Hey Richard, your memory is still functioning; the cabin is five miles up
the Nation River, whose mouth is forty six miles down the Yukon from Eagle.

The 4-horse did seize 1/3 the way back to Eagle on its first run (which is
how I found out about Evenrude's problem), so we pulled out the spa 100'
of 9mm climbing rope. With one end of the rope tied to each end of the
canoe and a bight 1/4 back from the bow in hand, the canoe would "track"
nicely out in the current as I walked along the bank. Hell, after the
disappointment of the motor sh***ing the bed, it turned out to be a
beautiful three-day walk back to Eagle. Lilly, my wife at the time, enjoyed
the tracking, so that left me to look for small game, take pictures, and
daydream.

In a pressing emergency there was always the option (in the summer) of
heading downriver from the Nation the one hundred or so miles to Circle,
which was connected to Fairbanks by a 152 mile dirt road. The float would
take about 20-30 hours depending on the wind.

If you want to see some pictures, go to:
http://uaf-db.uaf.edu/Jukebox/PJWeb/proguseyuch.htm agree to the simple
terms, click on "Interviews" on the left, and "Brad Snow" fifth from the
bottom on the right, then "Click here to go to slide #1" and page through
the slides until you see what you want. There's also commentary about the
slides if you click on the audio icon. This site is the product of the Oral
History Department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Campus, and was
funded in part by the US Park Service, who, despite the US Congress' intent
to preserve the subsistance lifestyle along the Yukon, has managed to force
everyone off the land.

Brad







"Oci-One Kanubi" wrote in message
oups.com...
padeen wrote:

snip
... but allowed me to go against the
Yukon River current solo quite easily (the river current was around 4-6
kts
and I could go upstream about 4-6 kts).

Brad, if my memory serves me (and this is not something I ever want to
count on, these days) your cabin was about 40 miles downriver from
Eagle.

I know you back-country types are self-sufficient jacks-of-all-trades,
but I wonder what your back-up plan was for the event of catastrophic
and irreparable failure of that motor?

Just ponderin' this matter, I thought, well, wouldn't it be better if
you lived UPRIVER of your connection to the outside world, so that in
such a case you could float with the current to the place where you
would have to have a replacement engine (or parts) delivered?

Or was your mind-set such that you preferred to have the option to have
the current help you get HOME to your cabin, and you'd deal later with
the problem of getting to town?


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--

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Richard Hopley Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters
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