6TH LETTER FROM MĀRIS OLTE

We keep on nursing the Jukona river with our blades with blockheadish commitment hoping that this way we will sooner reach the ocean. We hope to reach it by the 18th – 19th september.

Team is fine. We are paddling in shifts, all the time someone is sitting in the passanger seat because we have 4 paddling positions. We manage to paddle 45 km a day and we are looking for camplace around seven o clock in the evening.

It sounds easier than it actually is because coastline is either sloping rim with stones or covered with thick mud. Mud is that substance we have made friends closer than anything. When stopping by the coast you jump out the canoe you end up in the mud till your knees, then you fell down with spread fingers and try to reach out for mainland. Others meanwhile wait till footbridge is built and team can safely get out.

At this stage of our journey we are used to many things – sleeping undressed, stretching legs only in the evening, sleeping by an open bag with bear pepper spray in it… In the North Jukona welcomes explorers with a beautiful landscape in the colours of autumn. If rain is starting, Raimonds manages to build various configuration sheds. Few days ago we saw two Germans hiding under shed like that. The married couple was on the day 109th in their journey with kayaks, while we were on the day 26th. He is an engineer, she is a biologist. Both of them left their day jobs to organize this trip. Couple welcomed us with hot cocoa and they were interesting enough to spend two long storytelling evenings with them.

We have been on the river already 32 days and place where I am sitting and writing this message at the moment is named Russian Mission. There has been no sign from Russian traders or adventurers already for 150 years, but some local americans and Yupik Eskimos have Russian surnames like Kozevnikoff for instance. Team is traveling over Eskimo territories. Locals you can recognise with brighter skin colour and their boats are with higher ports to avoid higher waves and strong winds. It Situation when wind makes high waves and the only chance to get to the coast is through the mud to your belly, would be very uncomfortable to us. It would mean the last 160 km through treeless tundra where Bering sea has a strong influence on Jukona river and we would have to be much more careful.

It might happen from 13th to 19th september.