Jake's Return to Carmacks: Day 18 of the Yukon River Trip

...continued from "Alone & Anxiously Awaiting Jake's Return to Carmacks:  Day 18 of the Yukon River Trip"

The Expedition continued toward me & the Yukon River until the circle drive rounded it away from the water's edge to grant easier access to Carmacks' public boat launch.  Backing up, Jake plunged the trailer into the water and then turned the Expedition to point back up the road for our impending departure from the mighty Yukon River.  Driving forward, Jake perched the trailer to wait on the edge of the bank while we would load the truck & plan how to combat the swift & powerful current in order to get the Sundowner onto the trailer.

Jake's exhaustion advertised itself on his face, showing me fatigue had claimed him as well.  After our reunion kiss & hug, Jake credited his delay to the bossy Germans that shared the shuttle with him & a friendly Swiss couple.  The Germans evidently mistook the canoe shuttle service for a chauffeur service when they so rudely commanded the shuttle driver to "Halt," making the other shuttle passengers & driver wait while they dropped in on & visited with a friend.  A second unscheduled stop at the Braeburn Lodge had also prolonged Jake's return from Whitehorse while the Swiss & German couples savored the famous, oversized cinnamon buns that nicknamed the Braeburn Airport as the Cinnamon Bun Airstrip.

Braeburn Lodge, photo by James Brooks

Braeburn Airstrip, photo by Luigi Zanasi, Wikimedia Commons Contributer

Before loading up, I started to share my vexing encounter of the ill-intentioned, pushy girl & her two creepy accomplices.  Because I was pleased with my performance, I presumed Jake would be also.  I expected showers of praise on how I handled this or that but was instead rebuked: "I knew it!  I told you!  ...That is exactly what I feared by letting you stay here alone....  Do you know how bad this could've been?!..."

"But Jake, nothing happened!" I would counter again & again after each chiding interruption.  The fact that nothing happened didn't seem to make a difference to him.  It was the could-haves that stoked Jake's temper (and still does years later).  

We will never see eye-to-eye on the decision made to our dilemma in Carmacks.  Jake will always regret letting me stay behind alone with the Sundowner because of the--in his mind--almost atrocious ending to our Yukon River Trip, and I will forever rejoice not fetching the Expedition & trailer all alone from Whitehorse, which excused me from facing the concocted possibilities of Worst-Case Scenario Girl.

COMING SOON: 
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Alone & Anxiously Awaiting Jake's Return to Carmacks: Day 18 of the Yukon River Trip

...continued from "A Worst-Case Scenario in Carmacks:  Day 18 of the Yukon River Trip"

Once my talkative, curious visitor and her two mysterious men in the magically appearing truck vanished--CUT!  Yeah, that's not really how I saw the whole situation.  "Talkative" and "Curious" and "Mysterious" are quite honestly lip service at best.  The Truth:  These three were up to no good--period.  
     
So, let me start again:  Once the ill-intentioned, pushy girl and her two creepy accomplices in the eerily stealthy truck slithered away after their failed mission (much better), I welcomed relief, regained focus, and once again engaged myself in the monstrous goal of organizing the Sundowner and all her contents, which had sustained us for nearly three weeks on our 202-mile Yukon River Trip.
     
Clothes & toiletries, uneaten food & kitchen essentials, fishing poles & tackle, knives & tools, sleeping pads & bags, towels & tarps, maps & cameras, dry suits & waders, rain gear & extra boots, books & writing necessities, and survival gear along with a wench all had to be prepped to be logically packed into our vehicle upon Jake's return to Carmacks.
     
I wanted all the boxes, trunks, bags, crates, & many, many piles of gear to be prudently laid out, ready to load up before Jake's return for two reasons:  1.)  I yearned for a near-perfect organization system because we would be spending the next 7-8 days riding in & living out of our Expedition, and 2.)  I wanted Jake to return to a job well done and appreciate (& maybe even be happy) that I stayed behind in Carmacks while he retrieved our truck & the Sundowner's trailer from Whitehorse.

Each glance at the clock showed advancing numbers that represented the growing time that separated Jake & I for the first time since our June 25 departure date over three weeks ago.  For 24 days Jake was virtually an arm's reach away from me; rarely was he out of my sight, except the handful of times one of us would wander a couple of streets away for a food run in one of the few towns where we grabbed a bed to alleviate the laborious task of hauling the Sundowner 3300 miles from Indiana to the Yukon River. 

Enough time had not passed to merit serious worry, but the sudden separation left me feeling strangely incomplete, allowing anxiety to fill the newly vacant space Jake's absence created.  The once seemingly impossible chore of prepping all of our gear for the arrival of Jake & the Expedition proved to be a blessing with the distraction it offered.  
     
Once Jake's earliest possible estimated arrival time had passed, my mind would frequently steal away & wonder--or worry, rather--how Jake's chore was playing out:  I wonder if he has made it back to Whitehorse yet....  Will our 12-year-old truck start after sitting so long?  What if the Expedition has been stolen?  Or it breaks down--or worse--wrecks on the lonesome & treacherous road between Whitehorse & Carmacks?  What will I do if he's not back before the town sleeps and foragers lurk & scheme in the nearby shadowy foliage?  Just about the time Worst-Case-Scenario-Girl was ready to permanently stake herself a tent in the land of anxiety, Sanity would intervene and chase the worry back into my subconscious where it festered before surfacing again.
     

The Gravel Road I Routinely Scanned in Anticipation of Jake's Return 

As the afternoon matured, I debated on transferring the contents of the Sundowner onto the bank in hopes of shortening our load time once Jake returned.  I knew this was a gamble; if the culprits with the duplicitous dealings from earlier returned, I may not manage as well in a second strike.  On the other hand, if I cut our work in half, Jake & I could make an earlier departure for our 112-mile drive to Whitehorse.  (Google Maps estimated the travel time as 2 hours and 17 minutes; however, during our 6-and-a-half-day drive to the Yukon, nearly doubling those estimates better matched the pace our Expedition chose while hauling the Sundowner.)  

Time or safety: that was the question.  I resolved to chance it & unload the aggregation of paraphernalia from the Sundowner onto the bank of the Yukon River.  Any time that I could cut to accelerate our departure meant that much less time between me and a shower & clean bed.  So, I sorted & shuffled our gear into a mock-up of our packed Expedition, following the blueprint my mind drew during earlier hours of my scrupulous packing.
     

The New Holding Plot for Our Gear    

At last, while grabbing another load from the bow of the Sundowner, I turned & beheld our trusty Expedition with trailer in tow heading my way.  Pure joy saturated me when I caught my first glimpse of Jake's handsome face through the windshield camouflaged by the reflection of the surrounding trees.  

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A Worst-Case Scenario in Carmacks: Day 18 of the Yukon River Trip

...continued from "Jake's Fear Becomes a Reality during His Absence from Carkmacks:  Day 18 of the Yukon River Trip"

Even though Jake was miles and hours away, I heard his voice clearly weave through the chaos in my brain:  This is why I didn't want you to stay in Carmacks…alone.  The tone wasn't I-told-you-so; it was more of a sincerely, concerned why-didn't-you-listen-to-me?

Why didn't I listen to him? 

Well, I made this bed….so, I countered her proposal:  "If your friends want to meet me, they'll have to come over here."  I hoped I wouldn't soon regret my recommendation.  My suspicious agitation surged into consternation as I waited for her reply.

"They over there," she said, pointing again to the truck that had magically materialized into my world just moments ago.  This time I looked over at the halfway hidden truck.  My peripheral vision had not deceived me; two males sat in the truck. 

She interrupted my brain trying to discern the situation:  "Just for a minute.  They just over there." 

Pulling up to the red structure with the power lines, the gray pickup nestled between the Carmacks bridge & the brush just off the circle drive, providing them with a clear view of me and allowing me to see into the cab of the truck (after their presence was brought to my attention).

Something's not right (no, I didn't just then draw that conclusion…fraudulent motivations inched toward obvious from the moment I detected this girl).  Something within the obvious creeped me out and caused alarm to claw up my back and scratch its jagged nails up my neck.  This girl wasn't the source of my fear.  So, what was?  The two guys…in the truck….?  My intuition told me I was fine as long as I stayed on the Sundowner.  So…what was causing panic to fester within me? 

Finally, it clicked:  not once since my "discovery" of the two men in the truck--not once--had I seen either of them look my way.  They both just sat in that truck staring straight across the Yukon River.  Why?  They sat there waiting…waiting without wanting to clearly be seen by me.  It was as though they were anticipating a cue…my arrival to their truck perhaps?   A signal from the girl?  From someone else?  Oh God, no--not someone else!  My consternation snapped into fearful exasperation, and my eyes frantically scanned splotches of brush, the nearby bank, far-off tree lines, the distant boardwalk….   

Am I reading too much into this situation?  Or is Worst-Case-Scenario Girl having a heyday because she's missing the threats of daily life on the river?  Maybe I'm being too cautious….

The girl broke into my paranoid rationalizations and tried one last appeal:  "Come.  Meet my friends.  You will see boat from over there," she pressed.  "It's not far.  You still see boat over there." 

And that's what did it--she was offering me a solution to a problem I hadn't voiced.  I quickly drew three possible conclusions about this girl:  she was  1.) smarter than I had realized or  2.) coached well by someone that was taking advantage of her or  3.) the best damn actress I had ever encountered in person.  The skeptic in me highly doubted the latter.  Regardless of which conclusion was closest to the truth, I was done fooling around with the girl and her probable accomplices--no matter how many waited out of sight until a sign was given to move in and carry out their scheme.

Going for something stronger than my previous "subliminal emphasis," I moved to the side & peered into the cabin--as though to assess my unfinished work--knowing her curious, wandering eyes would fall upon the 12 gauge shotgun that was strapped to the center pole of the Sundowner's cabin.  With my hands on my hips, I swung back around, my KA-BAR Kukri Machete flared and flapped more dramatically than before.  "Well, it's time for me to get back to packing up this boat." 

My KA-BAR Kukri Machete

I'm guessing she saw the shotgun, for her presence soon drifted into a memory.  I wasn't trying to threaten her, only trying to plant the idea of the possibility that I could be trouble to her and others if they pushed me too far.  I don't feel that I angered or insulted her…probably just disappointed her--no matter what the real story was. 

True to my word, I got back to work and accomplished Goal #3 by making sure each item that accompanied us on the Sundowner was packed in a logical & memorable place.  Tackling Goal #4 pushed me physically after an already long day…week…month.  Nonetheless, I balanced back and forth between the deck and the boat ramp on our makeshift ramp (part of a tree stand ladder that we used to access the roof of our boat).  I hauled what I could off the boat and grouped items in anticipation of Jake's arrival.
 
After my time-for-work declaration to the girl, I can't recall if any more words were exchanged between us.  I also don't remember her walking off or the truck with the two males driving away (which still puzzles me--how did they get in and out of there without me hearing or seeing them?).  I just know I looked up from my work at one point, and they were gone.  In retrospect, what do I really believe could have happened had I gotten off the Sundowner?  I'm not thinking worst-case scenario like I did during the ordeal (and I believe most would do so in a similar potentially threatening situation).  Rarely does a predicament escalate into a worst-case scenario.  For survival's sake, I had to explore and assume the unimaginable to build a strong defense and eventually offense. 
 
However, hindsight leads me to believe that once I climbed off the Sundowner and trotted over to meet the "friends" in the creepy gray truck, others (unbeknownst to me) would have popped out of their hiding places to grab what they could before I came charging back with my kukri high above my head promising bloodshed if my gear wasn't returned (that is to say if I would have caught up with any of them).  A little more serious possibility could have led to a stolen boat; I shudder to even describe that picture.  Worst-case scenario?  To my knowledge, it didn't come close to that, so I'm not going to go there. 
 
I'm choosing to reflect on this memory as a learning experience with the following lessons:  1.) Being caught off guard always comes after letting your guard down.  2.) In future situations that I perceive as potentially dangerous, I only need to say "no" once.  If my requests/denials are not respected, I will not feel obligated to stay polite.  How I am perceived and how I make the opposing force feel no longer matters once I feel my safety is being jeopardized.  3.) Acknowledge your suspicions and intuitions, yet keep your paranoia in check so that you can think and act rationally to appear in control of yourself and the outcome of the threatening situation.  4.)  Maybe my perception of the situation was entirely wrong.  Maybe the two guys in the truck just wanted to ask about my Yukon River Trip, and they were just too shy to strike up the conversation.  Maybe…I doubt it, but…maybe.

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