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.

Throughout the seasons, wild throngs of marine life, salmon and others, begin their lives amidst the neighboring rills, grow strong and then ride out to the sea for their gap years, to see the sea, find themselves, circling back to this,  their eternal home, to struggle back inland and there sow the seeds for the miracle of perpetuation.

Up on the slopes, the river rides through and between a feast of fowls, myriad predator and prey; ungulates caribou deer and moose; the hulking ambling Ursus arctos horribilis; slinking minks and and their kin - marten weasel and fisher; lynx and its favorite fluff the snowshoe hare; that chattering acrobat the squirrel. All living in a cacophony of space, a struggle of silence, taking their daily due when it comes, and when it does not seeking it out doggedly until no more seeking may be made. A crush of peace lay about the land, thick as the duff upon its forest floors, steady as its shifted granite, wide as the ocean into which this, its greatest spirit, flows each and every moment.

We wanted to be there. Transience and temporary engagements aligned to gift us near four weeks to wander, before the time would come to arrive at our next semi-permanent home. The Alaska bar exam concluded with a breath of buoyancy, just in time for Mary to receive her final payment for a summer of guiding geologist hopefuls through the layers of the land. We started off our freedom with a concert in Healy, where a band so sweet they were trampled by turtles played to us in the dark with portably generated electricity on account of the power-lines being disabled. 

Practicing "fright with knife" . . .

Back in Fairbanks, early Thursday morning shook our shoulders, threw the last few necessaries into our packs, drove to the university, and caught the bus. At the cusp of allowable time, I dropped Mary by the bus stop to stall should our ride show, and returned back up the road to park. The bus pulls in as I'm walking toward the stop - run! We both enter into the mobile canister headed downtown, to the Transit Center.

A woman at the back of the nearly empty 9:30am bus, seeing us about to take seats up front, called us towards her, "Lots o' room here in the back!" She wanted to know all about our plans for "those great big packs you're carrying," smiling widely and chatting excitedly about what a great time we would have doing just that. Doing her part to move us on down our hitching route as far as possible, she dug out a schedule pamphlet for the new Black line to Salcha.

. . . very unconvincingly.

We bid our new friend farewell and went to wait for the Green line, out to North Pole. Mary ran across the street to fill a mug with hot java, returning as I cajoled the bus driver to wait just one more moment, for surely that pretty little lady will be here soon, and we can't just leave her, now can we! Scurrying onboard, the driver scolded,  "I'm trying to drive a bus here!" Practicing our hitchhiking smiles on the driver and ogling strangers arrayed on either side, we slid towards the safety of the empty rear seats.

Slipping past the borders of town, with its junkyard lots and haphazard open spaces, we soon motored beneath the Richard Highway overpass, pulled the cord and leapt out the closing accordion door. Noting the time as 11:00 am, the oddity of a traffic circle in Alaska presented. We stayed our feet to take-in this circular mobile entertainment, while poor, feckless motorists wobbled through its curves, braking for imagined intersections. Up the on-ramp to a pull-out spot, thumbs at the ready, we scanned the horizon for willing motorists and strange attractions. The longer we waited for the former, the more time we had to gawk at The North Pole, complete as would be expected with a large Santa and his workshop, open for visits with the old man himself.

We wished for all the Christmas cheer to emanate from our extended thumbs and snare motorists vulnerable to such charms. Our first ride slowed, we gave three cheers, and the noon hour ticked into place. Benefactors: a late 30's couple, newly married Italians. They had stopped to include us in a portion of their honeymoon, a trip compiled by their friends and family in lieu of toasters and tea-cups. Each day they learned that day's itinerary.

Somewhere between an enormous military base and Delta Junction, they pulled off the road for a cup of gas station brew. The male half of this newly married unit was, as his wife told us, "addict to american coffee." Trucker coffee, no less! Despite our Italian being limited to gratzi mille!; and their English a rusty set of grade school words, we learned that hitchhiking is illegal in Italy and much of Europe, at least on the interstates. Maybe they thought their ride saved us from the hoosgow - if so, we are even more thankful for them.

On the eastern end of Delta Junction, where the road splits, they pulled over to let us continue west to Tok, while they drove on towards an unknown adventure in Seward. I tried my only Italian phrase, they hid their grimaces well, and with a smile we each wished each other a fine journey forward. Across the intersection with bags slung upon backs. Not far down this new road, we walked past a large moose, standing half-obscured off the road in the brush, staring at our slow, foot-bound progress, until she could spy upon us no more.

- TUNE IN FOR THE NEXT EPISODE, WHEN WE ENTRUST OUR LIVES AND BACKPACKS TO EVEN MORE STRANGERS! -