Day 9 – Koyukuk River Rafting, Sled Dog Greetings, Return to Fairbanks

The blackout curtains in the room (this includes most of the rooms we’ve stayed in so far) really did not keep it dark. It’s so light outside, that it seems like daytime all the time. It may be my imagination, but it I think it’s easier to get by on less sleep in this environment – we’ll see how this plays out over the next week or so.

In any event, we woke up bright and early and loaded up at the breakfast buffet. It was a beautiful clear morning, and we hit the local trails to loosen up for our afternoon rafting trip.

A van took us about seven miles up the road, where we unloaded our raft and launched into the middle fork of the Koyukuk River. This river is a tributary that feeds into the Yukon several miles south of Coldfoot. Like many rivers around here, it is wide, shallow, and fast-flowing. However, the section we rafted had no rapids to speak of. Since there were so few people at Coldfoot, Karen and I were the only two people in the raft with our guide, Christy.

We spent the next few hours floating down the river imagining how life used to be around here when the river was the main thoroughfare for the indigenous people. They floated down the river in the summer to hunt and fish, and then walked or sledded up the frozen river in the winter to set up winter quarters. Meanwhile, an afternoon storm was following us down the river and we managed to stay ahead of it the whole time.

Christy told us about the three sled dogs that she and her husband (who also works at Coldfoot) recently bought from a local kennel. When we got back to camp she took us over to her cabin and let Karen bond with Stallone, Suey, and Marcus.

After that, it was time to catch a flight back to Fairbanks. When we crossed back over the Arctic Circle this time, there was only time to photograph the GPS indicator. What had taken us nine hours by van, took only about an hour by airplane and we were back in Fairbanks. 

Around the corner from our hotel, we dined at Big Daddy’s BBQ (endorsed by Guy Fieri!), where they claim to be the most northern place to get southern barbeque. The St. Louis spareribs are settling in now, so it’s time to sign off for tonight.

Next: Chitina