I was looking through my journal from
our first trip here 35 years ago one of
the things that struck me as I was
reading it I had hiked up to the top of
one of the peaks here and had to turn
around and come down because you don’t
spend all of your time on the peaks
they’re isolated parts of life and in
coming down I was starting to have tears
in my eyes and feeling that I wasn’t
going to come back to this very place
again feeling that this is the only time
in my life I will be here
the Nortec river is a river in northern
Alaska and it starts in the gates of the
Arctic National Park
it runs east to west for about 400 miles
along the north part of the Brooks Range
which is a northernmost mountain range
in Alaska the no attack is the longest
river in the United States and altered
by man and one of the most spectacular
rivers in our country in 1980 we did the
NOAA tech from match directly to
Kotzebue and we wanted to come back into
the headwaters part and maybe a little
more this is what I was talking to that
the Ranger she recommended hiking up
this river the kübra somebody had told
us that we were going to be coming back
down this river 35 years later we
wouldn’t have believed but we’d have
[Music]
I just like how I feel when I’m out here
when you hear people talk of a oneness
with nature or unity with the world in
some ways I think it’s a more natural
environment for me it’s certainly a more
natural environment than a city you know
you look at a map and you see open
places on the map that’s a place I want
being at a place like this being on the
rivers it’s a chance to reflect decide
what’s important in life and just to
enjoy the incredible beauty of being
here see the wildlife learn the flowers
look at the sky when the Sun rises and
says what some people find when they go
to a temple or church or a mosque I find
when I’m on a river
I met tip I was traveling down a Yukon
River with my girlfriend I think this is
1975 and decided to do a river together
and one thing led to another and we have
done at least 30 trips to the north
we are holed up here because the plane
flying us in required two trips and
they’re only able to make one trip on
the day that we came in with two three
days supply of food and basic other
supplies and the other supplies were too
brought in the next day and the next day
it was raining hard and the pilots won’t
fly where they can’t see unfortunately
Kevin had tried to fly in but the clouds
were too dense and he couldn’t get over
the pass and had to turn back so we’ve
had a little more than two days here and
we’re hoping they’re gonna come in soon
because I’ve made a lot of trips north
and I’ve never had to go without food I
well we first have to do is put our boat
together which is a pack boat and it’s a
little laborious to put together we have
not put one together before and we have
not used a pack boat before so this is a
[Music]
for me rivers are transfixing and
spellbinding and rivers take you places
I like the ocean a little bit and I like
Lakes a little bit rivers they’re much
more passion for me
[Music]
sunset at 20 minutes to 12 if we’d been
here a month earlier we wouldn’t have
it was a totally overcast sky with
intermittent rain light rain drizzle but
we wanted to hike up the coatrack River
and we started out we hiked up tussocks
worked our way through willows spoke
loudly to alert grizzly bears that we
were coming through and had just
spectacular view hiking up that river
valley and we hiked about five miles
until we saw what looked like was
probably a hot springs and logged down
to it and it wasn’t a hot springs but it
was a Springs that had water warmer than
the river just a delightful day long day
but a delightful day I find all of
nature just absolutely fascinating light
travels 186,000 miles a second it takes
twenty five thousand years to travel
just from one side of our galaxy to the
other to the tiniest flower here in the
Arctic in some way they all seem to be
connected and it’s not so much from a
point of view of science that I’m
looking at the rocks and the flowers
it’s a point of view of beauty and I’ve
seen so many of these flowers so many
times coming back it’s like recognizing
I really like traveling a tip is a great
traveling companion the things that we
talked about there not many people I can
have the same conversations with he
doesn’t usually insist on his own way
and when we have differences we’ve
smooth them over without much problem
sometimes we don’t agree on the way to
go and particularly when we were younger
Jim would go in one direction if he
thought that was the better direction
and I would go in another direction
I actually was on the no attack we went
in different directions and I didn’t see
you and I was concerned that you’d been
eaten by a bear or something and I was
tiptoeing around and didn’t find you and
then later looked for you and climbed up
some little peak and saw you on the top
of another little peak looking for me so
he may not remember that I don’t
when Jim and I were on Baffin Island we
visited a little Museum and it featured
an Inuit saying which touches the Arctic
and all of life and to me struck home
there’s only one great thing and that
one great thing is just to live to open
our eyes to the great light of dawn
moving across the land in the beginning
of the day hiking in a Brooks Range if
you start north of the Arctic Circle and
in the higher more northerly part it’s
open country right away get up high and
you get wonderful views and see
wonderful mountains and it’s just a
wonderful place for hiking it’s too late
for us to be explorers but there’s
adventure and there is a sense of
venturing into country that is very
rarely traveled we gained about 2,500
feet in elevation that’s not all that
much but because I’m 77 I handled it
okay
there are more restrictions with aging I
can’t do the same types of things I did
how many more times am i coming up here
we realize how much we have left they’re
gonna be able to keep doing you know as
we get older that’s that’s that’s coming
towards an end here I’m grateful I’m
doing as well as I am but I’m certainly
appreciating things like today’s hike
more than ever maybe this is the last
trip but I’m not saying it’s the last
trip ritual is an enormous part of human
activities and those rituals give
meaning to life but with time some of
those rituals no longer have the same
impact in someone’s life and I think by
by accident by chance Jim and I started
going down rivers together we were
intrigued by them there was the
adventure
there was a friendship there was just a
spectacular beauty and in some ways it
became a ritual that helped give meaning
at least to my life and I can remember
Jim calling me up in December or January
and say are you ready to go canoeing
when you look over the 40 years of
tricks we have had a lot of wonderful
times and hard times and the hard time
is four wonderful times pure pleasure
pier unadulterated unmixed by any
negative aspect is getting a really nice
fast current in being able to see the
rocks and the bees just fly by that is
such a nice feeling about three years
ago I was in Pakistan with a group to
climb a mountain and one night after
dinner one of the women on the trip
asked me since I was almost 70 at the
time as I look back on my life what
tends to stand out I responded that I
really didn’t consider my life over yet
I have so many things I want to do they
would take another whole lifetime to do
them and then that probably wouldn’t be
long enough nice remember the poem by
Edna st. Vincent Millay in which she
says my candle burns at both ends it
will not last the night my friends and
all my foes it gives a lovely night
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
our first trip here 35 years ago one of
the things that struck me as I was
reading it I had hiked up to the top of
one of the peaks here and had to turn
around and come down because you don’t
spend all of your time on the peaks
they’re isolated parts of life and in
coming down I was starting to have tears
in my eyes and feeling that I wasn’t
going to come back to this very place
again feeling that this is the only time
in my life I will be here
the Nortec river is a river in northern
Alaska and it starts in the gates of the
Arctic National Park
it runs east to west for about 400 miles
along the north part of the Brooks Range
which is a northernmost mountain range
in Alaska the no attack is the longest
river in the United States and altered
by man and one of the most spectacular
rivers in our country in 1980 we did the
NOAA tech from match directly to
Kotzebue and we wanted to come back into
the headwaters part and maybe a little
more this is what I was talking to that
the Ranger she recommended hiking up
this river the kübra somebody had told
us that we were going to be coming back
down this river 35 years later we
wouldn’t have believed but we’d have
[Music]
I just like how I feel when I’m out here
when you hear people talk of a oneness
with nature or unity with the world in
some ways I think it’s a more natural
environment for me it’s certainly a more
natural environment than a city you know
you look at a map and you see open
places on the map that’s a place I want
being at a place like this being on the
rivers it’s a chance to reflect decide
what’s important in life and just to
enjoy the incredible beauty of being
here see the wildlife learn the flowers
look at the sky when the Sun rises and
says what some people find when they go
to a temple or church or a mosque I find
when I’m on a river
I met tip I was traveling down a Yukon
River with my girlfriend I think this is
1975 and decided to do a river together
and one thing led to another and we have
done at least 30 trips to the north
we are holed up here because the plane
flying us in required two trips and
they’re only able to make one trip on
the day that we came in with two three
days supply of food and basic other
supplies and the other supplies were too
brought in the next day and the next day
it was raining hard and the pilots won’t
fly where they can’t see unfortunately
Kevin had tried to fly in but the clouds
were too dense and he couldn’t get over
the pass and had to turn back so we’ve
had a little more than two days here and
we’re hoping they’re gonna come in soon
because I’ve made a lot of trips north
and I’ve never had to go without food I
well we first have to do is put our boat
together which is a pack boat and it’s a
little laborious to put together we have
not put one together before and we have
not used a pack boat before so this is a
[Music]
for me rivers are transfixing and
spellbinding and rivers take you places
I like the ocean a little bit and I like
Lakes a little bit rivers they’re much
more passion for me
[Music]
sunset at 20 minutes to 12 if we’d been
here a month earlier we wouldn’t have
it was a totally overcast sky with
intermittent rain light rain drizzle but
we wanted to hike up the coatrack River
and we started out we hiked up tussocks
worked our way through willows spoke
loudly to alert grizzly bears that we
were coming through and had just
spectacular view hiking up that river
valley and we hiked about five miles
until we saw what looked like was
probably a hot springs and logged down
to it and it wasn’t a hot springs but it
was a Springs that had water warmer than
the river just a delightful day long day
but a delightful day I find all of
nature just absolutely fascinating light
travels 186,000 miles a second it takes
twenty five thousand years to travel
just from one side of our galaxy to the
other to the tiniest flower here in the
Arctic in some way they all seem to be
connected and it’s not so much from a
point of view of science that I’m
looking at the rocks and the flowers
it’s a point of view of beauty and I’ve
seen so many of these flowers so many
times coming back it’s like recognizing
I really like traveling a tip is a great
traveling companion the things that we
talked about there not many people I can
have the same conversations with he
doesn’t usually insist on his own way
and when we have differences we’ve
smooth them over without much problem
sometimes we don’t agree on the way to
go and particularly when we were younger
Jim would go in one direction if he
thought that was the better direction
and I would go in another direction
I actually was on the no attack we went
in different directions and I didn’t see
you and I was concerned that you’d been
eaten by a bear or something and I was
tiptoeing around and didn’t find you and
then later looked for you and climbed up
some little peak and saw you on the top
of another little peak looking for me so
he may not remember that I don’t
when Jim and I were on Baffin Island we
visited a little Museum and it featured
an Inuit saying which touches the Arctic
and all of life and to me struck home
there’s only one great thing and that
one great thing is just to live to open
our eyes to the great light of dawn
moving across the land in the beginning
of the day hiking in a Brooks Range if
you start north of the Arctic Circle and
in the higher more northerly part it’s
open country right away get up high and
you get wonderful views and see
wonderful mountains and it’s just a
wonderful place for hiking it’s too late
for us to be explorers but there’s
adventure and there is a sense of
venturing into country that is very
rarely traveled we gained about 2,500
feet in elevation that’s not all that
much but because I’m 77 I handled it
okay
there are more restrictions with aging I
can’t do the same types of things I did
how many more times am i coming up here
we realize how much we have left they’re
gonna be able to keep doing you know as
we get older that’s that’s that’s coming
towards an end here I’m grateful I’m
doing as well as I am but I’m certainly
appreciating things like today’s hike
more than ever maybe this is the last
trip but I’m not saying it’s the last
trip ritual is an enormous part of human
activities and those rituals give
meaning to life but with time some of
those rituals no longer have the same
impact in someone’s life and I think by
by accident by chance Jim and I started
going down rivers together we were
intrigued by them there was the
adventure
there was a friendship there was just a
spectacular beauty and in some ways it
became a ritual that helped give meaning
at least to my life and I can remember
Jim calling me up in December or January
and say are you ready to go canoeing
when you look over the 40 years of
tricks we have had a lot of wonderful
times and hard times and the hard time
is four wonderful times pure pleasure
pier unadulterated unmixed by any
negative aspect is getting a really nice
fast current in being able to see the
rocks and the bees just fly by that is
such a nice feeling about three years
ago I was in Pakistan with a group to
climb a mountain and one night after
dinner one of the women on the trip
asked me since I was almost 70 at the
time as I look back on my life what
tends to stand out I responded that I
really didn’t consider my life over yet
I have so many things I want to do they
would take another whole lifetime to do
them and then that probably wouldn’t be
long enough nice remember the poem by
Edna st. Vincent Millay in which she
says my candle burns at both ends it
will not last the night my friends and
all my foes it gives a lovely night
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
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