{"id":33196,"date":"2024-06-24T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/?p=33196"},"modified":"2024-06-24T14:08:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T21:08:20","slug":"breakup-on-the-clearwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2024\/06\/24\/breakup-on-the-clearwater\/","title":{"rendered":"Breakup on the Clearwater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring is that marvelous time when you blow cobwebs from your river mind and pull boating gear from the shelves, a time when you stop reading Stephen King and lose yourself in flow volumes instead. As Alaskans crazed by cabin fever head out, shorebirds and waterfowl head north.<\/p>\n

Despite cross-country skiing twice a week all winter, starting from the porch of our Fairbanks cabin, except when the thermometer dipped below minus 20, I feel ill-prepared for my first river jaunt every year. I learn anew how many Vitamin I pills (Ibuprofen) maintain my knuckles and shoulders. Each passing decade requires upping the dose. And \u201cMuscle memory may be real,\u201d as a writer friend quips, \u201cbut it is short term.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A leisurely float in a canoe is a great way to get re-habituated, with more comforts than backpacking or packrafting and no rapids to drench you. Interior Alaska\u2019s Clearwater seems just the ticket. Twenty miles long, with a low gradient, the Delta Clearwater River boasts crystalline fun, unlike the tannin-steeped, tea-colored or turbid \u201cglacier milk\u201d streams of much of the rest of the Interior. It joins the Tanana at the small town of Delta Junction, the terminus of the ALCAN Highway. Delta Junction is a backwaters brew of Bible thumpers and organic farmers, anti-government types and \u201cBud and Breakfast\u201d business ventures.<\/p>\n

Like any tribe worth its salt, Alaskans have coined a slew of regionalisms that confound Outsiders. For us, \u201cbreak-up\u201d is not a relationship term but the seasonal bookend to \u201cfreeze-up.\u201d It\u2019s the bug-free window before the hordes descend on us in June. It\u2019s the slush month when, rumbling, squeaking, groaning, and grinding, the ice goes out on inland rivers and, traditionally, Alaskans exchanged snowshoes and dog teams for birchbark or canvas canoes. The largest spring-fed tributary of the Tanana River, the Clearwater is one of the first waterways to shed its carapace. On the lakes, it can linger until early to mid-June.<\/p>\n

People like Cameron Leonard, the Fairbanks Paddlers<\/a> leader of this overnight trip, inspect satellite imagery to see if the river is open. Cam tells me how they\u2019ve had to sledge-drag canoes across an unplowed parking lot, how boaters had to camp atop snow, how they\u2019ve manhandled boats up onto ice shelves for landings. He runs the Clearwater almost yearly, as a rite of spring to kick off the season.<\/p>\n

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We face no such hardships today. On the sun-bathed boat ramp, the normal melee greets us: rampaging kids, dogs in life jackets, Alaskans swilling beer already and sorting gear. Quick to rig and shove off, we get a head start to Cam\u2019s favorite camp on this stretch. With my wife, Melissa, as bowwoman and Cam paddling solo, Don and Tracie Pendergrast power the third boat.<\/p>\n

Don drove up to Alaska from Georgia in the fall of 1976, with his boat strapped to the roof of his car but had to wait until the following spring \u201cto find enough [open] water.\u201d An aquatic invertebrate biologist, he became Chief of Interpretation at Gates of the Arctic National Park. Tracie staffed the park\u2019s visitor center in Bettles and managed the artist-in-residence program. They also operate a canoeing school. In his youth, Don canoed class V Appalachian water<\/a>, threading rapids where they filmed Deliverance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The river slides emerald over multi-colored cobbles. Fish hang in the depths as if suspended in glass. They could be whitefish or Arctic grayling, a trout relative with a supersize, sail-like dorsal fin. There\u2019s also a fall coho (silver salmon) run bringing ragged, brick-red, hook-beaked survivors of a 1,000-mile journey from the Bering Sea.<\/p>\n