A friend's story

A couple of weeks ago, we posted about the river flooding, and being extra dangerous and rough.  On the Monday following, one of my native friends from when I (Laura) started working up here was missing.  He had gone hunting and was supposed to be back on that Sunday night, but Monday came and he wasn't back.  From what I understood, Search and Rescue was being planned.  After he got back safe and sound, I found out what had happened over email, and it sounded interesting and scary so I thought I'd share it.

B's story:
ME: What happened to you? We were all worried!

B: Oh just drove on the Kwethluk river(all day, from early AM to late PM) half way to Anchorage. Looking for Caribou(we seen some but were just too far in the distance, we seen large moose, male & females’ large eagles’(different kinds’)no bears’ though, seen huge boulders in the river(some areas of the river were shallow & swift(river is really loud up there in the mountains, seen a lot of snow top mountains, heard wolves’ howling & yelping in the night, we only had one good  day(when we went up)& the rest of the days were nothing but rain(off/on, constant at times)& heavy fog  on the last day. There is a different kind of tundra up there where by the mountains are, in some areas there was rocks under the tundra, the black berries have lots of flavor compared to our blackberries here, there was a lot of blue berries up there that turned bad from the cold weather. Would like to go back up there & look for a black bear if I could the that’s just a thought.

ME: So were you lost, or just stayed out a little longer than planned?

B: No was not lost just stayed out longer than expected, wanted to come home Sunday evening, but my guide thought that it was too risky to travel in dangerous waters when wearing glasses’ when its raining, he didn’t want to hit rocks or sweepers. So we left the next morning when daylight rose, but our visual was obscured by thick fog, so we drove slowly down the river, going w/the current  

ME: Wow, sounds crazy!  Good idea not to travel though if it was that rough.  Sounds very dangerous!

B: The water is high, but not high enough to where I would like to go, I’d need like almost a drum of gas to go where I wanna go, wanna donate!! For a good cause!! & if so give me your camera or camcorder & I’ll record my event for you so you can see how it is way up there, it sounds like a plan…


 Wish it looked like this right now!  I'm tired of blowing the tundra out of my nose!!!