“How do you guys want to go to Fort Yukon?” asked Byron as we sat around our breakfast fire. “Portage in from the Porcupine onto Hospital Lake or try going up the Yukon?”
“It’s hard to say,” Doug mused. That trip report said it was impossible to paddle up the Yukon, but I can hardly believe that. Why don’t we look at the portage and then decide?”
“Okay,” I replied, “Let’s meet on that island just about a mile above the portage trail.”
Fort Yukon, located on the Yukon River about two miles upstream from the mouth of the Porcupine, also adjoins a slough known as Hospital Lake. The portage trail leads from the Porcupine to Hospital Lake. The trail, if taken, would spare us from paddling upstream. But when Doug and I arrived at the island, Byron wasn’t there. “Wasn’t he ahead of you,” I asked?
“I’m sure he was but maybe he missed this place or maybe he’s at the portage trail.“
“Well, then let’s go down to the portage trail.”
We checked the trail and not seeing Byron anywhere, left a note saying, “Portage trail too long. We’ll do the impossible and paddle up the Yukon. Meet at Post Office.
Although the Yukon was big and muddy with a very strong current, we had little difficulty reaching Fort Yukon. As we moved upstream, one beer can after another floated by. When we neared town, I saw where they were coming from. A group of Indians sitting on the bank drinking beer threw the empty cans into the river. We waved but they just glared back. When we reached the beach and asked for the post office, we were met mostly with frowns and curt, unfriendly answers. I got the distinct impression that the people were looking over my gear to see what might be worth stealing.
At the post office a note from Byron said he was at the far end of town. “What the hell does he think we are? Mind readers or something? How are we supposed to know which is the far end,” grumbled Doug.
After a long search we gave up and camped where the Yukon River and Hospital Lake met, figuring that he’d have to pass that point no matter where he was. Soon Byron showed up on foot with a long tale of misadventure. “I missed the island and the portage trail, “he said, “so when I got here I left a note at the post office. Then I figured you must have taken the portage trail and were waiting for me in Hospital Lake. Sol paddled over there and dragged my canoe through a bunch of weeds into the lake and, of course, you weren’t there. And now I’ve dragged my canoe back and here I am.”
“Well,” Doug said, “We were mad at you for fouling up our plan, but it looks as if you got the worst end of the deal. It’s too bad. I guess we’ll go to the post office first thing next morning.”
The mosquitoes that had earlier plagued us had mostly disappeared, but a new plague arrived. No-see-ums clouded the air at times, particularly at dusk in still, moist air. After spending most of the next day organizing our food and making the usual calls home to let the family know we were still alive, we pushed our canoes away from Fort Yukon with a great sense of relief. The clamor of the town and unfriendliness of the natives grated on our nerves, and the big, wide river looked mighty good to us.
Byron had rolled his map measurer over all the maps of the Yukon River a few days earlier and announced, “It’s about 1020 miles by my calculations to the ocean. We’re on our way, boys. That big ocean is waiting for us.”
Elated as usual when finishing a major portion of the trip or successfully meeting some challenge, we felt a feeling of triumph. Our mood was made merry by our accomplishment. Experiences like that lead me to believe that the perfect state of being called heaven is not a place where everything is done for you at the snap of a finger. No, it is more a discovery of strength and ability within us to master any situation.
Not bothering with a tent that night, we just rolled our bags on the beach. Awakening four hours later, I saw the northern horizon seemed much lighter than the southern one and had a faint orange glow along it. In the southern sky, much darker, many stars shone brightly. When a shooting star fell across the sky, I made a quick wish for strong current and sunshine before falling asleep again.
The Yukon Flats is a tremendous maze of islands and channels up to four or five miles wide, with powerful currents that swept us along at a rapid pace. For three days we stuck close together to avoid being separated in the countless different channels although there wasn’t any danger of getting lost. It’s pretty hard to lose a river as big as the Yukon.
At this point we still hadn’t decided where to end the trip. We had planned to end it at the mouth of the Yukon River, but as we looked at the maps, we became aware of two other fascinating possibilities. We could leave the Yukon near the town of Paimut and travel by portaging between lakes and streams across the Paimut Portage to Kuwoskwim River. Then we could go down the Kuwoskwim to the Bering Sea. In the other option we could leave the Yukon about three miles south of Kaltag, travel up the Rodo River, and then down the Unalakleet River to the town of Unalakleet on the Bering Sea. All of the routes had advantages, but we knew so little about them it was hard to make a decision.
We stopped to talk to an old Indian man at one of the many fish camps we passed. “Never in my life have I seen so much rain,” he said. “I’ve usually got two fish wheels running, but this rain has got the river so high that one of them got torn up.”
The fish wheels were big baskets on an axle that spun in the current. When salmon came up the river and swam into the baskets, they would be lifted out of the water. Then they slid down a trough into a box beside the wheel. I was surprised that he didn’t offer us one of the salmon lying in a big pile on the shore, but we had heard that the Indians in this part of the country had no love for white men, so maybe that explained his reaction to us.
Hills rose on the horizon telling us we were almost out of the flats. Late in the evening a big flock of geese paraded back and forth on the sand bar looking like ghosts in the shadowy soft twilight. Then the geese lifted off and flew into the night— gray and spectral as they soared like the smoke from a fire into the darkness.