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  67. 3:46 a.m.

July 4th

Sunrise 3:35 a.m.

I wake up to loud meowing and Opik’s face nearly an inch from mine. The day before, we’d jogged another ten minutes down the sandbar — downstream toward the Indian settlement — before finding a spot to sleep high up on the sand.

“What?” I yell, jumping to my feet. “A moose? A bear?”

Meow.

“You found it?”

Meow.

“You found the canoe?” I holler, then find myself picking up Opik and swinging him in a circle. It was the reason I decided to go downstream. To take our chances on the Yukon. I felt there was a chance the canoe might have gotten swept into one of the many log jams along the river.

Finally, something went our way.

We pick up camp and run two miles downstream. It is still dark, sunrise still thirty minutes away, but it is light enough to see the canoe on the opposite side of the river.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I strip down to my underwear, grab the paddle, and wade into the water. It is colder than I remember, and my breath is sucked from my chest. I grit my teeth and using the paddle as a glorified kickboard, I start kicking for the opposite bank.

I pull myself out of the water a half mile downstream from the canoe, then run back up the riverbank to where it is tangled in a web of logs and brush. It takes me five minutes to pull it free, then another five to paddle the canoe across the river and dock it on a sandbar where Lassie and Opik wait for me.

It is 3:28 a.m.

My body shakes from the cold, and Opik wraps the fur coat around me and pulls the fur hat down over my head and ears.

He disappears for ten minutes. When he returns, he has a handful of nuts. It is all he can find he gestures with a soft shake of his head.

It is remarkable how the two of us communicate now. I’d only been around him ten days, yet I could understand him when he gesticulated, you stay here and try and warm up while I go run and see if I can find some food for us, then we will jump in the canoe and head downriver when the sky begins to lighten.

At 3:42 a.m. with the sky a fire orange, the three of us set off downriver in the canoe.

::::

July 5th

Sunrise 3:39 a.m.

When I wake up the next morning, we are still on the Yukon. Opik is on the back bench of the canoe, the paddle draped over the side of the boat. I stand up and walk over to him. I gesture for him to hand me the paddle.

“Time for you to take a break,” I say.

He nods.