My husbands first teaching assignment was in Saint Marys Alaska in August of 1988. We had a 5 year old, 1 year old and 12 sled dogs. I was a stay at home Mom who also babysat for a couple of other teachers. Our other home was in Fairbanks, the only way in and out of Saint Marys was by air or water. We realized in December that we would not be able to afford to fly out for the summer with us, our children and 12 dogs. Scott started building a 23.5 foot long coastal dory boat with 3 foot high sides. This was going to be our transportation home in June. Sure enough come June we were waiting for the ice to go out on the Yukon so we could start our 1000 mile venture up the Yukon/Tanana rivers to Fairbanks. It most certainly was a learning experience for all of us, me mostly. Being raised in Dawson City Yukon, which is right on the mighty Yukon River, you would think that I had good river knowledge, I did not. I did have a healthy respect of the river though, as I had known a few people in my life that had been taken by the Yukon. My husband was raised in the Upper Kobuk area of Alaska and spent much of his childhood traveling on the Kobuk and Ambler rivers, so was well versed in such travel. Back to our trip. One of the hardest things about leaving for such a trip is getting going, seems like we packed for days and days (we did) a story that Scott loves to tell is about me packing for our 1000 mile sojourn, he had his stuff ready to go, his mushing parka, over pants, winter boots, hat, gloves etc. Me, tennis shoes, shorts, spring coat, lol you can see why this is funny, I was thinking, June, summer, hot, sunshine, tan etc. Scott finally gave up and said pack what you want. He packed my cold weather gear and the kids :) we finally left Saint Marys about 6 pm that first day. 12 dogs, 2 kids and 2/50 ga drums of fuel and all of our gear! Yeah we were finally on our way. Only got about 50 miles that first day, could not get the boat up on step. It was freaking cold as hell out there in the boat in the wind, there was no place to get out of the wind except up under the bow. So thank god for Scott insisting on the cold weather gear. Lol Took forever to find a dry camp spot, there was so much drift in the river we had to stop the boat every so often and pull the motor up (no trim and tilt) to get the drift out. The first night was definitely a learning experience, find a good dry flat spot for the tent, a good place to set up the tie out for the 12 dogs. Get a fire going, dog food out, feed everyone. The Mosquitos were horrible, we were fresh meat! The kids had a blast, just a big camping trip for them. The next day, we got everything packed and put away and off we went, after a couple of hours BAM we were up on step, we used enough fuel that the boat just popped up and all of a sudden we were cruisen! Now we are happy campers, well Scott was anyway, it was nice to be clipping along, we had envisioned it taking us 2-3 weeks to get home at that pace. The scenery was spectacular, the water fowl were moving, we would come around a corner and the whole river of swans would lift up and fly, incredible beauty, we were in awe of Mother Nature, of course, being young and poor we did not have a camera for this trip. We watched as wolves loped along the river bank, moose and bear swimming the river, a bear right next to the boat, the dogs could smell the bear but not see it. I will continue on with this later, my iPad is about to die.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 20:32:39 +0000