The following is an account of day three of our trip to the arctic circle. If you missed day two, you can catch up in quick fashion with a recap found here.
The wind died down on Saturday morning, and we got the text we were hoping to see. “Can you be ready in 15?” Ten minutes later we were anxiously waiting for the van to take us back to the staging area. We got our bags organized and in the van, and enjoyed a few laughs as the guys from Wisconsin seemed to be forgetting everything in their rush to get into the field… including a rifle! We also noticed they were well under the weight limit, and we heard one of them regretfully admit, “I didn’t really bring any cold weather gear.” I glanced down at my bag of coats, hats, gloves and wool long johns and felt a little bad for him. It’s Alaska, friends. It might be late summer, but it still gets cold.
We needed our waders for the boarding process, since the float planes were tied up close to shore, but still required a few steps in the water. I got to sit up front next to the pilot, while Edgar took the chair right behind me. Taking off on the water is unreal. The plane glided for a while while we got up speed, and then lifted effortlessly into the Alaskan sky. It was a bumpy ride for some of the 150 miles north to our camp site. While my stomach lurched and dropped, our pilot was completely unbothered. I glanced over and caught him sending a smiley face emoji to someone. Edgar and I locked eyes and I knew we were thinking the same thing. If your bush pilot is confident enough to text while he’s flying you out, he’s either unhinged, or there’s nothing to worry about. We settled on the latter.
We saw caribou, and so much water. It’s crazy how many rivers and lakes we saw from the air. We knew we were being dropped off by a lake, so every time I saw a big one I was thinking… maybe we land here… or here… this one looks nice. Finally the pilot spotted what he’d been after, and we landed smooth as silk on a good-sized lake. A bunch of guys were gathered in camp chairs on the beach, and they greeted us warmly. They wasted no time in sharing the layout of the camp, where they saw animals, which direction the caribou were going, and which meals they enjoyed the most from the Mountain House packs. They also had a stack of leftover firewood, which was much appreciated. There were six of them, so they’d had three tents, and left one standing and ready for us to move in. Only half of them could fit in the plane, so the other three stayed back with us for a few more hours. It took 90 minutes each way to ferry us back and forth from the staging area.
Fish and Game officials have serious rules about NOT hunting the day you fly. But there is no law against getting the lay of the land, so once our new friends had departed we spent the next five hours of daylight getting to know the valley. We saw a few caribou, including one rather large bull we nicknamed Mr. Wide. He had really tall uppers, but no bez. We watched him for a good while, and slowly got closer, until he’d had enough of us and headed back toward the canyon.
The visual judging of distance is deceiving. These caribou were close to camp, but still about 200 yards away. With our binoculars we could see for miles, so it felt like everything was so close, but the actual distance and the mushy give of the tundra made crossing the valley more time-consuming than it appeared.
The daytime temperature was comfortable – in my wool base layer, lined overalls and fleece I was plenty warm, but when the sun went down the temperature really dropped. We got a fire going and each enjoyed a warm Mountain House meal before burrowing into our sleeping bags. I admit it took some time for me to fall asleep that first night. I heard soft, unidentifiable noises, that for no reason whatsoever I suspected might be a grizzly bear. Once I was certain it was just the wind, I pulled my hat low and my sleeping bag high and drifted off.
On day four we established a morning coffee routine, had an unconventional camp breakfast, and devised a strategy for crossing the tundra.
Quite an adventure!
Just reading this makes my heart beat faster. Looking for day four.