Alaska summers filled with special times

May 21, 2006

SPECTRUM/Sammye Pokryfki

Yesterday I returned from a business trip to Pittsburgh. It's not what I would call a &#8220choice” destination, but Pittsburgh has some interesting features. As a place where three rivers meet (Monongohela, Allegheny, Ohio), it has more bridges than any other city in the world (except Venice). There was a fierce battle waged at this confluence in the French and Indian War, and a monument to that battle is a huge water fountain that serves as the centerpiece for the downtown skyline.

Pittsburgh was once known as &#8220hell with the lid off” because of the steel mills and railroad yards along the waterways. For a half century, the rivers were the city's back yard, treated as industrial waste dumps where the water would catch on fire.

During a riverboat tour, I learned about the riverfront revitalization and saw the results of a collaborative effort to turn the backyard dump into a welcoming playground. A river's edge trail system provides access to the water, and as I jogged along it, I saw people fishing and kayaking where just 10 years ago, they would have feared to tread. Several businesses on the shore are named &#8220Tri River” or &#8220Three Rivers,” and I couldn't help but compare it to a more familiar place where three rivers meet right here in the Mat-Su Valley.

For the past two decades, my husband and I have spent our summers on Alaska's waterways in rafts, canoes, kayaks and jet boats, with much of that time in the Talkeetna area, a place where three rivers meet: the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna. Our annual obsession starts with the boat show in February and continues through hunting season in late September.

In between are dozens of adventures and occasionally a few misadventures, too. Navigating Alaska's braided rivers can be tricky, since sandbars, glacial boulders and cottonwood logjams lurk around every corner. Throw in unpredictable weather and dependence on mechanical equipment and it gets downright interesting sometimes.

I remember our rookie year as river runners when we ended up high and dry just about every time we went out. One of my more vivid memories is standing knee-deep in freezing water in the pouring rain, doing the old &#8220heave-ho on three,” sobbing and telling my husband how much I hated the boat, the river and him, too, for bringing me out there.

When we first started running rivers, there were few other boats on the Susitna drainage, and boat launches were sketchy affairs, little more than a bushwhacked clearing at the water's edge. At the Talkeetna launch in the 1980s, it wasn't unusual to see people sitting nearby enjoying an adult beverage while watching the mishaps of novice launchers - for entertainment!

Compare this to today when there are a half dozen or so well-maintained launches between Wasilla and Trapper Creek. Add in the growth of the jet-boat industry and Alaskans' infatuation with sport fishing, and you get lots of folks plunking a boat in the water on any given weekend all summer (which can still be entertaining, by the way).

Although I lament that it now takes more time and effort to reach an uncrowded spot on the water, I'm glad to see more people enjoying the rivers. It still requires skill to successfully navigate the channels, but it is not as intimidating as it once was, maybe because more people are out there to help if you get stuck.

The effort and expense are worthwhile when you reach the confluence of the Talkeetna, Susitna and Chulitna on a clear day, and see Denali as the centerpiece of the Alaska Range skyline.

A lot has changed since my early days on the river, but one thing remains the same. After a long winter dreaming about boats and water, I can't wait to get back out there where three rivers meet, to a place that seems like heaven with the trap door open.

Sammye Pokryfki lives and writes in Wasilla.