Day 4 was Friday, June 27th. Mingo usually calls at night so I went about my business during the day. As 8:30ish (CST) approaches, I started getting anxious, ready to hear what he encountered today on the water. Nine o’clock rolled around. Nine-thirty. Ten o’clock. Still no call. Well, I guess I’ll just head to bed, I figured.

Saturday morning my husband and I woke up and went yard sale-ing for a bit. It wasn’t until we returned home that I realized I’d completely walked out of the house without my phone. Ack! There were two messages waiting – one from my dad and one from Sharron.

“Hey, we’re safe on an island upriver from Fort Yukon,” was all Mingo recorded before the sat phone dropped the signal. OK, that’s good news.

After listening to the next message from Sharron and calling to follow up, I learned that Mingo ran into some wind problems on the river. He and Ulley found an island to hang out on and ended up putting in late (around 10 pm Alaska time). His shoulder was still hurting. He got to see and photograph a lynx! And he and Ulley had a new group-mate, a guy from Sweden joined up with them.

As I hung up the phone I thought that this is truly turning into an adventure, the type you only read about in storybooks. Yet this was one Mingo was actually living. How lucky!

PS – GPS coordinates of the island they stayed on were 65 degrees 5759 North 14 degrees 4041 West.