I gotta say these last five or so days through the 250 miles of the Yukon Flats from below Circle to the Dalton Highway bridge have been the toughest. The weather has been brutal, a relentless cold wind out of the north along with too much sun and an anxiety about finding the right channel have made for a welcome stop here in the relative civilization of a roadside gas station and cafe. We have only seen two other adventure seekers during this time and only a handful of boats have passed us on the river. We are both sunburned and windburned and weary and dirty. The boat is doing great though, we have plenty to eat, and the tent has turned into a needed sanctuary from heat, cold, wind, and mosquitoes. We camped on the back side of a small sandy island last night hoping to escape the persistent wind that was pushing us around the river. The island was beautiful and I scared up a goose that was sitting on five big eggs laid in a nest of feather down. It was beautiful there buy was not out of the wind and the boat rocked all night like we were back on a halibut boat waiting out a storm from somewhere in the Shelikof Strait. When we are travelling we are far from shore much of the time so wildlife viewing has been hard and the birds are holed up in the back channels that are too shallow for us to get into.
It is awesome though. Still so big and now so wide open and dynamic. We are watching so much shoreline erosion take place that today we made a short cut through the connecting parts of an oxbow bend that did not show up on the satellite images done last year. The USGS maps of this area are worthless. My GPS will tell me where I am but the river is not where it used to be so my track has me bisecting islands and heading inland when I am in the main channel. There are forests of trees falling into the river all up and down this area, most of them hang up on sand and gravel bars, a warning to the prudent mariner. The trees all end up root ball upstream and top downstream like dead soldiers after a battle. Some will rise and float with the upcoming high water and some get sanded in, break off and leave only a small part of the trunk showing, angling up and pointing downstream, a dangerous spear waiting for the imprudent mariner.
The sun has been circling us for days, I can't stay up late enough to watch a sunset or wake up early enough to catch the sunrise. We ourselves made a large arc right up to the Arctic Circle and now are on a southward and westward trajectory towards the sea. I think about the canoers that we met this last week that were also planning to get to the Bering Sea and I wonder if they will make it through this part. It would be brutal.