Yukon River :

Jimmy with us for the rest of our canoe trip.  I looked over at Kevin and could see the same thought was occurring to him.  A silent shudder passed between us.

But then, miraculously, we were saved. From around the bend the Albertan Brothers were approaching, each with his own canoe, even outboard motors which would help lug  the extra weight of Ernie.  “Come ashore,” we called to them. “Have some lunch.”  

At first the Albertan Brothers were happy to take along Ernie and Jimmy.  Apparently the twins had been fighting, sick of each other’s company, and were thankful for the distraction.  But later that day, when they finally came across the Americans’ upside-down canoe caught in a mass of dead trees near the shore, the Albertan Brothers were no longer on speaking terms with Ernie.  We spotted Ernie and Jimmy ahead of us on the riverbank with their canoe, Ernie jumping up and down and waving at us, Jimmy lying on the ground, the pair of them stranded once again, at the mercy of whoever came down the river.  Their canoe badly needed patching and the Albertan Brothers had unceremoniously dumped them there with it and left.  “Stupid rednecks,” said Ernie.  “Trying to tell us everything we done wrong yesterday. As if they’re any smarter.”  Since we didn’t have room for the two of them, or any patches for their canoe, we were of no use to them and free to leave.             

That night, at a campsite called Big Salmon, we learned that the six women from Florida had rescued Ernie and Jimmy.  Marge was beaming at the campfire, her rouged cheeks flaming, her coifed hair all astray.  Jimmy, pulling on his beard and stealing quick shy glances her way, was a changed man, a man whose last name apparently was Right.  Marge and Jimmy had fallen in love. 

And so it went, the Yukon River, inspiring love and languor and a never-ending light. In the day we floated and at night we recalled, trying to rehearse the scenes of the river in our minds: the eagles and the leggy moose, the impossible green of the river and the mountains rising up so close like sudden thoughts.  The nights too never failed to bring with them, on schedule and at a distinct required decibel level, the not-too-distant voice of Ernie telling his story of the river disaster which almost took his life, the story of how he’d been so close to death he’d spoken to God and asked forgiveness—forgiveness  for what we never asked—how he’d swum miles alone along the river, searching for his partner, a tale of heroic proportions we didn’t even recognize, a tale Kevin and I, by its fifth telling, had been cut out of entirely.  “I don’t understand,” said a Swiss man to me one night around a campfire.  “Every night we hear this same story and every night the story grows more dangerous.”  The Swiss man told us he also had canoed by the hysterical Ernie in the tower, but hadn’t stopped for him.  He simply waved and kept paddling, thinking Ernie in his army fatigues must be an escaped lunatic from the military.  “This sometimes happens in Switzerland.  The army drives them mad and they head for the wilderness.  I didn’t want to go near him.”

On the tenth day we looked up from the river to see a bridge approaching.  The bridge seemed intrusive and alien and meant civilization was ahead.  A few minutes later we passed some shacks along the water and a clearing of the forest.  Sadly, we’d arrived at Carmacks and the end of our canoe trip.  Carmacks was a forgettable little town with three restaurants all owned by the same man, which explained our ten dollar salad consisting solely of iceberg lettuce. 

That night, camping in our tent beside a river that felt like home, I thought of the drifters, homesteaders, and renegades who had tramped across an unimaginable expanse of country and sailed down a river to find gold, or their spirits, or a new life.  I thought of the ones who died on the way, their bones left at the river’s bottom, polished, and fragile.  You could almost hear their voices, a murmur around your sleep, as if the dead souls were babbling at the edge of the river.  And I thought of Ernie, whose bones the river didn’t want, and whose babbling at the edge of the river was enough to waken the dead.

THE GREAT RIVER JOURNEY 
The Great River Journey is a unique world-class geotour. It combines the adventure of a wilderness river safari with a journey of personal discovery There is no other product like it in ....