*ALL of my Yukon posts are rough drafts … not particularly coherent at the moment, sometimes just a smattering of notes I wrote down or satellite messages to family*
June 27th to July 12th, 2024
Week 5-6 — The Dalton Highway to Galena
The Yukon River has now swelled in size (up to a mile wide) so I must stick to either shore for the remainder of the journey. In 40-60 miles I’ll reach The Boneyard where supposedly all sorts of fossilized ice age mammals like woolly mammoths are buried in thick melting permafrost gravels.
My hands and arms have stopped going numb overnight. I have stopped slouching (or as I would prefer to call it, lounging) so much in my kayak while paddling. I now assume a more upright position while being mindful to keep a light grip on my paddle. I think my wrists will always be a weak point but this change is encouraging!
The winds love me so much they have decided to keep me in the tiny but mighty town of Tanana for a day or two. By midnight last night the winds still hadn’t abated and now they are even more ferocious today with rain. A bleak forecast all week. I may need to go nocturnal and start paddling nights, but for now I think its better to bide my time. Camping in towns as opposed to the backcountry is not without its risks but it comes with its perks too. I got to take a true shower for the first time in 3 weeks!!! Since Dawson City! Set a new record there. 
1 month in, 1100 miles done, 700 miles more to go!
When I don’t feel like getting back into my boat completely to move it a few feet downriver to a better campsite my dogs get some air time …
I found the perfect natural reclining chair
Red sun … what does that mean again in the context of sailors? 
Lion head rock. A good sign, I’d like to think!
Guess what I found for the first time on the river bank: grizzly and (potentially) wolf tracks!!!!! 
6-8 miles upriver to Tanana, AK
Equipment I have no understanding of in what I call the fishwheel wonderland on the outskirts of Tanana, AK. Trippy to stumble across this randomly at 1 a.m. after a mad day paddling 12 hours against the wind.
Me at an overlook where the Yukon River and Tanana River converge 
(Thank you Dwight for the photo and for the chance to tour town!!!)
The rivers glory!
I’ve gone nocturnal these last few days in between Tanana and Ruby, trying to stay out of the worst of the wind. 
Temps have taken a plunge too, this night it was in the mid 40s! I’m not going to lie things are getting a lot harder but I’m trying to hang in there. Made it by the Boneyard and Big Eddy.
I saw a wolf puppy along the Yukon river!!! Right after Kokrine Hills Bible camp which is halfway between Ruby and Tanana. It was crying out for its mom. Once, I called out to it and got it to come out of the treeeline and walk up the bank towards me before it realized I had tricked it and it scurried back into the underbrush. Wow!!
I have made it to Ruby!
Huge shout out to Ruby culture camp for welcoming me so kindly!! As I was approaching town late last night I saw two tents on an island by Bootlegger Slough. I wondered if they belonged to other paddlers, but then as I got closer I saw even more tents and tarps, like a makeshift little town, and seconds later all these people appeared. Before they even knew my name they said “Hello! Do you want a bowl of soup?” I was pretty dumbfounded, wondering what the heck was even going on. I asked them if they were a fish camp. They then explained they are putting on a culture camp for the local kids to learn primitive survival skills and whatnot. When I got there they were in the middle of showing the kids how to tan a burbot fish skin to make leather. They took me right in and fed me goose soup with a biscuit and CHOCOLATE CAKE and let me sit by their fire out of the rain. They gave me a moose they had weaved out of willow to carry as a good luck charm going forward.
When I arrived at Ruby at 1 a.m. I was also relieved to find that they have a covered picnic pavilion for paddlers to stay in!
All this really did a number to restore my spirits as I was at an all time low point yesterday. The forecast has become very bleak. Rain. Nonstop. Every day. It just rained for nearly 40 hours straight. After paddling in the rain for 8 hours yesterday, I was disheartened to see that my clothes were soaked completely through my rain jacket. Luckily I had a dry set to switch into, but then I couldn’t bear to put my wet clothes back on the following morning so if what I’m wearing now gets wet I’m screwed until Galena. Honestly, this has me at a loss on how to proceed. I can’t stand being wet & cold. I’ve always used cheap rain gear in the past but for this trip I really tried to get a good rain jacket (a Patagonia Torrentshell) so this realization is a major blow to morale. My down jacket (REI Stormhenge) is meant to have a waterproof exterior too so I will try doubling up with that. Only problem is I really wanted my down jacket in reserve but no choice now really as it’s too late to have any additional gear shipped out. There’s more to say but I’m typing this in a real hurry!
The rocks are so beautiful along the river!! I am a sucker for the turquoise ones.
I bent my rudder being careless, but it still works well enough! Maybe if I hit a rock on the opposite side it will right itself …
The light blue is my progress so far and the dark blue is what I have left!
I have made it to Galena!!! 1300 miles down, 500 more to go. The final section on the Yukon is called “The Run to the Delta” and is the stormiest with the heaviest concentration of bears and the greatest headwinds/slowest waters; my guide book estimates a paddling speed of 20-25 miles a day. It is the hardest stretch, but my spirits that escaped me a few days ago have returned and now I am excited to go on!
Thank you everyone for your support, love hearing from you and I will respond more soon!! I’m not sure when I’ll find service again, could be tomorrow could be at the end of the river.
Galena! It has been an unexpected day in town, that’s for sure … No washteria, but luckily I was able to dry my wet clothes under a pavilion in Ruby to scoot by. I agreed to dinner with a batty old woman, knowing she was crazy but hoping it was in a harmless way. The food wasn’t even half cooked before she got in a screaming match with her ex husband, an old dog with the tongue of a sailor, and I was like “alright, Imma head out.” 
But the post master then took me under her wing, giving me a tour of town and taking me out to dinner herself. A real treat to meet her! 
Though I’m being increasingly warned of the towns ahead, so it will be interesting to see if the reputation that precedes them is true. I think this will be the last time I risk camping overnight in a town rather than passing through briefly during the day. Safer to be out in the wild.
All my food for the next 3 weeks sent to the post office in Galena. Thank you to my friends Sea and Sheila&Rusty for sending me packages!!!!
A man passed through Galena today who had also come from White Horse, Canada! Though he was in a rowboat with a motor. He left this note at my kayak. Given how fast he has travelled, it was great to be able to ask him how many other paddlers he has passed in the last week. Sadly, he said that he saw no others. But I still keep my hopes up and my eyes peeled for one to catch up!
I just had to share this: they had these FairLife chocolate milks for $1.99 each at the grocery store in Galena. My jaw dropped to the floor!!! I could not believe my eyes! In fact I went up to the counter saying “are these really $1.99?” Totally skeptical … I didn’t want to get my hopes up … something like this would normally be $6-8 out here in the bush … but yes! They were really $1.99! As the grocery store never actually ordered them, they were sent by accident! A Christmas in July MIRACLE!!!! I should have bought one but I got overzealous and somehow walked out with three.
You can tell locals think it’s a little backwards that commercial operations can run on the ocean but natives can’t fish inland. Also this trooper said many natives used to have dogs but they don’t as much because the dog salmon is in such decline.
River has changed, few islands, one big channel. No more criss crossing.
A teasing rain comes and goes.
State game warden said by the Rampart rapids there is a private fish camp with a friendly family there I should say hi to. They told me this yesterday and again today. Feels strange to waltz up to someone’s place like that but after being told twice I think I ought to.
I paddle from noon til 10:00 p.m. If only I were a normal person and paddled from 8 am to 6 pm.
Stayed at Minook Island. The trooper said to skip Rampart, not much there.
Sometimes when I’m going down the river it really does look like I’m going down. Like everything is tipped.
Phew! Hot day. Hate the heat. June 30th.
My worst habit in life may in fact be my inability to get up early every morning. It’s so bad. And it seems a simple thing to break but it’s not. I used to have my mom pour water on my head in high school to rouse me.
Hmm. Could be an animal on my island with me [by Moosehead Rock]. Movement sounded like a hooved animal, deer or moose. When I looked outside my tent, and patrolled with my shotgun, no visible sign of anything. Saw a porcupine yesterday and figured out this morning the strange sounds from the woods: squirrels and quail. Crossing the channel for a mile the next morning was harrowing with 12 mph winds.
Bad weather forecast for this week. May have to go nocturnal in the future if daily high winds become a norm. I just realized-I love meat so much, always keen to try exotics, but I’ve had very little fish! So I want to try more fish. An untapped world! I’m quick to discount fish as being “ok,” “kind of weird,” “fishy,” you know, but salmon and tuna are so vastly different that I’m sure there’s others that would surprise me with their taste.
Knowing I had the barest chance of pulling it off and I let it go, ah! Forever regret. One chance.
I didn’t take him, nor did I stay and wait to see that he had reunited successfully with his mother. Because maybe she never came home. After all, he was stranded less than a half-mile from a human encampment, and as an Alaska subsistence living expert would later tell me, “most of those people will immediately try to kill any wolf they see.“ I remember hitching a ride with a fellow in Tanana who, when I asked if wolves ever came into town, he imitated shooting one gleefully. Pow! Or perhaps misfortune struck her in another way, she was naturally befallen by disease or injury.
