Part 1 - The Expedition

BUT, YOU LIKE ADVENTURE

By Bjorn Olson

There is a particular dream most people share: The dream where you are running from something frightening, but no matter how hard you try, the terror at your back gains ground. I awoke from this anxiety dream while napping in our two-person sleeping quilt with my girlfriend, Kim. We were three weeks into a fatbike and packraft expedition in Southeast Alaska that we expected to take the summer, but we had reached an unexpected dead end. Outside of our shelter, the rain came down in sheets, and the surf thundered against the rocky cliff walls.

This was our third late-July evening stuck on a remote beach along the Gulf of Alaska, unable to advance or retreat. I redirected my internal uneasiness with our only book and read aloud to her. The stories I read were from Ireland, and they transported us thousands of miles away from our soggy worries.

We listened to the VHF radio for a weather report the next morning. The National Weather Service had given us reason to hope the night before, but the conditions sounded as bad as ever — another low-pressure system had moved in accompanied by 25 mph winds, 9-foot seas, and the ubiquitous buckets of rain. We would not be traveling, and we decided to cut our daily food ration of soupy noodles and watered-down oatmeal, once again, even smaller.