He asked if I wanted to hike up to it.  I said, “Sure, let me change boots”, and off we went, leaping across the braided river as we followed its course.  At times we had to duck and bull our way through the thick willows at river’s edge.

        Our route steepened and the river became a single roaring channel with five foot gravel banks.  The higher we climbed, the narrower the gorge became, and the river was 10, then 15 feet below.  The banks also narrowed until there was less than 20 feet between the almost vertical rock wall and the edge of the bank.  The opposite bank was not that far, either, so that we could no longer see the river down below.  And as there was no organic matter to bind all that rock and gravel together, it was too dangerous to venture close enough to peer down.  No matter, our goal was up ahead, and the glacier was finally looking closer.  But our gravel banks were playing out, becoming less than 10 feet wide.  And the river was at least 40 feet down.  We were careful not to start any rocks rolling as we trudged upwards, as close to the rock wall as possible.  One hundred steps and we’d take a break.  Then 50 at a time, until our shortened steps brought us to within 80 yards of a semi-trailer sized piece of ice that shone like a sapphire.

        At that point, the bank looked more treacherous than ever, and the glacier more massive and beautiful than ever.  I asked Robert what he thought of the trail ahead.  He replied, “This is sort of freaking me out.  I think we should be happy with how far we’ve gotten.”  Then he said something about how he’d rather be here than anywhere else.  I had to agree on both counts.  We took some pictures, stared at the scalloped ice through our binoculars, and started the long arduous trek back to the truck.  We paused to splash water in our faces, and to drink deeply from the infant river, the water freshly melted from snowflakes that fell to the earth thousands of years ago.

        The road led us down to Stewart, at the head of Portland Canal, a 100 mile arm of the Pacific Ocean.  Stewart has very colorful buildings, including the Arborlight Quikee Mart, where I bought a liter of Glacier Mist water, mostly because I was in big need of a water bottle.  The bottle’s label had mountains and a glacier on it. I wondered how it would compare to the glacial melt we had gulped just one hour ago.  It was cold and wet but had no grit in it.  After a long walk on a boardwalk through the estuary, we drove on to Hyder, to walk along the docks and to smell the salt air.  There was a storm funneling up the Portland Canal and we were tired of walking, so it seemed like a good time to drive back up to the Cassiar.

        It was quite windy on the drive north, with just a few drops of rain.  Twice, small black bears crossed the road in front of us, and numerous red fox were on the edge of the road.  A large spruce had fallen across both lanes of the road.  We were able to squeeze past on the opposite shoulder, but someone might hit that tree and cause major damage or lose control.  The trunk had broken, so we were able to tug the thing until it was along the shoulder.  We cleaned up piles of branches from the road, throwing them in to the ditch.  Some branches still stuck out into the road, but it wasn’t as bad as a twelve-inch trunk.  Only after driving a few miles did we realize that we had an axe and could have limbed it.

        There is an old road bed by the Alger Creek Bridge, and we camped there.

 

Day Six

 

        Another beautiful morning, with a thin fog already burning off in places.  The Cassiar ended at Upper Liard, Yukon Territory.  Twenty tears ago, the upper end was mud and slush, this year it’s dry pavement.

        We took the Alcan Highway to Whitehorse and found the library open late.  We booked time on the computers, then went grocery shopping.  Came out to the truck, opened a liter of juice and drank it down.  Opened another and made a dent in it as well.  Our bodies were craving the vitamin C after six days of oats, jerky, bread and cheese.

        Made camp in the woods near Takhini Hot Springs.

 

Day Seven

 

        We drove up the Klondike Highway to Dawson City. Robert had told me one of the reasons he wanted me to come along was so that we could drink a beer together in a bar.  It would be his first legal beer, since the drinking age is 19 in the Yukon.

        I had told him the story of Art and me spending the better part of an evening in a bar nicknamed the Snake Pit. And how Fabian, the owner at the time, would keep a pitcher beneath the beer tap.  When someone ordered a beer, Fabian would run off a little foam into the pitcher, then fill the glass with beer.  The tap would then drip a few times into the pitcher.  Sometimes that pitcher would be one-half to two-thirds full when someone would call for a pitcher of beer.  Fabian just topped off the pitcher under the tap, and sold it, replacing it with an empty.  With this in mind, Robert and I walked into the Snake Pit and smiled when we saw a pitcher with three inches of beer in it right beneath the tap.

        We crossed the Yukon River on the town’s ferry and I commented to Robert,

“The first meat you ever ate was bear meat, and your first legal beer was in Dawson’s Snake Pit in the Yukon. Ain’t you the wild and wooly one?”  He grinned as we headed on to the top of the world highway toward Eagle.

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

 

        We spent six good days in Eagle, catching up with folks, eating salmon, hiking and climbing on the bluff.  Jim flew to Fairbanks on a Friday, and I followed him on Monday.  Robert went 105 miles downriver, with the Eagle School for their annual field trip. 

        Jim and I spent a couple of days in Fairbanks, with Jim’s children, Jimmy, Chad, Ginger and the grandkids, before flying to Duluth.  Robert is settled in Fairbanks with his buddy Ben and two other friends.  So far, they have two heated rooms, cold running water, and a microwave for cooking.  They are living on frozen pizza, frozen eggrolls, frozen burritos, etc.  They have eight chickens and a duck.  The chickens provide them with eggs, and the duck will provide them with a Christmas entrée.  He misses Barb’s cooking (so does Ben), and hasn’t had a hot shower for two weeks.  He’s currently working on a crew building an airplane hanger, putting in 50 to 60 hour per week.  So for the time being, someone else gets to benefit from his humor and hard work.