During the 2002 and 2003 summers I was lucky enough to be a part of a group that traveled the entire stretch of the Yukon River and up the coast of the Bering Sea. The plan was born in a Fairbanks bar over too many beverages. I was asking Myron if there was a trip he had always wished he had taken. Myron is a longtime Alaskan and a person who has seen more of the state than anyone else I knew. He proceeded to talk about wanting to take light gear down the Yukon River from Whitehorse to the Bering Sea. He said it was an interest of his to continue north through Norton Sound and up the coast to Barrow, Alaska.
I was sold. Who would not want to be a part of such a trip? I was teaching in Barrow and Myron was working just outside of town. There was a group of teachers that I worked with that were just crazy enough to want to take on such a task.
This journey did begin in Whitehorse, YT but will stopped short of Deadhorse, AK by many miles. We took some liberties with the 'Whitehorse to Deadhorse' thing but it sounded too good to pass on. The total distance covered was to be 2,338 miles. We originally set aside over two summers to finish.
Myron had traveled through most of the areas that we were planning to cover. Several years before he and another person had piloted his jet boat from Fairbanks to Kotzebue. Myron was the glue. He had experience and the knack for making it sound do-able. He said the only advice he had for navigating the Yukon to salt water was to, "Stay to the right." I am pretty anal and tend to over-plan and over-think everything so this kind of logic was a welcomed diversion.
My friend Becky coined an appropriate name for our little group and we were up and running. We had weekly meetings to talk about equipment needs and finances. Becky, Gary, Myron and I made up the group. We worked extra duty jobs to squirrel away the money that it would take to make it happen. We investigated the type of boats we would need. They needed to be sound river boats as well as sea craft. We had to coordinate fuel and food stashes and depots. All of the excitement was enough to make you forget the drones of winter life at the Top of the World.