The rain was light as Dunk and I sat on the top of a steep and forested bank overlooking the Nonvianuk River. Smoking Camel cigs we lounged in our gore-tex waders on a soft bed of lingonberry bushes, blueberry bushes, and caribou moss; Miles above the Nonvianuk River’s confluence with the Kukaklek River to form the Alagnak River — Surrounded by over two million acres of Alaskan wilderness.
Dunk is a seasoned hard-working fly fishing guide and river captain on the gnarliest river system in Alaska. And the “fishiest” professional guide I have ever met. An Alaskan local from Anchorage, Dunk has been guiding anglers in the region since he was a teenager. An hour setting on the river in conversation with Dunk is an hour well spent. But neither of us wanted to be there at that hour.
We waited, with four boats anchored in the river, for eight co-workers to return with a fresh butchered moose. Our boss, the lodge owner, harvested a huge bull moose an hour before a mile from our position in the sub-arctic forest. We shouted “Hey” and “Yo” every few minutes to give the meat packers a possible bearing. But our voices were hushed by the heavy water of the river below and absorbed by the giant tundra sponge surrounding us. The deep calls of ravens was all we heard. Big gulls and eagles flew up and down the river.
At 1000 pm the sun was as set as it gets in this part of Alaska at this time of year. Intense black clouds crept over the river and the rain became heavier. Retreating from our promonotory on the steep bank we made our way back down to the boats and built a fire on the riverbank of wet spruce bows ignited by a rag soaked in outboard engine oil. The dark and dense taiga and sky was absorbing us when the headlamps appeared.
After loading several hundred pounds of warm bulging sacks of moose meat strapped to heavy pack frames on to the decks of the boats, we boarded, launched, and fired up the jet drive Yamaha’s. In near complete darkness, Captain Dunk, Captain Jacob, Captain Bailey, and Captain Andrew turned the bows down river and throttled the engines on-step for a 15 mile downstream run past giant rocks, islands, rapids, and gravel bars, in the dark.
