After getting the net checked this morning, I got some wood cut and brought into the house to feed the always hungry wood stove. All was accomplished during what is made out to be the mother of all storms, headed our way. The Yukon River spills into the Bering Sea and the small Yup'ik Eskimo villages that live along its low lying areas are about to be flooded. That could be bad in more ways than one. First off, it's pretty much winter here and the low-lying villages are barley above sea level so when the wind blows the water up on shore during the high tides people will have virtually no high ground to get to.
I experianced one bad storm on the coast while on a hunt. When the tide came up and the small cabin we were staying in was flooded and we actually floated the cabin on a high tide that was six feet over the bank. Had I not tied two big set net anchors to hold the house in place before hand, the house would of floated inland with us in it. It was one of the most hair raising experiences I was ever in. At one point the tide went back out and we were set back on the ground. We opened the door and let the two feet of water that was sloshing around like bilgewater out. We simply lit the stove again with wood we had piled on the bunks to stay dry along with all our bedding.
We were tired but alive and all went to bed only to be awoke again because of the waves rocking the house again. And this time they were much bigger. We floated up again. The logs under the cabin acting as pontoons to keep up afloat, but this time the winds got even worse and one of the anchor lines pulled loose and the house went sideways in the wind. one anchor still held but we were no longer afforded the leward side of the house where we could tie to the boat out of the waves.
My partner and his young boy of 16 yrs old decided it was time to try and call on the VHF on channel sixteen [the emergencey channel]. But his call for assitance went unanswerd. We could see now, as it was getting light. And though we could jump into the boat and try to make it up the Yukon River to the safety of the river banks, they too were flooded. We pushed off and rolled in the huge surf of the Bering Sea in our 20 foot open skiff. It felt like a toy in the bath tub as we rode up one big wave and down the back side. Slowly but surely we made our way up, and after a few miles made it into the relative safety of river banks that were still somewhat flooded even miles up the river. We were tired and stopped at a fish camp to rest. The floor of the cabin was wet, so we knew the water came up that far. We lit the stove and slept for a day eating and drying up.
The next mornning we continued up river the remaining sixty miles and made it home where even here the water had rose overnight from the storm surge and went down again.
So now I sit and wait for our 948 millabar low that's supposed to decend on us tonight. If this was the lower fourty eight states they would call it a hurricane. But here it's still just a storm.
We hope and pray for those on the lower Yukon River and Bering Sea coastal areas, that they can find high ground and get out of harms way. We should be OK here with minimal damage, but those poor lowland folks could have ice chunks pushed by water crashing through there village tonight.
Our river here is fresh froze over with ice, so it will be interesting to see if the high water surge makes it upriver seventy miles like it did last time. Some fishing nets recently set in the new formed ice could be lost if the ice opens up again.
I can expect the house to be shaking from the high winds. It's a common occurance here. We can expect to lose our internet, perhaps even the power we all depend on.
But here we will be fine. We have freezers full of meat and fish and woodstoves to keep warm.
We hope for the storm to have mercy on the poor souls that cannot get out of it's path.
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