Three weeks ago the Tanana River was covered with ice. Thick ice. Fortunately for the boating community in interior Alaska our spring has been abnormally warm causing the rivers to break up earlier than normal. Last month there was dog sledding on the rivers. This month boating. I bet that's a crazy thought to some of you lower 48ers. It sure is to me.
Over the past few years Beck and I have gotten to know a group of boaters, mostly canoers, that like to make an early season pilgrimage to the Delta-Clearwater River about two hours south east of Fairbanks. After all it's traditionally the first river to flow clear of ice in the area. The first half of the trip is on the Delta-Clearwater, the second half on the Tanana River.
The trip can be done in one long day but the whole point of going down there is to be on the river and socialize with good folks so we take it slow and keep the paddles out of the water when we can until we get to camp. This year we pulled over on the Tanana to set up camp on a large sandy/grassy field where we had spectacular views of the Alaska Range off in the distance. The moon rose slowly while the sun set slowly. It felt as if the sunset took hours as we roasted hot dogs over the camp fire and laughed until we could stand no longer and had to crawl into our tents.
The next morning we woke to a beautiful still day and another 4 hours of paddling to make it to the take out. We stopped for a short hike along the way to a bluff where we saw the first signs of flowers coming out of the ground. Oh right. I almost forgot. On the first half of the float, the day before, we saw three different moose sightings, a lynx (really really cool), and too many migrating birds to count including a group of over 30 trumpeter swans we startled into flying right in front of us. Once again good times were had by all.
The trip can be done in one long day but the whole point of going down there is to be on the river and socialize with good folks so we take it slow and keep the paddles out of the water when we can until we get to camp. This year we pulled over on the Tanana to set up camp on a large sandy/grassy field where we had spectacular views of the Alaska Range off in the distance. The moon rose slowly while the sun set slowly. It felt as if the sunset took hours as we roasted hot dogs over the camp fire and laughed until we could stand no longer and had to crawl into our tents.