spend the winter near Mountain Village, and their little plywood shack, moved on shore, would be home for the winter. I had peeked inside and now told them, “I hope you two are good friends because you will be seeing a lot of each other in that little cabin.”

John asked, “How long are you guys going to stay?”

Tom quickly replied, “We’d better just stay overnight. Winter’s coming, you know.”

But we slept in late and after a feast of sourdough bread, sourdough pancakes, yogurt, grilled salmon and coffee, we thought a day off a good idea. They had strung a net in an eddy trying to catch and dry enough food for their dogs over the winter. Corin told us she had written to some friends down south who planned to visit them in Fairbanks. “I told them we lived mostly on bread and yogurt, and we fed the dogs salmon,” she said. They wrote back, “We’ll eat with the dogs.”

Corin and I seemed to be on the same wavelength, and she had a wonderful knack for expressing herself. She told me of the experiences that had led her to a plywood shack beside the Yukon River. “I had a good job, doing something worthwhile, making good money, college education and all, but it wasn’t enough. Something was still missing. I spent a few years on the road—Africa, Europe, Canada, a lot like what you’ve been doing. I spent a few months in a cabin alone in Washington, got into Eastern religions a bit, but then I came to Alaska and met John. I’m glad I did the straight bit, got an education and job and all that. It put away any doubts about whether I could or would want to make it in the so-called ‘real’ world. Now I’m free of all the ‘shoulds’ in my life and can get on with the ‘wants’.”

“We’re really into the simple lifestyle. Our eventual goal is to acquire the skills to travel by dogsled across northern Alaska and Canada and end in Greenland. It’s just a dream, but dreams have a way of coming true.”

I remembered a time just a few years earlier when, faced with pressure on all sides to do things I didn’t want to do, I just had to get away from everything to find out who I was. I spent most of a year wandering across the country from one beauty spot to another, wondering at and about everything. I was a free man at the end of the year with nothing before me and nothing behind. It was more than enough to just live each day. It was a turning point in my life, and I had been wandering ever since.

My head was whirling with new ideas and forgotten memories, and I felt the need to get into the open air. I climbed the treeless hill above Mountain Village and wandered lonely as a cloud across the top of the wide-open ridge where a hawk soared. As I sat on the grass, the gentle breeze brushed across the hill and the entire Yukon Delta lay at my feet. Lakes, ponds, channels, rivers, bogs, and marshes stretched in a tangled maze to disappear in a blue haze on the horizon. I said to myself. “It is right. This is the way to live for me. I’m still a free man. The whole continent, no the whole world is my home.”

As I sat at peace with the world I hummed the John Denver tune “Sweet Surrender” and remembered the lines:

I don’t know what the future is holding in store,
I don’t know where I’m going,
I’m not sure where I’ ve been,
There’s a spirit that guides me,
A light that shines for me,
My life is worth the living,
I don’t need to see the end.

After a short discussion we decided to continue to Emmonak rather than try an alternate route, and Tom and Steve chose the same. Having to break the ice in our water bottles helped make our decision. It was hard to get enthusiastic about Jining canoes up a cold river with the temperature below freezing. We said good-bye to our new friends and pushed off. I wished we had met more canoers. One old man told me, “Most years we have forty or fifty canoers go by. This year, I guess everybody quit because of all the rain. You guys are about the third to pass this year.”

Late in the afternoon as we were deciding where to camp, Byron thought he spotted Tom and Steve on an island. Doug scanned the island and announced, “You’re seeing things.”

Just then a plume of smoke rose and Byron retorted, “Seeing things, huh? I think you better get those binoculars adjusted.”

Tom and Steve had thrown willows on the fire to attract our attention, but I wondered how they felt about camping with us. Tom answered that unspoken question by saying, “We camped in the most obvious place we could and hoped our smoke would attract your attention.”

Next morning, with a strong wind blowing, I jumped up and shouted, “Look, a tailwind. Today’s the day for sailing.”

Byron scoffed, “Yeah, sure. What do we do for a sailboat?”

“We’ve got one right here,” I urged enthusiastically. “We’ll tie our canoes together to make a trimaran, put a mast up in my canoe, and use Doug’s tarp for a sail. Just think, we’ll be sweeping down the river with the sails full and billowing, just lying back and watching the shore rush by.

Byron christened our craft the ‘Hairbrain” and so it was. When we pushed it into the river, the wind rapidly died and then completely reversed itself blowing us backwards. So much for sailing. We dismantled our craft and faced a rapidly increasing headwind all morning. At noon I saw Tom and Steve eating lunch. Steve said, “To put it straight, we didn’t spend much time looking over our shoulders for three canoes with a sail to pass us.”

After struggling on for two and a half hours, we covered only five miles. Waves washed over my canoe requiring me to stay busy bailing, so when we found a cozy cabin, we called ita day. Rain fell all night, and the next day, a foggy, drippy day was perfect for staying in a snug, dry cabin swapping canoe stories. In spite of more rain, we started again the next day, but the sun came out and we welcomed it with open arms. It’s easy to see how people could worship the sun.

That night I wrote in my journal, “I’m happy to be in Alaska, canoeing down the Yukon. Right now that’s where I should be. There is nowhere else I would rather be. When I reach the ocean shore, I will be ready to close the book on a great chapter of my life and move onward to see what the next chapter holds. But not until I finish writing this chapter. I want to live fully between here and the ocean.”

At Grayling the good weather had many natives out in boats, and the sound of chainsaws filled the air as they cut their winter’s supply of firewood. One of the residents pulled his boat along mine and asked, “Why are you paddling that canoe when a motorboat is so much quicker?”

“A canoe doesn’t take any gas,” I told him, “and it doesn’t make any noise. You are right in the scene rather than just watching it rush by. Every breath of wind affects you. You can hear the birds. It’s a good way to travel if you want to experience the world instead of just covering the miles. Besides, I couldn’t afford a motorboat.”

He smiled a toothless smile and replied, “The reason I asked is that I plan to canoe from Fairbanks to Anvik, where I live, next spring, and I just wondered what it was going to be like. It sounds like you are enjoying your journey.”

Later I noticed something red on the far shore but didn’t think anything of it. As the river pinwheeled us around, we looked upstream and there were Tom and Steve paddling hard to catch us.

Tom exclaimed, “What are you guys doing lollygagging in the sun? Don’t you know that snow is coming? Winter is on its way. Come on, onward to the Bering Sea.” And he cracked an imaginary whip over our heads. The red thing I had seen was Steve’s sleeping bag that he had hung on a bush to attract our attention, and when that failed, they jumped in their canoe and came after us. Now four canoes drifted on the big river.

Even with our laziness in the afternoon we went a respectable 43 miles and camped at the mouth of the Anvik River. We sat by the fire with honey in our tea and peace in our hearts, friends linked by the land. The Milky Way spread a faint ribbon of light across the sky and stars appeared in the billions. Our breath condensed in the chill — puffs of silver dew — and rose toward them. The Northern Lights flickered on the horizon. How long we watched I do not know; it was one of those experiences more restful than sleep.

Very early in the morning I heard Tom starting a fire but went back to sleep. When the sun came up, I asked him, “Why were you up so early?”

He answered, “A fox running around here kept getting into packs and stuff, and I couldn’t seem to scare it off. So I built a fire hoping that would keep it away. I glanced up on the bank, and there was the fox, calmly keeping an eye on the situation. We scared it away, but almost immediately it circled back into camp and started sniffing around in Byron’s canoe. We scared it once more, and it finally decided we weren’t worth the bother and left.

Hot sunny days followed each other and the dark suntan I had hoped for became a reality. One afternoon I kept hearing voices but couldn’t see anyone. Then I saw a paddle flash and realized I was hearing Tom and Steve’s conversation from about two miles away. When I caught up to them, Tom had just finished a bath and lay naked across the packs in the canoe.

Usually in the afternoon we let the canoes drift side by side through the hottest hours, but one afternoon we had a race. I expected to see the tandem canoe pull away easily, but instead Byron and I in our solo boats took the lead. Paddles slashed through the water in rapid rhythm as we put every fiber in our bodies to work. The wake of my canoe made a steady hiss as it screamed across the water. Byron and I were neck and neck for a while, and then Byron took the lead and was declared the winner. I expected my foot shorter canoe to be slightly slower, and that’s just what the race indicated.

At our camp north of Holy Cross Tom wandered to a side channel and returned with a big bundle of mint saying, “Tonight, for your drinking pleasure, we have imported straight from the banks of the Yukon river, the finest Alaskan Mint and not a single sprig without blossoms. We brewed mint tea almost every night for the rest of the journey. My chocolate supply rapidly disappeared as I’m addicted to hot chocolate made with mint tea, but when I ran out of chocolate, I had to kick the habit cold turkey.

Tom and Steve bought more supplies at Holy Cross. They lived on the simplest foods, oatmeal or pancakes for breakfast, bannock for lunch, and beans or rice for supper. Tom’s lifestyle fascinated me. Essentially, he was on a journey without an end. “When I left New York ten years ago, my idea was to go as far as I could. That’s all there was to it — just to go as far as I could. Now, I won’t be the one to close the book on this journey; if someone else closes it, I’ll accept that, but I won’t be the one.”

Tom wouldn’t say what he planned during the next season. He talked of crossing the Bering Straits near the Diomed Islands and paddling through Russia. When pressed, he said, “I don’t know for sure where I’m going, but I’ll find out when the time comes.”

One afternoon Tom pointed out, “You guys have a prejudice against the left side of the river. You never camp there and almost always paddle on the right side.”

“But it’s not just us who are biased toward the right side. Almost all the towns are on the right side also. Let’s see. Fort Simpson’s on the left side and Arctic Red River; any more?”

“Just Ruby and Ramparts,” said Tom. “Maybe we should camp on the left just to give you guys a change of scenery.” That night I ate one of my few freeze-dried dinners. My rule of thumb assumed that if the label said ‘stew,” it was generally inedible. One of my friends assured me that beef stew was good. I stand by my rule. Some freeze-dried food is good, and it’s convenient, but I don’t think it’s worth the high cost.

Swarming no-see-ums and rain drove us into the tent after eating and Doug asked, “What are you going to do for your next adventure?”

I had thought about this subject and replied, “I was thinking of a shorter trip, maybe one to squeeze into a summer vacation from college. I have all the maps for a trip from the end of the Pacific Crest Trail in Manning to Jasper where we started this one. An unbroken wilderness journey from Mexico all the way to the Bering Sea. The only gap would be the rapids on the Slave river— got to go back and do those some day.”

“Yeah, that would be neat.” And we lapsed into silence, the wind howling through the tips of the trees, writing and singing wind-music into the night.