By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
It took Jesse Deubel only half a mile of dragging his loaded packraft along an unnamed tributary of Alaska’s Charley River — scrambling through thorns and berry bushes and seeing grizzly sign at every turn — before he considered giving up his grand travel plans and triggering the emergency rescue beacon on his satellite phone.
Pulling the plug on the trip would be a drastic move. Deubel had paid serious money to get to the spot. He had flown from New Mexico to Fairbanks, Alaska, before catching a ride to a remote village and then hopping a bush plane to be deposited on a lonely tundra runway in some of the wildest country on earth.
If Deubel broke down and called for help, he’d be on the hook for untold thousands more for the cost of getting flown out. And then there’d be the embarrassment factor. He steeled himself and pushed on.
“It was super covered in willows and brush, blueberries and thorns, it was an awful experience,” Deubel said of pulling his raft along the overgrown, 3-foot wide stream. But within a mile or so, it joined a 30-foot wide stream, itself an unnamed tributary of the Charley River. He was ready to start paddling on his solo adventure.
Deubel, the executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, had roughly 110 river miles to go before he’d reach the confluence of the Charley River and the Yukon River. From there, he’d travel further downstream to the tiny village of Circle, Alaska, and start his journey home.
Along the way, Deubel would flip his raft one time and get tossed out of the raft another time. He killed a caribou and helped another hunter he met along the way. And he spent 16 nights alone, pondering what brought him to this place.
Deubel says he came back to Alaska in August 2020 to prove something to himself. A seasoned elk- and deer hunter in his native New Mexico, his last hunting trip to Alaska had left him shaken.
Deubel and a partner had rafted Alaska’s Fortymile River in 2016, hunting for moose. A mishap with bear spray left Deubel with chemical burns and he relied heavily on his partner to make it through the trip. He had felt compelled to return to Alaska to establish whether he had what it takes to survive an extended trip there by himself, on his own terms.
“Ever since then, I just had this kind of feeling in my body, uncertainty as to whether or not I could have done that trip alone, and I wasn’t sure that I could have,” Deubel said of his 2016 experience. “”This trip was kind of a way to prove to myself that I had the ability to do this trip solo, that I could be self-reliant enough to successfully complete the trip without another person.”
On that 2016 trip, Deubel said he became intrigued by the caribou he saw. Some passed close enough to him that he heard a clicking sound caused by a tendon passing over a bone in their legs as they walked. He wanted to hunt them.
Deubel will discuss his trip at the federation’s Wildlife Wednesday event for September. Deubel’s online presentation will start at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 9. Register in advance for the meeting HERE.
Deubel took his caribou with a rifle about a third of the way down the Charley River. In deciding when to kill one, he said he had to consider that he didn’t want the extra weight of the meat when he ran the most challenging rapids, but also didn’t want to wait so long that he traveled out of the migration route of the Fortymile Herd he was hunting.
“I saw caribou for two days after I saw mine, and then I never saw another caribou,” Deubel said. He stowed the meat in the raft, where the proximity to the water kept it cold. At night, he strung the meat in trees to allow cold air to circulate around it. He ate caribou on the trip, but said some nights he was so tired that it was easier to fire up his stove and boil some of the dehydrated food he had brought along.
In his talk, Deubel said he’ll discuss planning, gear selection, meat-processing and other aspects of planning an out-of-state trip.
“Basically tell my story, but also provide some helpful information about hunting out of state in general,” Deubel said of his talk. He said he’ll discuss the different types of trips people could schedule, based on risk, the physical effort involved, cost and other factors.
Deubel said he also plans to put in a special plug for his raft, an Alpacka Forager. He said he came away from the trip deeply impressed with its design and performance. The rafts are handmade in Mancos, Colo., to withstand the toughest white water. “I really was impressed with that particular vessel,” he said, noting that he had trusted it with his life.