Book I want to get my hands on

[Boreal Birch]

Forty some years ago, near Rampart, on the Yukon River while monitoring the Upper Yukon Commercial Salmon Fishery, my coworker and good friend Fred and I saw a red canoe drifting in the current. As we drove our jet boat closer, we could not see anyone in the boat. Thinking that someone had lost their canoe or worse that they had dumped, we were happy to see a man our age laying back in the stern playing his guitar. In the bow looking bored, was a big white husky sled dog. Seeing what local native people call "Floaters" was not unusual in our work, these floater start at Whitehorse and most, but not all give it up in the middle stretch of the Yukon. They sell their canoes cheap, then fly out of the villages there with no road access. We were heading back to Fairbanks that day, so we gave him our remaining foods and cold beverages. When asked where he had started from he asked "Do you mean this morning or the start of the trip?" We of course wanted to know both, but really wanted to know the latter. When he said " New Orleans", we were shocked to hear that he had been on the trail for three years he was planing on paddling to the ocean, then following the coast to Nome Alaska. In November I read or saw on the news, that he had walked into Nome after winters ice in Norton Sound had ended canoeing for the year.
I was happy last Sunday, to find this story in the Outdoors Section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I was even more interested in the fact that Jerry Pushcar had after Forty some years finally written a book about his trip, WATERS BENEATH MY FEET. The fly in my ointment is that my usual sources of books do not carry it, the few places I found on the inter-web are out of stock. I of course will keep looking, maybe even get one of my former co-workers in Nome to get one directly from him.

 

[recped]

Claims to be in stock here:

https://www.boundarywaterscatalog.com/last-cache/waters-beneath-my-feet-166216

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Read a brief synopsis that said it was a three-year, 2200-mile trip from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Hudson Bay. This seems a little at odds with your understanding of the story, BB. Nome is a long way from Hudson Bay. Indeed, paddling down the Yukon River would be an unusual way to get to Hudson Bay. Something seems to be amiss, or in need of clarification. You need to get your hands on this book!

 

[PaddlingPitt]

The end of the Synopsis does mention a start in New Orleans, though.

 

[Odyssey]

Interesting story, thanks for that Birchy. Hope you find what you're looking for.

 

[Pringles]

I just looked and Boundary Waters says it's on temporary backorder. It sounds good.

 

[Boreal Birch]

Jerry Pushcar paddled to Hudson Bay from Lake Superior, then having done that still wanted more. At a later date, He paddled from New Orleans, Louisiana up the Mississippi River, up the St. Croix River, portaged over into and down the Brule River to Lake Superior. He then paddled up the North Shore of that Great Lake to Grand Portage. He then followed the fur trade West to get into the Mackenzie River Drainage. On down the Mackenzie River to nearly it's mouth then up the Rat River, portaged over into the Bell River down it to the Porcupine River into the Yukon at Fort Yukon. Fort Yukon was a Northwest Fur Company Post back in the day, Jerry Pushcar followed the path of the Hivernants to the far northwest. When Fred and I met him in August of 1977, he was a couple of hundred miles below Fort Yukon. Once he got to Nome, he had finally scratched that travel itch, found employment, married and settled down in Nome.
A friend of mine, that lives in Minnesota, knows a guy that is a relative of Jerry Pushcar and is trying to find a book for me via that source.

 

[recped]

I just looked and Boundary Waters says it's on temporary backorder. It sounds good.

That's weird because when I looked this morning it definitely had a tag "In Stock" (which is now gone).

 

[PaddlingPitt]

That was some very big time paddling by Jerry!