On day 113 of our journey I warned everyone to be careful since it might be an unlucky day. Far from unlucky, it turned out to be a marvelous day with the differences of the previous day forgotten as we moved down the river again to the lure of unknown places and something new around the corner. Robert Service said it just as I would were I a poet:

The Land of Beyond

Have you ever heard of the Land of Beyond,
That dreams at the gates of day?
Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
And ever so frar away;
Alluring it falls; O ye whose yoke galls,
And ye of the trail over fond,
With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,
Let’s go to the land of beyond!
Have you ever stood where the silences brood,
And vast the horizons begin,
At the dawn of the day to behold far away,
The goal you would strive for and win?
Yet ah! In the night when you gain to the height,
With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,
Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
Still mocks you a land of beyond.

Thank God! There is always a Land of Beyond,
For us who are true to the trail,
A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,
A fairness that never will fail;
A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal,
A manhood that irks at a bond,
And try how we will unattainable still,
Behold it, our Land of Beyond.

We stopped at Galena the next day so Byron could visit the air force base there. Because Byron’s dad is an officer in the air force, he could go to the store on the base. I stayed with the canoes as rain fell, and I thought, “You know, we are really becoming experts on rain. We have seen and felt so much of so many varieties of rain that I am beginning to feel somewhat like an authority on the subject.”

The many types of rain include sunny sprinkles, misty drizzles, raging thunderstorms, windy drenchers, and we had had them all. My favorite rainy day is a rainbow day in which rainstorms are interspersed with sunny breaks. After each storm passes over, a marvelous shiny rainbow follows. The worst is the all day steady drizzle. While rain can be fascinating, I strongly advise against overdoses.

Byron returned empty-handed since they didn’t have the boots he wanted. A powerful storm hit only a few miles from Galena, so we found a cozy spot in the willows to shelter from the wind, lit a big fire, and the little nook soon felt like home. While we were busy cooking Doug said suddenly, “Hey, look who’s coming. It’s Tom and Steve. Quick, Mike, get out there and wave them in. I’ll put on the tea.”

I went to the beach, got their attention; soon they walked up to our fire. When we handed them tea, Steve said, “Boy, I’ll tell you, we sure worked hard for this cup of tea. We went by Lanny’s place the afternoon of the day you left, and we’ve been pushing hard to catch up.

Did you stop at Lanny’s and look at the fish wheel we helped build?”

“No, we were in the middle of the river, but Lanny came out in his boat and said, “You guys must be Tom and Steve.” He gave us a fish and said you were only three hours ahead so we stepped up the pace a bit.”

“How did we get three days ahead of you guys? I figured you moved along a little faster than us since you don’t stop for lunch,” said Doug.

Tom answered, “Well, we stayed at Canyon Village all day so you gained a few hours there, and we stopped for two days at Fort Yukon and another day at Tanana. But I doubt we travel any faster than you do.”

“It’s good to see y’all again after almost three weeks. We’re going to have to work some sort of system to keep track of each other. You will, of course, stop for the night here, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Tom, ”we didn’t spend all that energy to catch you and then pass you. We’ll find a place for our tents here somewhere.”

We had chosen a very shallow place to land, and it proved impossible next day to get the loaded canoes into the deeper water without a little wading. Seeing Tom and Steve sloshing around in the cold water sent shivers down my spine. Getting feet wet is not the worst; it’s having wet feet the rest of the day. I solved the problem by wading around barefoot and putting on shoes after I got into the canoe.

Later we stopped at a fish camp where a bunch of Indian kids cut fish to be driedfor dog food in a real production line with one kid busy bringing fish from the boat, two or three cutting them with lightning fast strokes of the knife, and one hanging the cut fish. Byron timed them, and the kids could cut and hang a fish in well under sixty seconds. I couldn’t resist playing tourist and getting them to pose for a picture.

I finally overcame my conscience and took a fish out of a fish wheel. The first box had no fish, but as I began pushing away, the wheel caught a good-sized female salmon and it came shooting into the box wildly. I grabbed it, flipped it into my canoe, and put my foot on it. I explained to the guys at lunch, “I figured it had to be an omen from above. There I was trying to decide whether or not to take a fish when all of a sudden there was a fish right in my hands.

“More likely God looked down and saw you there and said, ‘I hope the devil doesn’t tempt him with a fish,” was Byron’s quick rejoinder.

By suppertime I was suffering for my crime. My stomach threatened a general strike after being forced to process about twice as much salmon as it should have. I had eaten half of a six or seven ounce salmon at lunch, and now I couldn’t bear to look at the other half, much less eat it, so I gave it to Doug and drank only a cup of tea, all my stomach could tolerate.

Tom and Steve had been in a hurry to reach Kaltag before the post office closed for the weekend so we made no effort to keep up with them. The golden day reminded me of days in northern Washington toward the end of the Pacific Crest Trail when we hiked through mountains with golden tamaracks shining on the high slopes and dazzling cottonwoods lining the river valleys. Now we were in another golden time with willows near shore turning a bright yellow and high on the hillsides the alders and birches showing tinges of color. After climbing a hill for a different perspective, I lazed into town after the others.

Tom and Steve talked to several people about traveling up the Rodo River and down the Unalakleet River to the Bering Sea. Tom told us, “First time I mentioned it, they said, “Impossible,” but when I explained how we had gone up the Rat River, they changed their minds.”

Steve quickly interjected, “These guys are trappers, remember, and they have probably never seen the upper parts except in winter.”

Tom continued, “One man recalled some people starting but having to come back. Then the story changed and they said that someone had gone over three or four years ago. To me it appears we could do it, but it would be a lot of work, and I think we could count on a five to ten mile portage across the top.”

Steve was reluctant to try, Byron was very unenthusiastic, and Doug noncommittal while Tom and I wanted to go for it but hated to press the issue. Later in the evening we met another group of canoers. Richard, Marietta, and Mike had started canoeing at Dawson on the Yukon River and hoped to reach Emmonak. Mike’s wife had started the trip but had flown home from Tanana. Now Richard’s wife, Marietta, planned to fly out from Kaltag.

We chatted round the fire late into the evening. Richard and Marietta soon slipped off to their tent, but Mike entertained us with tales of canoeing on the upper Yukon and the Mississippi River. It seemed good to talk to someone new because the conversations among our group had become shorter, and we seemed to have less and less to talk about.

Stars studded the sky and seemed to chill the earth with bright cold light and frost formed on the grass before we finally said “Good night.”