Arctic Adventures

I finally got my boat and motor together. My motor arrived yesterday in one piece. I got to work right away getting it hooked up. It still needs some more work but it looks like it should be in action for most of the time that Russ and Phil are here. Now if only the weather would cooperate. The rain has mostly slowed down, but now it is cold.   Helping Out There have been bears hanging around town all week. The river is too high for them to catch fish, and the berries are mostly over. They come into town for easy pickings.  One Down  Ready to Go I haven't been out to fish in two weeks. The water level has been way too high to even think about it. Once it drops I'm thinking that it will be pretty good. On another note, the BLM surveyors were giving away AV gas, and I got a 100 gallons for free. I will probably have to mix it with regular gas, but 100 gallons of free gas is nice.   Oren Loves Cookie Dough

Last Saturday we took a little boat trip upriver. Everybody roasted hot dogs and s'mores.  Oren Fell Asleep on the Boat  Petting Shiloh  Proud As Could Be of His Coffee Cup Sunday I went fishing with John Hill and Dan Lasanen. The water was just starting to go down again. The fishing was phenomenal. We landed a ton of salmon, grayling, and even a couple trout. On Monday it started raining. It has been raining steadily for almost a week now. The river is waaaaayy high. Monday evening I rode down to Kotzebue with Stan and Timm in Timm's boat. Then we had a few days of inservice. Thursday afternoon just me and Timm headed back.    Old Fish Hatchery  The Sound was pretty bumpy, but the wind was out of the south so we were able to make it without any trouble. I was surprised how rough it was far up the river. They say it has something to do with the south wind going against the current makes it really choppy. The ride was uneventful save a huge grizzly

 So Many Rocks  Fishing  Blueberries Num-Num We finally arrived in to Noatak. All our flights went pretty well. Oren was bouncing off the walls on the flight from Chicago to Seattle. Neither of us got any rest on that flight. We took all day Wednesday just putting our luggage away and resting. I think I went to sleep at about 7 pm. On Thursday we went fishing for a little while. We didn't catch any though. The river is very high and dirty. It will need to go down, and clear up for the fishing to improve. We went and picked blueberries for a little while. The mosquitoes were horrendous. Oren had a good time.