Near Disaster!
Posted on: March 2, 2010 | admin | 1 Comment | Print Article | Rate Post:
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To get winter wood, I would go up river in the spring, about 100 mile or so, to make dry wood rafts. It was a great time to be there. The days were long, the smell of alders filled the air like spring perfume, you would hear beavers slap an alarm with their tails shaped like the end of an oar. I hardly ever saw anyone because the mad rush up the river to hunt beavers and muskrats ,and whatever else could be harvested, had passed. I used my small 16 foot wooden boat, built by Roy Foxglove Sr, and pushed by a 35 horse powered Evinrude.
On this particular trip, Sandy, Lucas and Alder went along. We made it to Fred Davis’s allotment and made a cozy camp near the alders. We raised our 8X12 canvas wall tent, placed the wood stove, stashed the camping gear and collected enough fire wood to last. We always took roughly tanned caribou skins to sleep on.
I started a good distance upriver from camp to begin constructing the raft. Collecting between 12 to 15 good size trees, I would build the base and then add logs as I went further down the river. I used my boat like a four wheel drive truck, tying one end of a long rope to a log lodged on the bank (many times in the willows) and the other end to the transom of the boat, I would engage the throttle and haul them out. Once the log was barged to the raft. I would use short piece of rope, about 7 feet long with knots on both ends, to roll the log onto the raft. Basically, I slipped the rope under the center of log, keeping the rope on the bottom taut, and pull the rope across the top of the log toward me to roll the log onto the raft.
I was in the gym one day before breakup talking to elders, William Sheldon and Loyd Davis Sr. about rafting. I explained that I had trouble with the bases of my rafts coming to pieces by the time I got home. They were kind enough to gathered 8 to 10 mops and broom handles from the janitors closet, arranged them on the gym floor like the base for a raft and demonstrated how to knit a raft base together using rope. From that day on, my rafts made it down river with out falling apart like box of wooden stick matches spilling onto the floor.
Anyway… While I made the beginnings of a raft upriver from our camp, Sandy took care setting up and maintaining the camp, including entertaining both kids. When I had collected and assembled the base of the raft and all logs worth retrieving, we would take the camp down and move it down river far enough to let the raft float freely and wait to meet later in the day, or night. In this one instance I thought, after letting the raft free and heading down the river, I had plenty of time to anchor my boat and take a look for caribou at the top of the bank on the tundra. While I was spotting, I looked up the river and saw that the raft was already coming around the bend and heading on a path that would eventually take out my boat. In a panic, I began to run, actually sprint, across the tundra stepping on top of tussics a foot high with my 306 and binoculars swing wildly, picturing in my mind the raft taking out the boat and me standing there in shock. I flew down the bank, made it to the boat, unhooked the peetook (hook) from the ground, literally dove into the boat and into the drivers seat. Miraculously, the key was in the ignition and it turned over on the first try. I peeled out and looked back in time to see the boat pull away within feet of the raft. Literally 20 longer and it would have been all over. The timing could not have been better. This is one time I was happy to have legs the length of a calf moose!
Sandy and the kids were in a camp down river. It was late in the evening and they would be asleep. The boat and raft would have silently passed by them unnoticed. I would have been stranded on the opposite side of the river and who knows how far from camp. Swimming would have been the approach back to camp, if or when I got there.
Everything worked out for the best. At the point when we hit the delta of the river and the water no longer pushed the raft, I tied up the raft and took the family home. I did go back at some point and barge the raft home.
Believe me, it was well worth the trip and close call to have wood. Having enough wood to keep us warm was like having money in the bank!
Jerry Olive
Category: Alaska
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March 3rd, 2010 @ 8:25 am
Great story! Please keep them coming.