I got us stuck the night before we hit Circle. I took a side channel, a small slough (rhymes with stew, not stroganoff) that runs along the base of some dark brown cliffs, the water was shallow but not too much so and then the channel split and split again and we came up on a rocky shore with fallen trees marking shoal water all downstream of us. It was a windy night, and late so we tied to shore and went to sleep. In the morning I put on the waders and tried to push out into the deep water a quarter mile away. It wasn't enough so Jeff stripped down to his shorts and joined me as we struggled for a couple hours lifting and pushing through the gravel, finally getting to deep water about 10 AM.
Just ten miles later the mountains to our east drifted northward and the range to our west moved to the south. Just like that we were out of the mountains and into the flats and the tiny town of Circle. A dozen aluminum flat bottom skiffs sat tied to the bank in the mud and sand at the bottom of a wide gravel boat ramp. A large steel sheet pile wall had been built all along the riverbank in town to contain the erosion that the river brings but was obviously damaged by the battering of ice and overtopping of the river water. A large wooden building stands prominently on the riverbank shuttered, a hotel deal gone bad years ago. Wooden boats and fishwheels lie among the sprouting grass that surrounds a picnic table that serves as a community gathering place. There we met Steven, a local guy in a Toyota pickup, and Jormah, the interpretive ranger for Yukon-Charlie Preserve, and Gary Bessett, recently back from Fairbanks where he is getting all his teeth done and whose 80 year old mother Margaret lives just down the way, and Hunter Workman from the UK, an ironman paddling solo the entire watershed, source to the sea.
Jormah was there with his wife and kids and said that the Park asked him to sign on as a ranger due to his knowledge of the area, he is nice guy, well spoken, and a subsistence hunter and salmon fisherman. He has a deal worked out with his employer that allows him to hunt moose and caribou and bear and fish for king salmon all up and down the river on his off time. He travels in his own boat so that he can do as he pleases while commuting the 70 miles or so back and forth to work on the river.
Hunter, we had been tracking for the last two days, we had seen him sign in at one of the public use cabins and had heard of him from other canoers. He is a big guy, ex semi professional rugby player and a great friend to meet out here on the river. He started out a couple weeks ahead of us on a lake upstream of Whitehorse and on his way across Lake Lebarge got stuck in a large pack of floating ice halfway through. To hear him tell the story was to understand the danger of being in a canoe in a lake surrounded by large chunks of colliding ice. He will make it to the end I am sure even though the days of solitude and exertion seem to take a toll on him.
Of course there is no cell service in Circle and the store opens at 12. I bought a calling card for $6.25 and tried to call home from a phonebooth made out of logs on the side of the road. I heard that if you ask nicely that the store owners would let you log on to their internet but I suppose I am losing my touch because I was turned down and turned away. Next stop is Fort Yukon though, a hundred miles away and I am sure that they have cell service so with luck I will be able to connect there.
We were ready to leave, said goodbye to Gary and what was left of his six pack and shoved off again to run a couple miles and tie up to make some lunch. Twenty minutes later Hunter pulls along in his white canoe and kevlar paddle to join us for some of Jeff's famous potato black bean cabbage soup. We all sat in the tent laughing and telling stories (he had some good ones) for an hour or so, exchanged email addresses, took photos, and had a group hug before untieing from shore and moving downstream. We probably won't see him again this trip because although he is a strong paddler we will make better time against this wind that has been blowing the last couple days and he will not be able to catch up through the braided maze of channels in the Yukon Flats.