It was 185 miles to the next gas pump, 305 miles to the next groceries. I was anxious to get moving again, but also reveling in the warm comfort of Bruce and Donna’s home. Donna and niece Kaitlyn cheerfully prepared hot tea as Pierre and I sat at the kitchen table. Bruce emerged, following three-days of Fourth-of-July celebrations. “Hey Tyler, you’re back!” he crowed, bleary-eyed but full of good spirits per usual. He collected himself on the couch while the ladies shared stories from last night’s town dance, and showed us a news video of an angry Fairbanks man ranting at natives. “The Jersey Shore” ran a montage of cleavage and banter on the TV in the background. Bruce put on his boots and said, “We gotta get you guys to the store, hah.”

Bruce spoke with a guttural inflection at the end of his sentences, similar to a Canadian “eh,” but more of a “hah,” as if he were urging a horse to get moving. “They don’t let us fish from the river anymore,” he told me, “but they give us these farmed Reds (sockeye salmon), heh?” “That’s pretty fucked up, huh?” I agreed. He gave me one of the frozen fish, so I might at least have a salmon on the Yukon, even if it wasn’t a Yukon salmon, because there are very few left.

The grocery store opened at 10 am. It was now 9. Bruce and I drove slowly around the random criss-cross dirt roads of Fort Yukon. We passed the same yellow lab three times, hunkered beneath a 4-wheeler at the edge of the roadway. The only other car on the roads was driven by Donna. When we passed, both cars would stop. The couple might share a quip, then on we’d go.

Bruce told me about his grandpa, a German who ran boats on the Mississippi before finding his way to the north and marrying a Gwich’in woman. They had nine boys. Bruce’s father lived in the bush until he was 27. His last uncle passed a couple years ago. “I shot him a big moose for his potlach, eh.” That got Bruce thinking about moose, which he does often. “I’m gonna throw some moose in the pot today, Tyler. That’s what I need, some moose soup, yah.”

The grocery checker asked where I was from, where I was going. When I told her, she shook my hand. Part of me wanted to plug into Fort Yukon a little more. Another part wanted to go, move, start the next leg of this journey, solo to the sea. I put on my drysuit beneath darkening skies, and said my goodbyes to Bruce and Pierre. “This feels like Deja-vu,” said Pierre. I hoped it wasn’t.