There are two bridges over the Yukon River. One is on the Alaska Highway, upstream of Whitehorse, where the Yukon is still a normal-sized river. The other is the Dalton Highway bridge, a narrow strip of pavement connecting the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay with the rest of the world. It is a wholly incongruous bit of infrastructure, accompanying the petroleum pipeline across the vastness of northern Alaska.

The café at the bridge hosted a revolving door of re-supplying villagers, working truckers, traveling car campers, and cyclists. A couple from Vermont staggered inside splattered with mud. A German man was several days into a years-long ride to Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America. A young Pennsylvanian was riding to Montana. He told me about a Mazda Miata he’d met on the mud-gravel road. The driver had driven his sports car to the Arctic Ocean, from Georgia.

After seeing the cyclist’s camp kits, I realized that I had it easy with my giant tent, even if it did leak. I ran full throttle through a misty evening, daring myself to go all night as the storm cleared, but I was pooped by 10 pm, and pulled ashore at a small patch of sand. At midnight, I heard something walking down the beach, and sat up to see what it was. It looked like a miniature skinny bear, pausing to look my way for a couple seconds before awkwardly trotting on down the beach—a wolverine!

At 5 am I was awake, the river was glassy calm, and skies were mostly clear. By 6 am I was on the water, bathed in golden sunshine, and making steady miles. After my 3-day storm hold at Fort Yukon, fear of a repeat scenario had me motivated to go fast and long when conditions were good, and now they were the best I’d seen in 10 days.

In early afternoon I paused to visit with a family sitting in their boat along shore. The river was swift there, near a place called “The Rapids.” A pile of boulders, a couple small waves, it did in fact resemble a whitewater river, but with huge smooth channels along both shores. A collection of tents surrounded a cold cascading stream. Two little girls in lifejackets played in pool toys tied up to the bank. Their grandma told me she was going to swim across the river with them later. That’s what Alaskans do on the Yukon, on a nice sunny day in July.

They told me gas was available in Tanana only until 5 pm. I got there by 2. A local on a rickety bike told me I was the third floater to come through that week. That’s what they call us, “floaters.” But with a motor and a boat not too dissimilar from the ones they use, I didn’t quite fit the category. He said a family who “didn’t speak much English,” and a single young woman were a few days ahead of me. “That must be Gin,” I said, having seen her signature in riverside cabin registers 500 miles back. “I told her Sasquatch likes girls like her,” he retorted.

I wasn’t sure when I’d pass Gin, but with the progress of this day it wouldn’t be long. I thought I’d maybe done 100 miles. When I measured my route on the map, I let out a celebratory whoop to the wilderness—”One hundred and fucking twenty-eight!”