Atlin, 2010

My blog is not Google searchable, and has not been for a long time.  This means that if you google it, you're not going to find it.  However, I just tested that theory, and apparently things that I've posted to GoogleMinus, which includes links to this blog, ARE Google indexed, so it doesn't work.

That said, I'm going to throw caution to the wind, and use actual names of actual organizations.  I'm no longer affiliated with any of them.

I wrote the following a couple of years back for Rivers Without Borders' blog.  They said they'd post it, they even said so pretty enthusiastically, but they never did.  At the time their blog had very little content, but since then I've seen that this doesn't match the character of the blog: it seems, in contrast to most blogs, to offer actual information.

So obviously my writing isn't good enough for any blog but my own.  That's okay, that's why I have a blog.

Before you judge me, please note that I don't actually think this is very good, either.  I was experimenting with this style of writing - I call it "in-flight magazine".  Its a fairly common style of journalism, but is most visible in airline in-flight magazines.  The writing is somewhat informative, but never says anything either negative or the least bit controversial.  Everything has a positive spin: favellas are called 'vibrant', Detroit is 'filled with opportunity', the Republican party has moral 'rigidity and flexibility', Burma is 'up and coming', and they avoid the topic of Fairbanks all together. 

I wrote this back in 2010, and it never saw the light of day.  I had joined Round River's Atlin student program in Northern BC for a week, and that's what this is about.  I'm not sure if I'm missing any other important details or not, but if you have questions, put them in the comments where they can be safely ignored.

Without further ado:

“Yeah Snoozers!” I shout, offering rhetorical encouragement.  She’s trying to reel in a big King salmon.  This fish is old, tired and lazy, but still exceptionally strong.  It easily pulls out all the line Susie just struggled to bring in.

                It takes her better than a half an hour to drag this beast to shore.  I set myself to killing it, clobbering it with a stick.  My blows are ill-aimed, hitting the ground first, robbing the swing of all the power.  What I lack in quality, though, I make up for in quantity, until I’m satisfied that the fish can’t thrash its way out of our hands and into the water.  Now comes the easy part – filets or steaks?

                There are eight of us: five students, the two leaders, and me.  Susie is one of the leaders, and I’m Susie’s boyfriend.  And I’m just along for the ride.

                The ride I’ve joined is Round River Conservation Studies' student program, just in time for their almost-annual walk from Kuthai Lake, in interior northern British Columbia, to the confluence of the Nakina and Sloko Rivers, part of the Taku River watershed.  Round River is a Salt Lake City-based NGO that participates in community-based conservation projects around the world.  The student programs are an extension of RRCS’s research; students participate in the field work, learning about real-world conservation and earning college credit at the same time. 

The trail we walked is steeped in Tlingit history: it’s their traditional trail leading from the interior boreal plateaus, where the Tlingit historically spent the winter, to the Taku River watershed, where they spent the summer and fall fishing and hunting.  The Taku River Tlingit continue to walk the trail today to spend time over the summer at family cabins along the Nakina and Taku Rivers. The trail is by far the easiest route through the coast mountains, and therefore is also the path of the proposed road for the Tulsequah Chief Mine, a 160km road through road-less wilderness to a defunct multi-metal mine on the Tulsequah River, tributary to the Taku.  The majority of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation (TRTFN) and residents of the town of Atlin oppose the re-opening of the mine and the creation of the proposed road.  

“The Walk,” as it’s called, follows the easiest path from the interior to the coast, but this isn't to suggest that it’s actually easy.  A couple of the Round River students had little to no backpacking experience prior to this trip, and they couldn't have asked for a more difficult introduction. The first day was rather tame, only six hours, but it gained most of the elevation to the pass and has several long, grueling uphills. And of course we were carrying nearly all of our supplies for the next ten days.  The first night’s campsite was in a stunning meadow below Focus Mountain, with the Coast Range in the distance.

What the second day lacks in elevation gain it makes up for in every other form of backcountry drudgery - we spent an exhausting 12-hour day climbing over, around, under and occasionally falling off of downed trees across the trail.  We bushwhacked through stinging nettles, cow parsnip, devil's club and countless other plants that don't leave welts.  We enjoyed asthma attacks, creek crossings, bottomless mud pits, and kept our eyes out for bears, moose and wasps' nests.  Oh, and the mosquitoes are best measured in tons per cubic meter...

But then we got there.  We were greeted upon arrival by Yvonne Jack and her daughter April, who generously offered us some of their dried salmon, bannock, and hot tea.  I tried not to eat it all, but didn't do a very good job.  As we dragged ourselves back onto our feet and out of Yvonne’s cabin for the final 5-minute walk to our campsite, we saw a grizzly and her two cubs fishing in the river, watched over by bald eagles and a long, slow northern sunset.

We spent the next four days relaxing and soaking in all that the Nakina River has to offer.  We fished for, caught and ate King (Chinook) salmon and Dolly Varden.  We read and talked about the importance of salmon to forest ecosystems (believe it or not, spawning salmon are a critical nitrogen pathway), what they mean for our food supply, and what this area means to the Tlingit.  The Taku is one of British Columbia's most important salmon-bearing rivers - perhaps home to the largest salmon fishery in North America after Alaska's Bristol Bay (which is also currently threatened by the proposed Pebble Mine).  There were countless King salmon that idled about in the water in front of our camp, resting in eddies before continuing upstream to their spawning beds.  Watching several different groups of grizzlies, including a sow and a cub, make a circuit up the river in front of our camp to hunt salmon was a nearly nightly activity.  One even wandered part way into camp, tempted by the smell of potatoes, garlic, salmon and a whole bunch of butter.

Our time on the river felt like an eternity, but was somehow over far too soon.  We reversed our steps, walking back up to the pass (with packs that seemed to weigh as much as on the way in) through the deadfall and bushes to our previous campsite (“if the Tlingit like this place so much,” I joked, “why don’t they just build a road?”  I was met with groans).  

The Nakina Trail will never be a classic hiking trail on the ticklist of California yuppies.  It’s primarily a grueling slog through a northern boreal forest, occasionally emerging into the open only to cross swamps and bogs. The route was chosen by the ancient Tlingit for the relative lack of elevation gain, and so it doesn’t offer panoramic views from ridge tops or cliff edges.  If the planned work is done on the trail, removing the deadfall and bush, it would be much easier and not a “trophy” accomplishment like the nearby Chilkoot Trail.  What makes the Nakina Trail unique is its wildness combined with its history.  We were the first of only two groups to hike the trail this summer, but we couldn’t forget that it has been hiked by countless people over thousands of years. 

Personally, I’m glad the hordes will never arrive on the Nakina. In one spot by a lake we found moose, bear and wolf footprints all in the same tiny patch of mud.  Though the area would seem to be teeming with wildlife, these are wild animals, not Yellowstone deer or Central Park coyotes; they’re afraid of humans, and we never saw them.       

It’s a cliché summer afternoon, and I’m going to write a cliché paragraph about it: the breeze blows gently, but it’s warm in the sun.  I’m now sitting in the dirt with my back against a rock.  The trashy novel I’m reading is in the dirt beside me.  My eyes aren’t actually closed, but I can’t really see out of them, either.  Hannah and Susie are cooking dinner, and they ask me for help with something. 

                “Hang on,” I say.  “I’m busy.”