Near Disaster

Friday, June 28,2019

3:30 am: Terry left the tent to empty his bladder in the woods. It was overcast, but the sun’s pale early light was strong enough to cast shadows. He hears splashing at the water’s edge. A moose and two calves are just finding their footing after swimming across the Yukon, which at this point is flowing at about 5 mph. “Deb, moose”, Terry whispers. Above the roar of the river, mama moose hears this and herds her babies back into the river for another 100 yards of swimming. Adult moose swim with much of their head and neck out of the water. Very young moose are mostly legs, and though they are capable swimmers, they are not so buoyant. All that is visible above the water line is the nose, the eyes, and part of the ears.

Since we are paddling with the flow, we are on a more leisurely schedule, not breaking camp until 8:00 am. It seems so easy. If we sit in the canoe and keep it straight for 10 hours, we can make our required 40 miles per day. Reality is there are lots of rocks, eddies, snags, and gravel bars to avoid. And that requires constant paddling. Today we noticed 3 canoes very close together. Through the binoculars, Deb could see they were all using their hands to hold the canoes together like a raft. It seemed odd, then as we neared them, there were several screams and people started falling in the water. All three canoes overturned and six people were thrashing for their lives. Five of them held on to their canoes and tried to swim to the shore 20 feet away. Four made it and we were able to push the fifth with our canoe. The sixth person was riding a waterproof 15 gallon food barrel, circling the giant and powerful eddy that had capsized them. As we thought what to do, Deb said we are not going into that eddy. After about 10 minutes of flutter kicking the final person broke free and collapsed on the riverbank. They were all shivering. Deb fished out our emergency kit for them – emergency blanket, hand warmers, etc. They were from Taiwan and didn’t speak much English.We helped them empty their boats and retrieve their gear. Their gopro was ruined, along with one cell phone, and a couple of paddles and loose stuff had floated away. Their tent and much of their food was in another barrel still circling the eddy. Nobody was even thinking about going after it. They didn’t want any food from us, so Deb gave them her fireball whiskey. They were happy! Just as we were pushing off, the barrel was ejected from the eddy. We were able to intercept it about 50 feet downriver and drive it into a tree snag, leaving it for them. It really drove home how dangerous the river can be, and how difficult doing anything in a 5 mph current is.

We had another 15 miles to go, and were eager to make camp before the rain. Deb is the navigator and is getting pretty good at spotting the landmarks. Before long she spotted a red canoe pulled up on a bank and we aimed for it. There was no slack water, so the method is to turn the canoe upriver at the last possible moment, sliding into the bank. We missed by about 20 feet, but just like horseshoes, close also counts. Two Brits, Emma and Johnny, were sitting on the bank, enjoying a beer. They welcomed us and we were enjoying a nice conversation when the rain began. Quickly we set up the tent and jumped inside. Half an hour later, the sound of canoes on gravel broke the silence. It was the 6 overturned people and they were in good spirits. Must have been the fireball…. They were quick to pull all there gear up to the camp site and get to work drying it. We wanted to talk to them but they were busy and only one of them spoke English.