7/28/18 Mileage: 29 247 miles paddled The salmon are running. The salmon are here so the gulls and terns are eagles and hawks are here, circling above my little green boat sounding the alarm, and the bears are surely here as well. The stage has been set and the first act has come alive. The … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 10: Howarth’s cabin

7/27/18 Mileage: 30 218 miles paddled Just before drifting off I hear a loud honking near the edge of camp, like my chihuahua when she reverse sneezes. At first I think that Bunny is having some sort of weird dream, but then Bunny pokes her head out of her tent. "Did you hear that?" She … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 9: full moon

7/26/18 Mileage: 30 188 miles paddled The sun is shining right on my tent and it's too hot to sleep for the longest time. Then finally I fall into a deep sleep and I dream that I'm magically gifted an RV that initially looks like a mess but, once inside, it unfolds into an enchanted … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 8: Okak

7/25/18 Mileage: 30 158 miles paddled The Noatak has forgiven us for calling it slow. It rains for much of the night but the morning comes clear and painfully blue and the river is calm again, wide and gentle and full of peaceful eddies. The high is 70 degrees today, per the weather forecast from … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 7: peace

7/24/18 Mileage: 31 128 miles paddled I know we shouldn't have called the Noatak slow. The water rises in the night from the rain and just like that, it's a different river; faster, frothier, more roiling, full of stronger currents and eddies. It's constant work to paddle today- I can't put my paddle down for … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 6: jinxed

7/23/18 Mileage: 31 97 miles paddled The sky clouds over and I sleep; I wake several times in the grey hours to pee and one last time at 7 a.m. I drink the cold tea I steeped in my gatorade bottle overnight and eat some granola in protein powder; I'm ready to go. Not quite, … Continue reading Noatak day river paddle day 5: sun

7/22/18 Mileage: 23 66 miles paddled The sun is beating directly on my tent at 10pm when I'm trying to go to sleep, turning it into an oven. Ah, this is the arctic I was expecting. I lay naked on my neo air with my shirt over my face, drifting in and out of sleep, … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 4: rapids

7/21/18 Mileage: 26 43 miles paddled I have the wild dreams characteristic of my deepest outdoors sleep and wake up dehydrated but happy. I must try and drink more water today. The boats are where we left them on the beach; we have them all packed up and ready to shove off by 9:30. We … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 3: faster

7/20/18 Mileage: 17 A cold grey dimness, a sort of precursor to full dark, has returned to the wee hours of the arctic night and I notice this when I wake up to pee in my double gallon ziploc bag. I shiver a little as I empty the ziploc onto the tundra outside my vestibule. … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 2: systems

7/19/18 Mileage: zero I wake at 7 a.m. at my friends Allison and AK's house in Fairbanks, Alaska. I slept in their 5 year-old's tiny twin bed under dinosaur blankets, because he was sleeping with them. Little kid rooms kind of freak me out for some reason, I can't really say why. I slept a … Continue reading Noatak river paddle day 1: why is it always like this