June 3rd - Season Ends before it Starts!

Time to regroup and try and salvage what is left of the summer. Sadly my position here in Cantwell came to an end yesterday. The river camp is flooded and the main cabin is now under water and as of yesterday it was raining and the river was continuing to rise. The real dilemma is the fact the extremely early very warm weather has begun to melt the snow with a vengeance and the melt which normally takes months is now happening in weeks. Which means although the river is extremely high now it will be very low in another few weeks and almost impossible to run. So the owner of the company decided it was best to trim down and plan on maybe just running one boat and if that doesn't work shut it down completely for the season and try and minimize his losses.

As a business person I can fully understand the decision, it will take 3 weeks to clean up the mess from the flood and hard to justify payroll with no income....so I am left trying to salvage the remainder of my summer.

I have checked and virtually all of the boat captain positions around Alaska are filled. I do have an opportunity at and RV Park in Anchorage and maybe one in Skagway but it is not much money and quite frankly Anchorage is not very appealing. It just may be time to enjoy a very leisurely drive back to the lower 48 and seek something down there. I have all my feelers out and many inquiries have been made.

This very well may be an opportunity to get South and be in prime position for a great winter job someplace special. Generally when finishing the season up here in late September it is too late for the good winter jobs....may be a sign to make some changes in my itinerary. Then again, who the f... knows??

Forgot to mention it is raining like a bastard out which ain't gonna help and my plans to crawl under the trailer and re-wire my trailer brakes and plug on the truck is not very appealing...laying in a mud puddle to fix the trailer may just have to wait.

No pictures today I am too pissed off...which needs to change!

Oh alright, a bus driver emailed me this yesterday of me holding one of the puppies at the dog sled camp!





Stay tuned changes seem to be happening daily!


Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest