Yukon River Camp

“A half-dead thing in a stark dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold.” 

-Robert Service

Yukon River Camp

Yukon River Camp is at mile 56 on on the Dalton highway, just 60 miles short of the arctic circle. Think of it as an outpost, one of only three on the 500 mile road to offer gas, propane, food, cigarettes, razors, candy... Basicly everything you could need while traveling.

I say road because the term highway (as in Dalton Highway) is used very liberally here. The Dalton is a sometimes paved, sometimes gravel stretch that rolls up and down hills, around bodies of water, and alongside the pipeline. By the time cars reach us at mile 56 they are brown with dust or mud, no matter what color they started as.

The Yukon River Bridge

There's a mix of customers: truckers from the oil industry, tourists on their way to the arctic circle or the arctic ocean, and natives who live at least part time along the banks of the river. Today there were some bear hunters heading down the river who stopped for lunch and 100 gallons of gasoline. Yesterday a guy called from Fairbanks with a message for his father who lives up river and occasionally visits us, so we played secretary and tacked the note up for the next time he comes in.

My job title is "camp host" but I'm kind of a waitress, clerk, gas attendant, and jack of all trades, which is good because it's never boring. There are only eight employees here and, lucky for me, they're all great (this would be a long summer otherwise). So far I'm enjoying myself; reading a lot and going for walks in the "woods" (more to come on that). 

Alaska: The New Adventure

“I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.”

-Oscar Wild

It was 2009 when I decided to go back to school and finish up my Bachelor's Degree. I was working at a farm in Massachusetts and about to leave for a job in upstate Vermont and thought that finishing my degree would look good on a resume and allow me to continue working these seasonal jobs around the country. It was a good plan, but somewhere during the college experience I forgot my motivations.

Maybe it was because I had been living in the Jetta for over a year and wanted permanence or maybe it was the prospect of student loans but when I walked out of Amherst with my degree I went for a nine to five job with an apartment and settled into a fairly normal life of work, bagged lunches and drinks with friends on the weekends.

I can pinpoint the exact moment in which I realized that life wasn't going to work (about 1 ½ years in) and within two months I was headed for New Orleans Louisiana with no real plan, just a hostel that agreed to let me work off my rent.

I loved NOLA! The people were friendly and the food was good, although there are definitely a lack of vegetables in the city. So I stayed for three months and worked at the hostel. I met some great friends I hope to keep in touch with, went boating on the bayou, ate lots of seafood gumbo, and saw everything I could in the city. There was really only one problem: Louisiana gets hot in the summer, REALLY HOT, and by April I was realizing that even the muggy heat of spring was more than I wanted. So, just as I had left the New Hampshire winter for the furthest southern point, I escaped New Orleans for the most Northern location I could find.

Today we're watching a wildfire

ALASKA!

Yes, I'm now in Alaska working at a little outpost on the Dalton Highway four hours north of the nearest town. It's a bit of a shock going from the heat and city bustle of New Orleans to the cold and quiet of northern Alaska, but I'm loving it. Not much happens up here, but there will be updates!