When was the last time you felt the carefree glee of childhood play, your adult worries slipping off like too tight church shoes, and face sore from excessive smiling? Larry and I experienced this last month. As I peruse the photos from our fly fishing adventure in the wilds of Alaska, I see the unadulterated joy of play plastered on our faces. What a beautiful gift to have such an opportunity and icing on the cake that it was a shared experience!
Alaska has been on our bucket list for years. Like trying to fit your mouth around a double cheeseburger, we struggled with knowing how best to bite off a manageable piece of this vast state. Our travel style is usually more focused, slow paced, and aimed at taking in the essence of one or two places, rather than checking off a list of sights. In late spring we had an opportunity to book a week of fly fishing in remote Alaska, at Royal Coachman Lodge in Bristol Bay. No roads or accessible rivers means that each week’s group of ten clients must be flown in and out by several six-passenger seaplanes. The lodge is on the banks of the Nuyakuk River and just downstream from Tikchik Lake. Yes, of course; add our names to the list!
Sunday morning we arrived early to the lower level, charter plane, passenger waiting area at Anchorage International Airport. We sat in the corner, reading our kindles as groups of two and three males began arriving and visiting among themselves. Yes, this was the group heading to Royal Coachman Lodge. I had assumed I might be the lone female, since fly fishing is a male dominated sport. Looking at this posse of men toting long, tubular cases with rods, swapping fish stories and bios, I panicked. What had I done?! Would this be the longest week of my life?! I sent out a shaky text to my family saying that I felt quite out of place. My kids encouraging “you got this Mom” and “show ‘em how its done” replies, made me straighten my spine and restored my confidence. There is no finer endorsement in the whole world than your offspring believing that you are capable.
As we walked outside to board the small charter plane, another reality hit me like a cold washcloth to the face: For the next week, I was going to have to ride in tiny planes on a daily basis. And I am terrified of air turbulence. Whenever I fly, I employ many distraction techniques to keep my mind off what could happen. And then we fly through a cloud or an air pocket and I am reduced to a wide-eyed, shallow-breathing child, holding tightly to Larry’s hand. Each day at the lodge, weather permitted, the clients are flown on sea planes to various rivers and lakes to fish. I would have many opportunities to face my fears.
We appreciated the large, solid aircraft as we embarked from Atlanta.
Boarding the small charter plane in Anchorage. Destination: Dillingham
I wished I had brought some duck tape along to help hold that ceiling together.
Upon arrival, we were shuttled to a large lake where Royal Coachman Lodge had two tiny seaplanes waiting to transport our group an hour back into the wilds.
The aircraft kept diminishing in size. This is what you call “intimate.”
I was relieved to not need the SIC SAC tucked into the seat pocket, along side the bag of earplugs.
As we flew to our destination, packed into this tiny float plane (think rickety sports car with wings, propellor, and clunky ski runners for landing), I vigilantly scanned the moving landscape. From 1,000 feet up, wildlife are often visible. I spotted a moose trotting through the underbrush. Massive mountains rose around us. The sky was a canopy of billowing clouds against an azure blanket. Below, narrow rivers serpentined like wiggling snakes between lakes, and then gave way to forests of evergreens. We were flying through a painting, whose palette streaked hues of greens and blues and browns. With a lump in my throat, I realized that I was in my Daddy’s world. He was a great outdoorsman with a huge fondness for adventure. He would have loved doing what we were right at that moment. Being only four years old when he drowned in the ice fishing accident, I have a difficult time conjuring up memories of him. Who is this man who gifted me with half of my genes? What would he think of me, his youngest child? Do I love the outdoors so very much because he did? Stuffed in the back of that little float plane, wiping tears from my cheeks, I felt the warmth of my Daddy’s smile. I was in his world.
We had come to Alaska to fly fish and that is what we did every day for a week. Most mornings we would be flown out, along with a knowledgable guide, to a river or lake to fish for specific kinds of fish. The company has small boats tucked away in places along the shore. One of those boats would be our home for the day, rain or shine. Sometimes we waded, but mostly we fished from the boat. Some folk might consider it cheating to use a guide’s help for choosing and tying the bait, deciding how deep to set it, deciding where in the river is the best “fishy water,” and many other variables that need deciding. Larry and I humbly accept this assistance and are proud to occasionally land fish.
Like the first day of school, our excitement was palpable on our first morning flight. Our daughter thought we looked like an Orvis commercial. :)
A few mornings the cloud cover was too low for safe flying. Some of us set out in boats to nearby areas.
Pacific Salmon is the currency of Alaska. It was an education to learn about these anadromous fish who start out in fresh water, spend 2-8 years growing in the salty sea, and finally return to spawn in the exact same stream or river from which they hatched. There are five types of salmon in this part of the state; each has its own uniquely timed life cycle. After some years in the ocean and once sexual maturity is reached, they start swimming back to their original home, often covering hundreds of miles. They stop feeding at this point and live on their stored body fat. This affects the texture of their flesh, making them inedible. Scientists theorize that they find their way back by magnetic forces, by celestial orientation and by the memory of their home stream’s specific smell. From 3,000 hatched eggs, an average of two fish live long enough to make it back to spawn. When the eggs have been laid and fertilized by the sperm, the parental salmon swim off and die. During our week there, sockeyes were moving upstream in droves and were nearly ready to spawn. They were fiery red in color and would bite out of aggression, since they were not feeding. Lurking nearby awaiting a dinner of fresh salmon eggs, was often a trophy rainbow trout. I was outwitted by a 35 incher who managed to get off my line after he was hooked. Next time Tony! Everyone has a good story about the one that got away.
One day we boated with guide Levi to a large waterfall. Generally the fishing was catch and release, but today’s plan was to catch a salmon that was not too far gone in the spawning process, and have a grilled riverside picnic. Finding said fish was more arduous than we’d anticipated, but Larry came through just in time for lunch. An hour earlier we’d spotted a bear across the river, in the exact location that we were planning to build the fire to grill the salmon. We watched it saunter on down the river’s edge, stopping now and again to fish for his own lunch. We reclaimed our lunch spot and had a most wonderful meal, expertly prepared by Levi.
Along with five types of salmon, we fished for rainbow trout, grayling, northern pike, arctic char and dolly vardon. The variety and size of the fish paralleled our impression of Alaska: vast and large.
Grayling, with the prehistoric looking fin.
Arctic Char, with its gorgeous peachy-pink belly and spots.
My fave rainbow trout. He was 25 inches. Reeled him in next to a boat carrying several of our fellow fishermen. Yes I was proud. No I did not brag that evening at dinner in the lodge.
Northern Pike as long as eels! They have sharp teeth. He was 32 inches. Our guide Tony could spot them in the water and that’s how we hunted them.
Dolly Vardon, cousin to the Arctic Char, but with smaller spots.
When we weren’t fishing, we were relaxing at the lodge. It was rustic but cozy, and the service provided by the staff was outstanding.
Perfect area to savor a sunrise. Don’t forget the mosquito spray.
Something other than a sunset needed to be savored in the evening, as sunset happened near midnight.
Dinners defied the “rustic lodge” title.
We loved the company of the three resident dogs: Jet, Togiak, and Shakey Jake, who quivered with delight when he spotted salmon.
Yes there were bears everywhere: brown bears in the same family as grizzlies, but larger due to their plentiful diet of salmon. They were trying as hard to avoid us as we were them, but the fresh traces of their presence were abundant. We made plenty of noise and carried bear spray. I spotted nearly twenty during the week. Most of them I glimpsed from the float plane. My favorite siting happened as we were motoring down a river in a boat. I glanced down a side stream and saw a majestic blonde bear standing on hind legs to get a better look at us. She quickly dropped to all fours and melted into the forest with two little cubs on her heels.
The daily vistas that we were a part of defy description. You really have to experience the grandeur and unspoiled vastness to feel it fill your soul.
Lunching with our guide Tyler on a sand bar.
Random joys:
When Steve the pilot made me sit up front beside him in the cockpit, so I could overcome my fear of flying. I didn’t, but it sure was kind of him to try.
When you don’t have a wine glass so you use the cap from your nalgene water bottle.
When you find fuschia hued wild flowers, dainty as fairies.
When you both land rainbow trout at the exact same time.
At week’s end, we boarded the float planes for our ride back into civilization; we chartered from Dillingham to Anchorage, and eventually found our way across country to Atlanta. Our souls are still full from our Alaskan fly fishing adventure. Like a magnet, we feel that rugged wild beauty tugging and beckoning us to return. Like the spawning salmon, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found ourselves swimming upstream again someday.
Cheers to life’s sweet adventures!
