The summer of 2010 I am planning a 2500 mile trip from Great Slave Lake, motoring down the Mc Kenzie River to the Beaufort Sea to Nome. This long range trip will traverse the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean. We will end in the Bering Sea coast and land in Nome, Alaska. This expedition will travel in a motorized inflatable 14 foot Zodiak type vessel. The mission is to study and document polar bear habitat, study and document changes to the river ecosystem and produce high definition video tv for programming and shooting thousands of digital photography images.
This will be a true wilderness expedition. We will stop at most of the native villages and visit with these people and thier cultures. We will fish spectacular waters, view and interact with many species of animals and observe lands that few see. this will be a tougher wilderness trip. It will entail a rather high level of deprivation and hardships, like no showers for many days on end, food that is not really gourmet and finding the right tree for our personal needs. It will also a trip that you will remember for a lifetime.
If you are interested please email me at sierrabrownbear@hotmail.com

I have been asked more than a few times if I am disappointed with the outcome of the Yukon River trip. My answer is no, in no way. I am alive and that is what important anytime you do a trip with much risk. Survival is success as long as you left basecamp.
I am disappointed that the injury happened. I do not train and plan a trip to see it disrupted by injury, but that is a risk every time you get on a trip like this. Same in any athletic endevour. Football players, baseball player are always hurt. The difference is that few of them die.
James Bay was a great success even though I only did 150 miles of 500. That 150 miles is the only 150 miles ever kayaked on that body of water. Just surviving that beast is a success. Remember also that I am the only person to challenge and live on James Bay. It was a difficult kayak for sure. A failure, no way.
The Yukon is a tough river and injuries happen all the time, so do deaths. Once a injury happens the playing field is changed. You must adapt to this new field or bad things can and will happen. I did 400 miles after I tangled with the tree. I think I did it right. Survival is victory. Pushing a bad position usually leads to bad things happening.
I am pleased with the 500 mile! I will be back though, not to finish but to enjoy what I missed.

I have been back for almost 2 weeks now. I have had some time to think about this trip as it affected me in ways that other expeditions have not. James Bay was not a particulrly beautiful place. Swamp and tussuc country and very little chance to see this country. It was mostly plan to stay alive this new day. kayak, try to find a tent spot and survive the tides and storms. In is just survive that day and the the next.That was the pleasure. Climbing has more beauty to it as the mountains of winter are gorgeous. Here again though it is breakdown camp, climb all day, one foot after the other after the other, setup camp and enjoy the scenery as you eat another dinner frozen by the nasty weather. Again there is beauty in the effort and the environment and that is what makes it worthwhile. The first two days of the Yukon were like that. Pile on the miles because I had too. To many miles on this trip to stop and enjoy where I was at. After the injury that all changed. My power was cut close to 40%. I also pretty much knew that I would not complete it as my shoulder was not going to get better with mileage. I had to slow down and when I did I started to become one with the river, learn from her and enjoy that I was one of the few that ever get to kayak this great wilderness river. What an honor I began to realize was happening to me. I kayaked and floated for about 400 miles hurt. That 400 miles was some of the best time I have ever spent in the wilderness. It was painful at times, just ached most of the time but the river made me forget about the injury and enjoy this magnificient place. The river taught me to listen to the hiss as this was the main channel. I learned about the currents and how they can help or hinder, the turbulence that threaten your safety all the time. I saw whirlpools of immense size that I believed one only saw in the movies. I experienced thunderstorms that ran me off the water and into the trees. Microbursts that came in fast and left just as fast. As soon as you heard them you turned the bow into them and paddled just to maintain a heading into the storm. Nothing I could do would move me forward. Awesome violence in these storms. I learned to enjoy every inch of the shoreline as each had a story to tell. to enjoy the toughness of this place. As I plodded down this river I became more like it each day. The river has a story if one allows it into them.
In my next blog i will talk about the people that live with the river.

I have been very busy writing and setting up computers and editing film. This has given my shoulder time to figure out what it wants to do. It has made some progress but I think that it will take some time to heal completely. It just makes way to much noise when I lift my arm up. Oh well, just apart of the deal when you signup for these things. It is a bit frustrating though. I am not the most patient person when it comes to injuries. I have seen improvement though.
I finished the first draft of the first chapter on the Yukon River book. No title yet. Any ideas, send them to me. This trip seemed to change me a bit. I am much calmer and have settled down just a bit more than normal. I think that the river and its people brought me back much closer to the mountains and what I am. It feels good to be this calm again. Odd though for those that know me. I will write more about this as I understand it. It is cool though.
I also realized that if I had stayed out I would have really torn my shoulders up. When I got hurt I started to change all the mechanics of kayaking. This put an extra strain on my right shoulder and this I feel even now. The river is a physical challenge that is well worth playing on her. It might happen that we see each other again.
I will write tomorrow of some actual river time. Show you what it was like. Late now and sleep is calling me.
Thanks for all the support.

Hi folks,

I am back and fairly well rested again. Driving 3300 miles in basically 5 days was a tiring pain. I many spots a pretty pain though. I did a couple of 14 hour days during this marathon drive.

I went to see a doc at the Va. His inspection of my shoulder indicated that I separated the left shoulder. There seems to be some tearing of the tendons that hold the shoulder together. That seems to be what I did with it. There is a possibility of some other damage, like a parrtial tear in the labrum or rotator cuff but he does not think they are significant if they are there. My question to him was, would it heal under the stress’s of kayaking. His answer was a laugh and a you know better. It would have just gotten worse the farther that I went. This I knew and is why I am writing now and not later.

This happened when I went over a sweeper and it caught my paddle. A sweeper is a tree that is underwater or just above the water. This one wrestled with me for my paddle. I did retrieve my paddle but I tore the shoulder in the process. It was absolutely NOT an option to lose my paddle. That would have been BAD. So I both won and lost the battle. This was the second day of the paddle. I knew instantly that I did something serious to the shoulder but what was I to do, just paddle on and work through the discomfort. I paddled 60 miles the first day and this day about 55. Not bad for being injured and aggressive in the water.That night I stayed at Slaven’s Roadhouse. This is a beautiful appointed Holiday Inn on the river. Ok how about a 100 year old cabin that is well appointed. Not buying that either, well how about a 100 year old 2 story roadhouse used by the miners on Coal Creek. That you will buy. It was nice though, even had a kitchen with a stove to cook on, no sitting in the dirt this evening. And a wonderful outhouse with a seat. That was quite nice. My other bathroom is just around that tree over there! The one with mosquitos that love tender and warm butts. At the roadhouse that is staffed by a NPS ranger we talked about my shoulder. Carl said he could get me back to Eagle but I wanted to move onto Circle the next day. Then I could decide. My house mates that night were 2 Germans, Robert and Uve and Markus our representative from Sweden and Franscisco from Spain. Fransisco and Robert were going to Circle and then back home. Markus and Uve were heading to the coast, together. We agreed to travel through the Flats together as 3 brains were going to be needed to navigate through this area. If I decided that I could make ito to the bridge I would go. At Circle I decided to do this 300 mile section and see how things were going. My shoulder had dropped on the left side some but it really didnot bother me that much. I had numbness in my hand and wrist and pain in my wrist and forearm caused by the nerves getting rearranged by the swelling in the shoulder. I was good to go for another 300 miles atleast I figured. In our group picture in Circle you can see my left shoulder dropping in the picture. not seeing a mirror for awhile up there I was surprised by that. Anyway that was the injury. I will write more in a day or so and talk about the kayaking, then about people hazards and just being there, the peace and enjoyment of being on a wild river. I loved the river even if was filled with hazards and mosquitos and bears. I found contentment and beauty there and something that I had lost for awhile, myself.

Older Posts »