The Spine of the Arctic

This book describes a solo Arctic Canoe Expedition completed through Alaska's Brooks Range from June 30--August 19, 1985. It covered 650-miles and took 51 days. I traveled through extensive parts of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Noatak Preserve. I started the journey at the oil pipeline haul road (Dalton Highway) just south of Coldfoot and above the Arctic Circle where I got on the Middle Fork of the Koyukuk River. I floated down this to the town of Bettles. Form Bettles, I went on to the mouth of the John River. I headed up the John River then turned up the Malamute Fork of the John, portaged to the East Fork of Henshaw Creek, and after three days of misery, I reach the Malamute Fork of the Alatna River. This took me to the Alatna River proper. I pushed up this river for almost 200 miles to its headwater lakes near the Continental Divide. I crossed the divide at Survey Pass and then moved down the North Slope on the Nigu River, part of the Colville River drainage. I floated down this for about 30 miles then portaged to Etivlik Lake. After paddling across this, I portaged over another divide into Noatak National Preserve and to the headwaters of Flora Creek. After a long struggle with the creek's shallow water and rocky bed (it completely dried up at one point), I reached the Aniuk River. This flowed into the Noatak River. I floated the Noatak River to the Chukchi Sea and crossed a ten-mile stretch of open ocean to reach the Baldwin Peninsula and the end of the trip at Kotzebue, Alaska.

About the Author

Geoffrey McRae Smith has enjoyed working and recreating in the natural world his whole life. He was born in Bay City, Michigan and lived there until he entered college. He spent his summers in Charlevoix his mother's hometown beside the clear, blue waters of Lake Michigan and spent considerable time at his grandparent's cabin on the Au Sable River. Here he first learned to canoe and the art of flyfishing. He also learned of the destructive forces of human activity on the natural environment which eventually caused the extinction of the Michigan grayling and the passenger pigeon. From this knowledge, he was determined to go into the conservation field to help protect natural ecosystems. He received a BS degree in Fisheries management at Utah State University (USU). After four years in the Navy, he returned USU to earn a second BS degree, minoring in photography, outdoor recreation, geology, and writing. He worked for the National Park Service primarily as a biologist for 33 years in a variety of locations, including nine different park area in Alaska. He was always drawn to exploration accounts of wild North America, particularly those that followed wild rivers and their sources such as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the mountain man Jedediah Smith, and the Northwest Company explorer David Thompson. He has accomplished major backpacking trips in the Thorofare region of Yellowstone, Katmai National Park in Alaska and Fjordlands National Park in New Zealand. His first wild country canoe trip was in 1967 when he floated northern Manitoba's Deer River to the Churchill River. Since then, he has completed many wilderness canoe trips in the Minnesota's Boundary Waters, rivers in arctic Canada west of Hudson Bay, and in Alaska. He was a canoeing guide for two years at the Boy Scouts High Adventure Matagamon Canoe Base in northern Maine and participated in a whitewater rafting trip through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. Geoffrey now lives with his wife Kristi Link near Negaunee in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

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