I was warned about Fort Yukon from several sources. “It’s a drinking town.” “Your stuff will disappear and nobody will see a thing.” “Camping there is not recommended.” In reality, it was perhaps the friendliest town I’ve ever visited.

A Gwich’in woman was sponging out a skiff when we pulled up. I queried her about fuel. Within minutes, I was on the back of Samantha’s 4-wheeler, getting delivered to the town pump a mile distant. When we returned, a white truck pulled up with Pierre inside. The driver said, “Tyler, what do you need?” This was Bruce Thomas, unofficial ambassador of Fort Yukon, Alaska. Later, the town manager, Paul, delivered several gallons of drinking water to our campsite. We were sheltered behind a copse of trees at the town park. A wind had grown.

Alex and Pierre were going to stick around. I was determined to keep moving, onward to the sea!

In two miles, the Yukon swung headlong into the wind. The waves were 3-feet tall. I aimed for the shelter of an island. My prop hit bottom. I pulled it, and started rowing. The wind waves rolled upstream while the river current pushed downstream. I was caught between the two, stuck in limbo but slowly drifting toward a maelstrom in the main channel. Time to pull on the oars, like making the move at Crystal in the old days. A minute of full force rowing ran me into a gravel bar. I jumped out with the bowline and dragged upstream along shore. There was shelter, eventually, in the alders around the corner of the island. I would be here for the next three days.

Returning to Fort Yukon following the wind storm, I was the revenant, returning from the dead. “Tyler, you’re alive!” said Donna, Bruce’s wife, as she pulled up with a plate of fresh pancakes for me and Pierre. He was still at the same camp, having enjoyed a full array of July 4th celebrations while I was hunkered on my lonely narrow beach two miles away. Donna took us to the house, served us tea. Bruce drove me to the market, the gas pump, and back to the beach. The wind was building again.