Iniakuk Lake

I recently lucked into a temporary job as a caretaker of sorts of a lodge.



It's a high-end luxury wilderness lodge on the south side of the Brooks Range, the northern-most mountain range in Alaska. It's run by a mother/son team: Pat and John. John is going to be gone for a few weeks, and there are no clients here at the moment. After years of fending off bears all by herself when John is gone, Pat decided she didn't want to be alone up here so much anymore. So I'm here to offer backup and work on a few projects.

(I saw fresh bear tracks on the beach last night, huge ones, and she just said "it figures, as soon as John leaves...")

Considering the significant perks of the job, the pay is not bad. I'll be here about three weeks.

The weather leaving Fairbanks was kinda gross. I flew in a Grand Caravan on Wright Air to Bettles.

The DeHavilland Beaver coming in to the float pond in Bettles to discharge its last load and pick us up.

Flying from Bettles to Iniakuk Lake in the Beaver.

There was kind of a goofy guy that was fueling the plane on the ground (water) in Bettles. "That can't be the pilot" I mused, without previously realizing that I had this bias, "because he's so uncool." Sure enough, the pilot was this guy, who looked much more like a bush pilot.

Iniakuk Lake. (this evening the satellite internet will give me unlimited bandwidth, so I'll post a video of the landing then.)

John, the lodge owner, stands on the float, while Flo, a German doing some work with John, stands by. They took off for two nights up to a cabin a little further into the mountains.

Taxiing away.

Full power.

Thus far I've just been getting acclimated and working on small projects around the lodge. My main project starting out is to repaint the trim on the front windows.

Pat cooks for me. It's a hard knock life.

Since my buddy Josh Horst is the one who recommended me for this, I thought I'd return the favor and do a little advertising for his company. He's got Arctic Ovens for rent, folks - if you need one, he's your man.

The lodge.

Tool shed.

Storms blow in and then blow back out with amazing speed. Note the double rainbow.

It's not all hard work.

Iniakuk Lake.

It stopped raining, so I should head back outside and work on projects. I'm going to post a few more times from here, I'm sure, as well as get caught up on long-overdue posts from past trips, so check back frequently.