In the Koyukuk

Portraits, words and poems about my times alongside America's wildest rivers (and dogs). Past, present experiences - Casey Reid Sigg

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Mirror Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park. July 2016

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Something I wrote about these trees for a fire ecology class: White spruce (Picea glauca) is a commonly found evergreen species in the boreal forests of North America. Fire affects white spruce stands every year in the boreal/taiga forests of interior Alaska. Its widespread density is confusing to scientists since the tree is poorly adapted to surviving fire. White spruce has thin bark and shallow roots making it susceptible to dying in even low-intensity surface fires. Studies in Alaska have shown the tree to be a late-successional species, returning to dominance in a forest 150-300 years after a fire. White spruce does not have any apparent adaptions to fire, but it has many rejuvenation responses. Most of these responses appear to be concentrated in its seeds.

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Sukakpak Mountain, June 2013.

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Sukakpak Mountain, View from a Miner’s Cabin

November 2015

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Monogram Lake, North Cascades National Park

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Poem

Night Hike in the Brooks Range

In late September I took a hike with two coworkers to a hill outside of Coldfoot, Alaska. We set out in the late evening and we didn’t speak much. Just the steady crunch sound of our boots over tussock that has been warmed during the day and become frozen again at night. This is fall up here in the Brooks Range. Everything seems to come in glimpses. Clouds blur the mountain tops, some revealed for a few hours and others gone for days. The best birdsongs are gone now. The raven is the only voice of the boreal forest. It will remain that way until spring. Maybe for a day or two this month we’ll get a bluebird day and the mountains will show all the different shades of red and gray that are staples of Alaska calendar shots. I did not take any photos on this hike so here is a poem:

Night Hike in the Brooks Range

Fuzzy spruces line my sight I want to turn around to see the mountains lit up

But I can’t keep up My companions are spurce trees, now too

Reunited at the top, we don’t say much Stand still, because this is air you can really drink in.

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The East Branch of the Au Gres is one of Michigan’s designated Blue Ribbon Trout Streams. Though it seems to get overlooked in northeast Michigan along with other quality rivers like the Rifle for the fame of the Au Sable. My fishing partner Trevor and I had the water to ourselves expect for a few local drunks that passed by.

Every stretch had three or four small browns rising. Some making a splash. Some nosing up making small ripples. Thick cedar trees line the banks of the Au Gres. The forest became dark and spooky if you stepped off the trail a couple of yards. I met eyes with a whitetail deer down a tunnel of cedar and pine. She lost interest in me and walked on. This encounter only made the six inch brown I reeled in a few minutes later that much sweeter. It was my 4th trout ever caught on a dry fly.

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Earth Day, 2015. Celebrate Wilderness. Photo- Brooks Range along the Middle Fork of the Koyukuk River. Taken June 2013.

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View from a bear barrel. Oolah Pass, near the headwaters of the Itkillik River, Alaska. August 2014.

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Winter Steelheading on the Pere Marquette River

Big fish. Red hands. The small bout of frostbite I was feeling seemed to leave my fingers instantly once I hooked onto this steelhead. Winter steelhead fishing can sometimes feel like an exercise in enduring pain. Any breeze coming off the river runs through your clothes and chills your core. You keep drinking coffee well past noon to warm up. Next you have go every 20 minutes. And peeing while wearing waiters is a precise and delicate process. You’re there hoping the next bend on river where the guide stops the boat will be shallow enough to get out and relieve yourself.

But the moment your rod tip dips and  you pull back to a series of heavy tugs, you know what brings a person to float down a river during a Michigan winter. This weekend in early March the banks of the Pere Marquette River are covered in snow. The woods quiet. Everything appears white or gray. Most people talk about the fight steelhead put up. What got me was was their color. Pulling one these fish out of the water and running my hand along the purple and red streaks across its body reminded me why I fish. Each steelhead has its own color markings and the contrast to the pale winter surroundings lets you know the woods are always alive.

This trip was the second outing of the Clarkston Catholic Fishing Club, Purveyors of Italian Food and ethical fly-fishing since 2014. Thanks to guides at Baldwin Bait & Tackle hooking me onto my first steelhead.

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Salmon Haiku

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Blood red running through Oh! to see a lone Chinook Splash the Koyukuk

Middle Fork of the Koyukuk, AK