Saturday, February 28, 2015

Standby until March 23

Programming Note


For those who partake of this blog, the author is departing his rock in the pacific for warmer climates. Fear not, for your fearless poster shall return and commence the recollection of tales not told, including a continuation of the Yukon Journals, on or about March 23. Until then, and of course after then - be well.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Yukon Episode Two: Handy Hitchers Head Hither

Mary and I hitch from Fairbanks to Eagle, float a canoe to Circle, then hitch back to Fairbanks. 
This is episode two. Read the first episode.
August 2013 - Yukon River
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Our next lift shot past at the five mile marker, then turned around to make the retrieval. He had just roared down the highway, rocketing past a string of motorcycles and our raised ride hooks. Twenty years old and on the run from the law, our driver said he had picked us up hoping to accrue good karma. He told of his current heartache, and the tempest he was now caught up in, of rotten luck and worse associations. 

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Yukon Episode One: A Tale of Two Trotting Taters

Mary and I hitch from Fairbanks to Eagle, float a canoe to Circle, then hitch back to Fairbanks. 
This is episode one of five.
August 2013 - Yukon River
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It seemed like we started talking of floating the Yukon within 15 minutes of first meeting each other.  Maybe a bit later, but certainly a point of mutual attraction that winter of 2012, that we both wished to set out on the big river with all we would need for a week of slipping down the slippery spine of the last frontier, rolling downhill on this ancient highway. 
People  looking for home came up this self-same river long ago, in small groups, but only so far at first. Years later, on the eastern terminus, across a great swelling of lakes backing up to tree-pitched mountains, a different sort of prospector started down the river, en masse, a rowdy herd.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Transmitted: Yukon Update Inevitable

ANNOUNCEMENT - YUKON JOURNALS SOON TO APPEAR

Kind readers, bored perusers, and lost strangers, be ye known of the following facts:

The author has unearthed and edited a torrid stream of words compiled in the days following a journey he and Mary took down the Yukon, way back in the halcyon days of the year of our Alaska 2013. Within this mysterious tale, two souls hitchhike 400 miles out to that glorious river, where they uncover a canoe stowed just for them and, within its fiberglass enclosure, set out upon the liquid highway

A week of wandering will be contained within six episodes. Look it for, long for it, bate your breath and save space in your mind, for it will surely be a treat to savor for the ages.

The first episode will be promptly published, replete with photographic proof, just as soon as the editing is complete.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Near Island Afternoon Jaunt

Yesterday, a day forecast to be blustery and cruel to the outdoor enthusiast, was at first dark and somber. Eschewing footworn paths, I joined a friend at a birthday party for a 2 year old, held at the local brewery. Sip on all that incongruity with the same lingering contemplation you would accord a delicious, dark porter. Pints were quaffed as minions ran helter-skelter, faces smeared in birthday cake, little impressionistic canvases made manically mobile.

North off the Near Island Bridge