By Dylan Bland (Ithaca College)

 

Canada? British Columbia? Atlin!?? Nakina?!?

A huge component of the Round River Conservation Studies (RRCS) program is learning about Canadian First Nations. RRCS focuses specifically towards the Taku River Tlingit First Nation (TRTFN) peoples. The purpose behind our trip down to the Nakina river was to learn about Tlingit history and learn about the different species of salmon that travel up-to the Nakina every year to spawn. Although one can get down to the Nakina in a 25-30 minute helicopter flight, we took the three day journey down the trail that has historically been used as a trading route between coastal and inland first nations.

Our trip ended the same way it started; wet, cold, and rainy. Our trip down to the Nakina, titled The Walk by our instructors, consisted of three days of hiking with two camp sites in between. Day one is from the trail head to Kuthai (where I had my first look at a salmon weir and came to understand how a weir really works), then Kuthai to John’s camp (a TRT elder), and finally from John’s camp down to Nakina call. Before finally departing for our trip, we all got a chance to say goodbye to our favorite GIS specialist Julia Smith, who had to be headed back home to Bozeman, Montana.

 

My name is Dylan Bland. I come from the east coast up in New England, specifically from New York State. I live in Central NY in the Finger Lakes region and go to Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. When the fall semester starts, I will be moving into my sophomore year. As of now, I still have not yet decided my major or minor. By the end of the spring semester my freshman year, I decided I want to do something with Audio, and still photography. I would also like to do something with environmentalism and environmental conservation.

 

On every outing we do, whether it be ungulate surveys, mine surveys, marmot surveys or just out for a day hike, Susie always carries journals from previous years programs to see comparisons between year to year. As the eight of us (Susie Dain-Owens, Hannah Eisman, Doug Milek, George Voigt, Grace Stonecipher, Ranjit Inamdar, our own native Canadian Celine Rytz, and myself) made our way down the trail each day, we found we were making records left and right. Prior to making our trip down to the Nakina, Susie prepared us by telling us how long we should be expecting to hike each day. The first two days from previous years had been around 5-6 hours, and the third day was 10-12 hours! When I first heard Susie say we might be hiking 10-12 hours on the third day into the Nakina, I wasn’t ready to hear that.

So, back to shattering records. Day one was smashed at a record pace of four hours, and coming back on the same stretch of trail was done in three and a half hours! On the second stretch of trail, we did it around five to five and half hours going in and four and a half hours coming out. Day three was where the group really smashed the time record! Not only did we do that portion of trail in under twelve hours, we did it in eight hours fifteen minutes headed in and eight hours twenty-five minutes coming back out. For each portion of trail, that also includes stopping at every possible rest point too!

Forty minutes into our hike on day three, we stopped at a site titled the Smudge Spot. At the smudge spot, the five of us (Ranjit, Grace, Celine, George, and myself) had to rub charcoal over our faces. The charcoal smudge acts as a passport for newcomers to the Nakina, and symbolically asks the forest to take it easy as you hike through the forest.

 

Dylan, Grace, Celine, George, and Ranjit at the Smudge Spot, along the Nakina Trail.

 

Within the RRCS program, the trip down to Nakina has usually, historically been a nine day trip. Three days in, three days out, and three days camped by the river. This year, we had the luxury of having a full (and I do mean full, practically overflowing) bin of food helicoptered down to our campsite. We ended up having so much left over food, that we were forced to stay a fourth day down on the river, and lets face it, if you had extra food, would you really want to carry it back or just stay an extra day. With smiles all around, you could just see the disappointment on our faces when told we were staying an extra day.

 

While down on the river, we saw tons of wildlife! Down in the river, we could see what looked like 30-40 pink salmon the first couple days with 30 or so Chinook salmon. By day four, some of the Chinook salmon had traveled further upstream while in the meantime another 30-40 pink salmon had shown up in the river right below our campsite.

 

From left to right: Dylan, Grace, Susie, George, Celine, Ranjit, Doug, and Hannah. Eating dinner while overlooking the Nakina and watching the fish.

 

Readers may be familiar with the term “Rocky Mountain Oysters” which are actually bull testicles. It had seemed everybody was catching fish except for myself, until the morning of our last day there, I was successfully able to reel a pink salmon in and cook it up for breakfast, like we had done other days on the river for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After cutting open the fish I had caught, I was feeling particularly adventurous. I took the vas deferens out of the fish and sautéed it up. As it looked like a chicken strip, I appropriately named it, Nakina Chicken.

Did I mention that we were down in bear country? Not fifteen minutes passed when I went back down to the water to clean up from gutting my fish, we surprised each other and I came within twelve to fourteen feet of a large male (although now we think it may be a female) grizzly! I’d be lying if I said my heart wasn’t uncontrollably beating! Previously unnamed, someone named this bear, Aldo, after Aldo Leopold.

 

 

Aldo would periodically come around our camp and would make what seemed to be daily rounds from a bit upstream to a half-mile down stream at the confluence of the Nakina (which is comprised of snowmelt and lakes and streams) and the Sloko (which is all glacial melt).

 

 

From the left half of the picture is the Sloko river. In the right half, Canoe Landing (cabins) a 5 min walk downstream of our camp.

 

As stated earlier, our trip ended the way it started, in the rain. On our last night out at Kuthai before finally departing, we all gathered around the campfire hunkered down in our rain coats underneath tarps in an attempt to stay dry, in what felt to be a very solemn night, we all took time to ourselves to bask over what progress, fun, and memories the eight of us had made over the past week and a half.

 

Hannah enjoying the sun on day 1 as we made dinner at Kuthai

 

Doug Milek, who joined us for the Nakina trip, has his own personal experiences and connections to the Nakina and many individuals within the TRT community. Jokes were made, but every night I got to look forward to sharing my tent with Doug, who was a blast to have come along on our trip.

When we all reached the Suburbans where we had left them a week and a half prior to our trip, looking out towards the horizon in a semi-cloud covered valley, as the sun started to make its way out, we all stood out facing the direction we had just come from, having all pretty similar thoughts. It all felt so surreal and had seemed as if the Nakina hike was nothing at all. With a little bit of dirt here and grime there, after all coming out without days of showering, smiles could still be seen all around.