Chapter 2: Setting up Camp
The pilot asked where on the lake we wanted him to drop us off, and we directed him towards the outlet creek where trees were closest to the edge of the water. We would need the trees for shelter, and most importantly, for firewood. Edging the plane as close to the bank as possible, we put on our hip waders, and got to work unloading everything, tossing boxes and containers while standing on the floats to the shore. Packing everything into small boxes had an unexpected benefit we recognized immediately when we started tossing them from the plane and catching them, one we had not anticipated in town but much appreciated on the shores of the lake.
It took us less than an hour to transfer all our belongings from the plane to the shore of the lake. What had taken us six months to plan and over an hour to pack into the plane while we were in town made a very small pile on the shore, especially when we considered that we were completely on our own now for the next three months.
We pushed the plane away from the bank as far as possible, and then stood back to watch as the pilot taxied his aircraft away to the far side of the lake for a take off. With a roar, the plane took off over our heads and circled once, gaining altitude rapidly, before heading east, back towards the tall mountains and through the pass.
We were completely alone, standing by side of lake in the middle of a minimum of ten thousand square miles of uninhabited wilderness. In no time at all silence returned to the lake and our work for the afternoon had begun. We had to get things organized before it was time for bed. Fortunately, the long northern spring, almost summer, days afforded us many hours left before sunset.
Taking off from the water and heading back to the city, a momentary intrusion of machine into the wilderness is over.
A call came from across the lake, “Hellooooooooooooooo, hellooooooooooooooo!” We froze and looked at each other in momentary shock. How could there possibly be other people on our wilderness lake? Relief flooded through our bodies when we realized it was an Arctic Loon welcoming us to the neighborhood. We laughed with the sheer joy of being alive and in the wilderness.
Arctic Loons were a new life species for us. Dan has been watching birds since he was ten years old and had introduced me to the joy of bird watching when we met. It was thrilling to add a new species to our list within minutes of arriving at the lake, and we were on their breeding grounds. The pair of loons was preening, bathing, and calling. It was somewhat surprising that they were on such a small lake and we took it as a very good omen.
If you haven’t experienced spring in the far north, you will be hard pressed to appreciate how suddenly summer arrives on the heels of the spring thaw. One day the skies are cold and gray, the world is all sepia brown tones, and it feels like you are living in an old photograph. The next day the transformation is intense, brilliant green color that almost makes you want to put on sunglasses. Even cold and gray skies cannot tone down the explosion of color.
Ice had just left our new home, probably within the past week or two at most. As we flew over this lake initially, we had noticed the lake immediately to the east of us was still mostly covered in ice.
Our first order of business was going to be sorting our belongings and locating the box I had labled “First Day.” Inside that box were matches, tea making supplies, and an instant dinner in the form of crackers and cheese for quick energy with the least amount of effort. We were going to need that on our first evening. While I was sorting the boxes, Dan walked over to inspect the outlet creek of the lake.
Dan yelled at me to come to where he was staring down into the clear water flowing out of the lake. He wanted me to stop looking for the “First Day” box and find fishing gear instead.
Arctic Char with bright stripes down their sides were paying more attention to each than to the hungry Grayling who were swimming in their midst.
Arctic Char were spawning in the absolutely clear water flowing out of the lake, and Arctic Grayling were helping. In the outlet creek, about five feet across and perhaps six feet deep, were at least a hundred fish. The water was so clear the fish appeared to be suspended in air. We stood for several minutes, watching the fish swirl and dance around each other. The only sound we heard was wind in the trees and dry grasses, and the loons. We were in another world, far removed from the big city we’d left several hours/ages ago. It felt like we had gone to another planet.
Fishing equipment was easily located, and Dan asked me to bring the camera as nobody would believe us if we described what we were seeing, without a photograph to prove it.
Picture taken, now it was time to try out the fishing equipment. I handed Dan his six-piece backpacking fishing pole and a lure. He fit the pieces of the fishing pole together, picked out a lure and tied to the end of the fishing line, and he tossed it into the water and pulled out a fish. It took less time to catch that fish than it took to write that sentence. Obviously instead of crackers and cheese, dinner was going to have fish as the main course.
We tore ourselves away from the creek and all those lovely fish. The loons continued their eerie calls, flirting with each other.
We looked for solid ground on which to pile our boxes and finally found a place where they wouldn’t sink out of sight from their weight. There is one notable thing about Black Spruce trees; they tend to grow in Black Spruce Bogs, and the ground surrounding the lake met that particular description.
We located the roll of plastic we had included in our supplies, and placed a sheet of it on the ground, and then moved our boxes for the fourth time that day. Walking around the camp site quickly transformed the grassy shoreline into mud. We could see that we were going to have to continue wearing our hip waders for the foreseable future, not the most comfortable footwear but completely necessary. Protecting our belongings from rain was the most pressing need as the sky was threatening showers, and we covered the boxes with another sheet of plastic and weighed it down with short but stout pieces of wood that had been lying on the ground nearby.
Our tent, sleeping bags and pads, and bags with things we would be keeping with us in the tent went into another pile. I also separated out the cooking utensils, tea pot, and a metal grate for cooking over the fire, and set those by the “First Day” box.
We set the axe aside as we worked; we would need that for our next project. Slightly farther from the edge of the lake we found a dryer patch of ground, relatively speaking. Dan used the axe to cut green branches thickly covered with needles from the nearby spruce trees; we would put those branches under the ground cloth. This would keep the ground cloth underneath the tent floor out of moisture. The boughs would provide softness and level out the ground for our bed, and also keep water from running through the tent.
We erected the tent and staked it out as well as we could in the soft ground, and we tossed in the bedding, bags, and our box of books. We’d organize the inside of the tent later.
While he was cutting branches to place under our tent, Dan was also collecting firewood. After the tent was squared away, Dan got a fire started. Hours had flown by as we worked on setting up our base camp.
He used the small folding shovel we had brought with us to clear dry and flammable grass from a level space near some trees, in as dry a spot of ground as we had available. I opened the “First Day” box and found a small log to drag over by the fire to act as a seat and table. The snap of the fire, and the smell of wood smoke was very welcome to both of us.
Ten feet from the outlet creek, Dan had located a spring of cold fresh water. He brought a kettle full of water and set it on the grate set up over the fire. Tea was in our immediate future. He cleaned the fish he’d caught and soon they were cooking in the cast iron skillet, over the open fire.
Since we had landed, we had worked hard to care of these necessary chores, with no real chance to sit and absorb our surroundings. One of the most remarkable things about the Alaskan bush is the silence. It took us some time to fully appreciate the how quiet it was. Everything was so still. The lake was a mirror, reflecting the sky and the mountains across the lake. We were very quiet ourselves, caught by the mood of the falling night.
The mountains across the lake were deep midnight blue, slashed by stark white snow that lingered in folds on the upper hillsides. The only hint of green anywhere near us, apart from the very dark green of the spruce trees, was in the areas around our camping site where trampled dry grass exposed the tips of new grass, peeking up out of the ground.
All shades of blue, for the sky, water, and mountains.
By the time we had cooked and eaten dinner, it was getting dark, probably near 11 pm, and we went to bed very tired and very happy. We were guessing on the time but with only two weeks left until the Summer Solstice, the days were extremely long. We had no clock with us. As Dan was taking things out of his pockets, he came across folded paper money and a set of keys. We stared at the bills in his hand, and it struck us just how completely useless both those items were in our current circumstances; the only possible use the money had would be starting a fire in an emergency. He tucked both items away in a box, out of sight and out of mind for the next few months.
Despite being so tired from an exhausting day, it was very hard to get to sleep, from excitement and nervousness resulting from being in such a different place. Every tiny sound I heard outside the tent woke me up with a start. Bears were very much on my mind, though we had seen no signs of them during the day. And then it began to rain softly. The sound of the drops hitting the tent was soothing, masking all other sounds of the night. I fell fast asleep.