Floating, boating, and picnicking on the Noatak River

(from Russ) Kayla lined us up with a float trip on Monday. Tim, a teacher here, left his boat down river many miles after a moose hunt. He invited us guys to float the river in canoes back to his boat. Paul went in Tim's canoe and Brett, Grandpa and I were in the other which was a rather shaky situation as none of us have been in a canoe for decades! I finally remembered my camera and took it out for a picture. The timing was bad as we were going into a fast moving snag filled corner at the time. Our heavy loaded canoe went sideways in the current and there were numerous instructions given to me by Brett and grandpa about what I should be doing and it did not include taking pictures. We survived the corner and went on to survive the many mile trip. We saw permafrost in the eroding banks. We got the boat and landed on shore at what I now call grizzly corner. The place was littered with bear tracks and the bears had trails worn in the sides of the river banks!! 

We loaded the canoes in Tim's flat bottom boat and the 5 of us hopped in the boat powered by a 75 HP Mercury. We learned how they drive on the Noatak River which is wide open. The philosophy is go fast to stay high on the water. The numerous gravel bars still took their toll as we hit bottom numerous times on the way back at full speed. Paul's eyebrows raised with each hit. He's thinking he could make a good living in the engine repair field up here.

We met Kayla with Stan and Doris and family upriver from town for a picnic. Stan teaches at the school and Doris is Oren's babysitter. They have 4 kids and the kids have been raised here their entire lives. I told their boys that my boys would love to live here. They have gotten their fist caribou at age 7. They are now ages 14 and 11. It was a nice visit and interesting to here how their lives have been in Noatak. I told Doris maybe I'll take her babysitting job and stay here. She would not give up watching Oren however!!

Brett and I went out to our trout fishing hot spot and took back out limit of 20 and fished for fun for awhile. I caught another possible silver which was the second one this trip. It was a silver or a fresh run chum- we still are not sure. I can't get over how chumming this huge river draws in the trout. They come in by the hundreds. Brett has two flies on his fishing pole and caught 2 at one time!

The weather is rapidly changing. We had 4 sunny and wind free days last week. We now have had strong North winds and it makes it much more like I expected the weather to be. We only have a few days left but are going to enjoy them to the fullest. Oren has gotten used to me putting him to bed at night. We have had some awesome "visits" at bedtime!! Time to go fishing!!

Oren telling one of his stories