 NORTH TO ALASKA — Dreams do come true ... — by Tom Lewin
“WELCOME to Ted Stevens International airport, Alaska.” The voice sounded like it was coming from the far end of a tunnel. I had been travelling by air for over thirty hours, had endured a screaming baby with colic and, thankfully right at the end of the trip, a passenger in an adjacent aisle projectile vomiting.
The trip had been excruciatingly long — possibly the longest plane trip I’d ever done — and I still had further to go. At the luggage carousel there were rod cases, expedition duffels and the serious-looking characters that you’d expect to hang around the airport of a frontier town like Anchorage. Taking up most of one wall was a massive life-size grizzly bear. It glared at me, teeth yellow and claws extended.
Across from the bear was a mount of an enormous 87 lb king salmon. Some state record. I looked at that fish for quite some time, imagining what it must be like to latch on to a creature like that.
Suddenly I felt light-headed, sleep-deprived, and my time clock was on its head. I looked at the bear and the huge salmon. The setting seemed surreal and I felt like Alice walking through the looking-glass.
A DREAM COME TRUE
Alaska. The word alone is enough to get the attention of any flyfisher. For as far back as I can remember I have fished, and for as far back as I can remember I have dreamed about fishing in Alaska. The place is known for remoteness on a scale that boggles the mind and scenery that takes your breath away, but it’s the legendary fishing for salmon and rainbow trout that had captivated my imagination.
I was headed for a tented camp in remote western Alaska, on the Bering Sea which separates Russia from the North American mainland. The camp is located on a river a few miles from an ocean that freezes for 10km out to sea in a bad winter. It operates for a scant seven weeks, and that’s because everything is frozen solid for the rest of the year.
“It’s not your typical National Geographic image of Alaska,” said Andrew Bennett, the camp’s owner. “But the landscape has its own unique beauty — you’ll see,” he offered.
It had been a tough task finding the ultimate Alaskan destination. There were just so many variables one had to consider, and there are hundreds of lodges operating in Alaska, but in the end two things became apparent: the good lodges are located on the river, and the great lodges are located on the river and close to the ocean. Being based on the river means that there’s no time wasted getting to and from the fishing. In the case of fly-in lodges — where you fly by plane from your lodge to your fishing spot each day — the best time of the day, early morning and late evening, is spent flying, and if bad weather comes in, well… you’d better be on top of your dominos game.
Being close to the ocean means that the fish are still fresh when you catch them, in other words they haven’t been in the river system for very long. Fresh fish or “chromers” fight like saltwater fish and are prized over the coloured fish that have travelled further up the river systems and are in the process of dying.
After extensive research one camp stood out head and shoulders above the rest.
Alaska West has a reputation almost as vast as the landscape it calls home, and the fact that legendary guides like Rick Sisler and Ed Ward have guided there for around a decade says volumes about the place.
ALL ABOARD THE DC3
The following morning, feeling human again, I met up with my four South African guests who were joining me at Alaska West for the week’s fishing. We made our way back to the airport, and after checking our luggage, we boarded an ancient-looking DC3 or Dakota that looked like it had been around since World War Two.
The bearded pilot with the cammo trucker cap ran through some housekeeping issues, wished us a pleasant flight, and then disappeared into the cockpit clutching a flask of coffee. Ten minutes later we were flying over the vast Alaskan wilderness.
The landscape was flat, barren tundra, horizon to horizon. The ground looked marshy and was pockmarked with a million natural lakes as far as the eye could see. Connecting these lakes was a festoon of streams and springs. It was like a scene from a JR Tolkien book, and the vastness of it all was something I’ll never forget.
Read the full story in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of FLYFISHING. |
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