“Libby, wanna take my position?” Mingo asks as I pick up the phone. The phone is crackly, not a good sign for a long conversation. I quickly rush to my office and grab a pen and notepad. Ok, now I’m ready.

“66.1957 North 14.75183 West,” Mingo relays. “We’re still moving, but that’s my most updated position. We’re stopping to take a break for awhile then we’re gonna continue on for another three to four hours,” he tells me. “Been a pretty nice day. No rain! The river’s doing good. We’re not lost!” he laughs a little.

I quickly ask how his shoulder is doing.

“About the same. It aches.” he says. “I’m up to taking eight Naproxen. It’s the maximum I can take a day.” We quickly talk about options for him to pull out of the river when he gets to the bridge. Crystal and I spent a good part of the day finding transportation services for him and the boat back to Tok. There are not many options for this part of the world, but we did come across a solution that will work, if he chooses to do that.

“I still don’t know what I want to do. I just need to make a decision,” he says after I explain that for the Saturday afternoon pickup we have to make the reservation tomorrow. He asks me to do some more research on getting him and his boat from Emmonak (on the coast of Alaska) back to Fairbanks.

I can tell he’s conflicted about leaving at the bridge. He wants to stay and continue on to the Bering Sea because he’s put so much effort into this expedition. But his body is not cooperating. His hurt shoulder is continuing to compromise a lot of things, mainly his ability to paddle through the river safely.

“Lemme think more about it tonight and I’ll call you back first thing tomorrow morning with what I’m gonna do,” he tells me. A minute later the sat connection drops. At least we got enough time to talk about the important stuff.

A few hours later my phone rings again.

“Go ahead and make the reservation,” he says as soon as I pick up the phone. I’m a little shocked. I didn’t expect to hear from him so soon. And I thought he’d want to hear his options for Emmonak before he made the decision.

“Um, OK,” I say. “I found some info about flights.” I relay the information I found, very little but enough to get him back to Tok if he makes it that far down the river.

“Yeah, as much as I want to continue, I don’t think it’s a viable option,” he responds. “We just paddled for the last three hours in a really strong headwind. I can feel my other shoulder starting to tighten up,” he tells me. “I know my body and know when it’s reached it’s limits.” He sounds tired, but resolved. The conflict I heard earlier is gone but it has been replaced with tinges of disappointment.

I know Mingo pretty well (he is my dad, after all!). When it comes to pain, he’s tougher than most of the population. The decision to stop because of his shoulder is significant – a true indication of the degree of the injury. (This is a guy who when I was younger tried to drive himself to the hospital after being severely electrocuted!)

We quickly talk about the logistics for Saturday. He’ll have to be at the river pick-up point before 4pm. He’ll arrive in Fairbanks around midnight. Then he’ll pick up a different shuttle back to Tok at 7 AM. 40 Mile Air, the company who drove his truck back from Eagle, will deliver his truck to the drop off point in Tok so he’s all set once he reaches town.

There are a few snags in the plan that he’ll have to figure out along the way, such as how to get him and his boat from the drop off point in Fairbanks to the pick up point for the Tok shuttle (we have to use two different companies for the return trip). Plus, he’ll need to figure out where to stay or hang out between the drop off time (midnight) and the pickup time (7 AM). He seems unconcerned. After navigating through the Yukon River, I image these are pretty mundane challenges at the moment.

“Ok I’m at 66 degrees 1784 North 144 degrees 4487 West,” Mingo tells me as soon as I pick up the phone this afternoon. “Yesterday was a long ass day,” he continues. “Got caught in these islands and that slowed us down. Right now we’re on this little island we nicknamed Baby Bigfoot Island,” he chuckles. “It’s about 2 acres, 2 feet above sea levels. But its sand and gravel but dry.”

“Don’t know what the actual name of the island is,” he continues. “We named it Baby Bigfoot ’cause there’s this log that looks like a bigfoot. We dressed it up and took pictures.” He’s chuckling again. He sounds tired but not exhausted. “The last two days have been great weather-wise. No rain. The weather is hard to figure out. It looks like it’s gonna rain again soon,” he tells me.

I ask about how his shoulder is doing. “It’s sore. I worked it hard yesterday.” He pauses a moment. “We saw some great wildlife. Took some pictures of the beaver. They were pretty pissed we were there. Also got some pictures of a lynx. That’s a BIG kitty.”

“Did you take pictures from the boat?” I ask.

“We did an 8 mile hike yesterday since the wind was so bad. Just pulled up and hung out. Then put in the water at around 9:30 and kayaked until 3am. It’s weird the sun goes down then two hours later it comes back up in exactly the same spot.”

“It’s absolutely gorgeous out here, but rugged. Definitely wilderness. People kept telling me that I’d see people along the way. Yeah, right. There is nothing out here. If you happen to see someone, you’re lucky. There’s not a great deal of civilization.” Mingo takes a deep breath. We have an absolutely fantastic sat phone connecting today which is a nice break from the norm.

“This is a different river. It’s like 2 or 3 rivers in one. Sometimes it’s calm and flat, very nice. In places the river is 2-3 miles wide. It looks more like a lake than a river. Then you get into areas where the current is moving at 8-9 knots. I got caught in a whirlpool yesterday. Sucked the boat back and bounced me around. Had some trouble gettin’ out of it. As long as you stay in the boat, the river is pretty safe. If you go in, you’re in trouble.”

I quickly ask him about the Swedish guy Sharron mentioned this morning.

“Yeah, Marcus. He joined up with us yesterday. Makes the trip much more pleasant. Got people to talk to , joke with. Plus it increases the safety for all of us. Especially when you’re tired, you don’t always know what you’re up against out here.”

As we finish up the conversation, Mingo tells me he’s continuing to watch and asses his shoulder. They are planning on hanging out at the island for a little longer, hoping for the wind to die down a bit more.

“We’re gonna push to Fort Yukon tonight where I can hopefully recharge everything there. It’s been a fun trip so far. Never a dull moment.”

Day 4 was Friday, June 27th. Mingo usually calls at night so I went about my business during the day. As 8:30ish (CST) approaches, I started getting anxious, ready to hear what he encountered today on the water. Nine o’clock rolled around. Nine-thirty. Ten o’clock. Still no call. Well, I guess I’ll just head to bed, I figured.

Saturday morning my husband and I woke up and went yard sale-ing for a bit. It wasn’t until we returned home that I realized I’d completely walked out of the house without my phone. Ack! There were two messages waiting - one from my dad and one from Sharron.

“Hey, we’re safe on an island upriver from Fort Yukon,” was all Mingo recorded before the sat phone dropped the signal. OK, that’s good news.

After listening to the next message from Sharron and calling to follow up, I learned that Mingo ran into some wind problems on the river. He and Ulley found an island to hang out on and ended up putting in late (around 10 pm Alaska time). His shoulder was still hurting. He got to see and photograph a lynx! And he and Ulley had a new group-mate, a guy from Sweden joined up with them.

As I hung up the phone I thought that this is truly turning into an adventure, the type you only read about in storybooks. Yet this was one Mingo was actually living. How lucky!

PS - GPS coordinates of the island they stayed on were 65 degrees 5759 North 14 degrees 4041 West.