Alaskan Bush Adventure VI Kotzebue 3 Addendum

Well the Public Health Service  mission report is over. My son Lee Sessions came in town for Thanksgiving week and my birthday. Lee started going to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota as a young teenager and never really came 'home' again. The lure of pristine lakes and the moving water of rivers took over. After college he took some time off and canoed the entire length of the Mississippi River from Lake Itaska in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Since then he has gone on over thirty canoe expeditions to Arctic Canada and Alaska. He has gone from participant to guide. He is a master of planning and logistics. He is known as the 'Arctic Canoe Expedition Chef', famous for his meal preparations on the trips.

When he read my Alaska Bush Adventure Blogs he mentioned that in 2013 he had canoed the Noatak River in Alaska.

The Noatak River one of three rivers that end up at Kotzebue as they enter the Norton Sound. He offered these amazing images from his three week trip.

The Noatak River starts in the Brooks Range in central Alaska flowing ultimately into the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea.

Their trip began (after a winter of planning) with a float plane drop off at the headwaters of the river.

There was what Lee called 'some interesting' white water canoeing on the trip. As you can imagine maneuvering

a fully loaded canoe through white water takes skill. That's our friend Bob in the bow of the canoe.

On the trip they encountered amazing wild life. Lee's images of grizzly bears are more than exceptional, and frightening.

This image of a mother grizzly who has been catching salmon to feed her three cubs shows

something I have never seen before, her swollen breasts as she is still breast feeding.

There were many other forms of wildlife on the trip including the musk oxen. They are famous for forming a protective circle around their young.

Their canoe expedition ended at Noatak Village which was upstream and a brief charter flight from Kotzebue.

Thanks Lee for sharing your trip with us, a fitting end to my trip to Kotzebue 54 years ago.