Ned's Pipeline Trek Page

Some days on the pipeline are relaxing, while others are so jammed-packed with stimuli that my left shoulder gets numb from propping me up while I write in my journal. So it was a few weeks ago while I was camped on the Yukon River.

The day dawned with the sound of a helicopter buzzing the tent. My boss had told me to expect a few high-ranking visitors to drop in, but I forgot which day they were scheduled to arrive. All I knew was that they were due at 8 a.m., an hour I hadn't seen with open eyes since before starting the hike. To make me all the more groggy, my friend John Arntz had arrived with supplies and conversation at 2 a.m. the night before.

Nevertheless, I knew the men in the helicopter were looking for me, so I bailed out of the tent. I waved. The helicopter pilot touched down. Two men stepped out of the helicopter and walked toward me. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the director of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, stopped and took my picture as I aimed my camera at him and Lee Jones, senior vice-president of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

I shook hands with both men and took them for a walk along the pipeline to the spot where my dog Jane had treed a mother black bear and two cubs a night earlier. Along the way, Jones answered questions I'd gathered while staring at the pipeline the past few months. Akasofu added anecdotes about institute scientists' work with the oil industry. He also shared his bug dope when I needed a fogging.

Back at the tent site on the Yukon River, Jones pulled out a bag of king salmon that was smoked by the villagers in Rampart on the Yukon River. The perfect, slender, chewy strips make my mouth water even now as I think of them. Akasofu gave me a gift of chewy, perfectly round cookies baked by his wife. Yum.

As a steady rain began to fall, the helicopter reappeared from its nest at nearby Pump Station 6. I again shook hands with the two successful visitors from the sky. Off they went before the drizzle became a downpour.

I rousted John and Jane from the tent. John and I walked through the monster-truck-show mud of the Yukon Ventures parking lot for breakfast. Inside the restaurant, we became interested in a conversation taking place at a table next to us. A boss of a crew working on the Alyeska fiber-optic cable project was spouting negatives to a group of young workers. He eventually came to the subject of "that guy hiking the pipeline."

"What a stupid thing to do," he said, not knowing the proximity of the walking idiot. "He probably shot his mouth off so much when he started that he had no choice but to keep going."

He entertained John and I for a few minutes more. I was glad I left Jane, who functions as my ID card, at the BLM cabin with Bob and Thelma Bowser.

The Bowsers, who treated me to dinner at their cozy summer home the night before, allowed John and I to sort food in the BLM cabin while the rain persisted. For the privilege, Jane and I were introduced to the tourists who visited the cabin. Jane's image was captured on a few more rolls of film.

The sun eventually emerged to bake the tent dry. John, Jane and I shouldered our bulging burdens and walked away from the Yukon River. The Bowsers waved to us from the porch of the BLM cabin as we walked.

A few miles down the sole-clinging mud of the pipeline pad, John stopped.

"A Bear!" he said.

A young black bear stood with an open-arm stance, like a linebacker for the Chicago Bears. Although probably just curious to see two square-backed people and a dog with a red backpack, the bear stood in Jane's path as if to tackle her. Jane, nose to the ground, didn't see the bear. As Jane closed to within 20 feet, I yelled her name at a volume reserved for such situations. She stopped; the cub disappeared.

Five miles from the Yukon River, our trio wandered to the Hot Spot Café, a hamburger hamlet located near an artesian well at the site of an old pipeline camp. As we avoided mud puddles shaped like large tire tracks, we heard a female voice.

"Hi Jane!" the voice said.

The voice belonged to Theresa Mitchell, the blonde proprietress of the Hot Spot. She had been awaiting the arrival of the famous Labrador, as had her sons, Sean and Tyler. The boys fed Jane the remains of their steak dinners as Theresa tossed three patties on her outdoor grill. She served up gigantic burgers to John and me. Mine, thick with onions, cheese, and mayo, was the most exquisite thing I've eaten on the trip. Jane didn't complain either--she ate most of the paper plate on which her burger was served. Theresa's partner, Dean Morin, kept John and I laughing with his great stories. Tyler hit me in the neck with a spitball.

John left Theresa a $10 tip because she wouldn't let us pay. Jane, it seemed, had found Doggy Heaven. As John and I walked off to regain the pipe, Jane showed her loyalty by remaining on the Hot Spot's wooden deck until we were blips on the horizon. Finally, with no more food offered to her, she waddled out to catch up with us, giving us a laugh to close out an incredible day.

---