100 miles on the tracks of the Calusa

The Great Calusa Blueway is an almost 200-mile-long paddling trail off the Gulf coast near Fort Myers. Here Dirk Rohrbach follows the tracks of the Calusa Indians who were once settling in this region in Florida’s Southwest.

„This is the top of the mound. It’s a nice sunny spot.“, says Mike Hammond. It only took us a few minutes to get here. A short trail through a thick forest of mangroves leads from the water to the top of the hill. „This is the highest point in Lee County“, says Mike. „30 feet above water.“ All thanks to the countless shells that the Calusa had piled over many generations to form this man-made hill. „Supposedly the more important you were the higher up on the mound you’d be.“, says Mike. He is the coordinator of the Calusa Blueway and joins me for my first leg. „Back then you’d be able look out and see your enemies approaching. You get a nicer breeze and if there’s a flood you’re up higher.“
 

 
Mound Key is the first stop on my 100-mile-long journey following the tracks of the Calusa for a week. Today the small island made out of tons of shells is a state park, roughly one kilometer long, that you can only reach from the water. Mike and I started with our sea kayaks in the morning on the Estero River. After a short stretch on the river we were reaching the Estero Bay, separated from the Gulf of Mexico through a series of narrow barrier islands. It is sunny and windy, making it difficult for us to keep the course.

Initially I struggle a bit with the boat. In the past I have almost solely traveled in canoes, years ago I even built one out of birch bark to then paddle the entire Yukon River from the headlakes to the Bering Sea, more than 3000 kilometers. Now, I am sitting in a kayak, wearing a life vest and spray skirt that covers the entire cockpit. It is supposed to protect from spray water from the paddles and the waves. There are two hatches for loading the gear into the boat and a rudder, that I can flip in the water if necessary to correct the course via pedals.

The landscape is also something that I need to get used to. Beyond the mangroves and small islands houses and hotel complexes line the shore. On the horizon a few wide bridges expand across the water and connect the barrier islands with the mainland. Paddling has always been a way for me to escape into the wild, away from civilization and to places that are otherwise impossible to get to. Here, paddling also becomes an urban adventure.

But on Mound Key I step into a different, almost enchanted world. The island was the ceremonial center of the Calusa when the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century trying to settle in the area. Initially they failed. Because the Calusa were known as fierce people pushing the intruders back. In contrast to other tribes in what now is Florida they did not grow grains or vegetables but lived primarily of fishing. And they gathered mussels, using their shells to wrest land from the sea. Dozens of islands were formed that way over the centuries before the Calusa, like all the other tribes, had to surrender facing the superior numbers of Europeans and finally gave up there territory in the 18th century. Today there are no more descendants but a few of their islands survived and are now preserved and studied by archaeologists.

„The Calusa Indians were here for over 600 years and they built this mound.“, says Alison Giesen in the Mound House that Mike and I are paddling to next. It is located on Estero Island, a narrow stretch of land off the coast. „You were at Mound Key. That was their capital. Their leaders, their noble were living there. And this would be like a small community within the Calusa people. So you were here at a little residential mound.“, Alison continues. Today there is nothing left. A few years ago the city of Fort Myers accquired and restored the almost 100 year old house sitting on the property along the water. They took out the added swimming pool and discovered layers of shells, several feet thick, originally heaped up by the Calusa.

 
„Many historians and archaeologists often refer to the Calusa as the shell people not just because they built mounds but because they used shells for making jewelry, tools, even weapons.“, says Dexter Norris. The biologist also works for the Mound House, that recenty has been added to the National Register of historic buildings. On a picnic table next to the house Dexter has put a few big shells, a necklace made of small shells and a crude knife. „It’s made out of a shark’s tooth on the end of a stick. Sharks are a great commodity around here and they would have been back then. You get meat, you get the teeth. You also have the skin which could be used as a sandpaper. Shark skin’s very, very rough and if you let it dry you’ve got ancient sandpaper right there.“, he explains. Next to it sits a small carved, wooden sculpture on the table. It depicts a Calusa in a dug-out pushing his boat with a stick. „There had been some very large dug-out canoes uncovered made out of pine or cypress.“, says Dexter. „People would fell the tree off-site and cut off some of the larger branches. And then they would have brought the trunk more or less back to this type of site where the community would have gotten involved in hacking out pieces and even selectively burning out pieces and scraping it and within about two weeks you’d have a canoe ready to go.“
 
 

 
 
It averaged fifteen feet in length, just like my sleek sea-kayak. In the afternoon I push it back into the water, Mike can’t continue and says goodbye. I close the spray skirt and paddle back into the mangroves. The waterway through the thick maze of trees and bushes narrows. The landscape here seems to be unchanged since the time of the Calusa, except for a few markers in the water showing the way.

Mangrove forests are among the most important and remarkable ecosystems in the world. More than 100 different species exist, protecting the estuaries along the coasts. They prevent erosion and are habitat for countless fish, crabs and birds, which nest in the trees and bushes.

 
 

 
 
Late in the afternoon I leave the idyll of the mangrove tunnels to paddle back into the open water and across the bay towards Fort Myers Beach. Here, I will spend my first night, in a motel, that you can paddle to. A short dock in one of the canals enables me to land directly in front of my room. The sun sinks in the west over the Gulf of Mexico. In the next days I want to paddle out there as well. But tomorrow I am going to stay in the bay again, a wise decision as I will soon find out.
 

Day 2

30 Feet of Luxury

Dirk strands in the middle of the night in an oasis for snowbirds on the water.

„I don’t like to think I’m a snowbird because I don’t think I’m that old yet.“ Becky is laughing loudly and hoarsely. „I love to travel. I love to see different places. It’s just the fact of being free after so many years of being tied down.“ She is referring to work and family. The children are old enough and have their own lives now. And after Becky’s husband Billy retired a few years ago they have been traveling across America in their luxurios 30-foot RV. Air condition, propane stove, dish washer, bathroom, shower, internet, they lack nothing. „I can even watch TV while we are driving. We have in-motion satellite, so we can get TV anywhere, anytime.“, says Becky. Their bus cost a quarter million dollars. „The minute you drive it off the lot it goes down. So, it’s not a good investment, because when we are going to sell this we’re not gonna make money.“ Unlike a house or home, Becky says. „The beautiful thing about traveling in a motorhome is in the community. We do get to meet nice people like yourself that come by and we get to share.“, adds Billy. I meet them in Matlacha, between Cape Coral and Pine Island, Florida’s largest island. Until the early 1990s people here lived off fishing. Then the nets were banned to protect the species. Today Matlacha is a quaint artsy community with more than 600 people, galleries, boutiques and cafés. The small RV park of Becky and Billy has only nine spots, all occupied by travelers camping here permantly for several months to escape from winter. They pay almost 2000 dollars per month including electricity, water, internet and cable TV.
 
 

 
 
When I finally arrived here in the dark last night the dock helped me find the way. It was low tide and windy in the morning, I had to pull my kayak for some time to be able to make distance. That was time consuming, and because the days are short now in January I had to paddle until way after sunset. Still better than being out in the gulf, where the waves would have been too dangerous. Every now and then my headlamp would catch a marker in the water, reassuring me that I was on the right path. But only when I saw the lights along the dock I could finally relax.

It was pitch-black by now and I was thankful for Billy’s invitation to camp on the white beach for the night. I changed my soaked clothes and was allowed to help myself to the homemade dinner buffet. „We’ll do a Mexican night, an Italian night. When people are going to be leaving we have a little get together for those people.“, Becky tells me the next morning in their RV. Currently she and her husband are the campground hosts and take care of the park. „For anybody who is getting close to retirement, the RV life and traveling is the way to go.“, says Becky and laughs again.

Day 3

Robinson on the Shell Island

For forty years Ranger Ed has been living with mosquitoes, squirrels and hurricanes, but without electricity and running water.

The wind has become a storm, ruffling the treetops of the palms. I leave anyway and want to paddle to another shell island. Calusa Island is situated at the northern most tip of Pine Island. I have to paddle roughly ten kilometers of open water, staying close to shore until I can enter a protected bay that separates Calusa Island from the main island.

„Recently we had archaeologists and geologists out here. One of them took samples and they carbon dated this site to about 1200 B.C.“, says Ed Chapin. He’s been living here on Calusa Island for more than forty years, alone. „The beach is now eroding. And I’ve seen it go 40 feet in 40 years. So, the sea level is rising.“ The erosion has exposed numerous artefacts that help the scientists to learn more about the Calusa and inhabitants that potenially came here before them to live along the coast. Ed hails from Ohio but came to Florida as a teenager. I had contacted him via phone to meet with him on the north beach of the small island in the afternoon. He is wearing camouflage pants, a faded shirt that once may have been red and a blue cap with the logo of the Calusa Land Trust. This organisation bought Calusa Island and other properties to protect them from the development through investors and to keep them in the most natural state instead. Ed works as sort of a ranger and occupies a small, two-story building with a loft. „I’ve been off the grid for 40 years. I don’t have running water, I’ve got an outhouse, I collect rainwater and I have batteries for lights and fans. It’s not for everybody.“ Partly because of the mosquitoes and hurricanes.

Visits by other people are rare. On the weekends a few paddlers and motorboats may land here for a picnic or a tour of the property. Otherwise Ed keeps busy as a mobile mechanic working on the engines of fishing boats and yachts. But it is the solitude on the island that is most appealing to him. A few squirrels are his company, he feeds them peanuts. “I never feel alone“, Ed says. He enjoys the peace and quiet and his life as a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. „Let me tell you one other thing. Humans are not my favorite species of animal.“

Ed fascinates me, like all people who are doing their thing without caring for any conventions. And quite often they seem to be a lot happier than the harsh conditions they are living in may suggest.

 
I get back into my boat, that has almost become as familiar to me as my birch bark canoe. It is just as stable but way less susceptible for wind and braves even the highest waves. Here within the bay they are blocked off by the barrier islands like Cayo Costa, my next destination. This island is roughly ten kilometers long and only accessible by water. I want to spend the night in a small state park on the north end. Thick clouds move in, thunderstorms are in the forecast for later. To be safe I am not paddling straight west where Cayo Costa would be just ten kilometers away but want to jump from island to island. That means quite some extra miles but a safe shore would be in reach if necessary. First, I aim for Useppa, also a shell island of the Calusa and today a luxurios private club. From there it is not even an hour of paddling to Cayo Costa despite the head wind. I reach the beach just before the storm hits.

„This is one of the last natural and unspoiled islands you’re going to find, especially down in southwest Florida.“, says ranger Bill Nash. “It’s a very important habitat for nesting shorebirds and sea turtles. And the state wanted to acquire this land to keep it from getting developed so that we could have a good barrier island for the natural resources and natural communities.“ For visitors there are trails, a small campground, a few cabins and more than fifteen kilometers of sandy beaches that may have looked just the same for the past thousands of years. „A lot of times you drive through Fort Myers and all you see is housing complexes, condos and golf courses.“, says Bill, who lives on the island together with three other rangers. „We want people to see what we call the real Florida. This is what Florida looked like before man got here.“ Indeed, that’s the appeal of my journey. Even though I am not completey in the wilderness out on the water and motor boats, sailboats and the buildings along the shore remind me of the civilized coast my kayak brings me to impenetrable mangrove forests, idyllic bays and lonesome beaches with palm trees.

 
 



 
 
The first heavy drops hit the ground when I pitch my tent. I rush under the palm roof of a nearby shelter that’s open to all sides. I spread the entire gear on the benches to dry them and boil water on the camping stove for a quick pouch of soup. Then I walk through the pouring rain over to the bath house. Two outdoor showers are located behind the building. The water is cold and refreshing. Tired and a little bit cleaner I crawl into my sleeping bag.

Day 4

Hammerhead Sharks, Shell Scientists and Wild Waves

Florida’s Westcoast has more to offer than sandy white beaches.

The wind has pushed the rain away over night. But now there are whitecaps even in the bay. Usually an indication that it is too stormy and dangerous to paddle. I want to try it anyway, trusting in my boat as I slip back into the water and stay within Pine Island Sound. The open sea on the other side would have been wild and appealing but probably also too risky. Close to shore I push on against the wind and waves.
 
 

 
 

I soon reach the end of Cayo Costa. Now I need to cross Captiva Pass, an almost one kilometer wide opening between the two barrier islands of Cayo Costa and Captiva. Here the strong wind forces high waves from the Gulf of Mexico right into Pine Island Sound. Additionally, the tides are stirring up the water, resulting in weird currents and gigantic swells. The breakes roll over my deck and the spray skirt. I try to keep the balance and have to correct my course so the waves don’t flip the boat. The progress is gruelingly slow. I think about what Ranger Bill told me about the hammerhead sharks hunting for tarpon in the deep waters of the passes. These fishes shine silvery and can grow over two meters in length. My boat is more than twice as long and shines white, but in the midst of a chase for food that may give room for misjudgement. Undeterred I paddle on while keeping an eye on triangular dorsal fins. Fortunately, I don’t see any and after a very slow half an hour I finally reach Captiva Island.
 
 




 
 
In the past the island was inhabited by the Calusa, today vacation homes and resorts line the beaches. Picture-perfect Florida. Snow-white sand, palm trees, sun umbrellas. Families enjoy the green water, children beachcombing for shells. The reason that these exist here in greater numbers than almost anywhere else in the world lies in the geology. „The west coast of Florida has a very broad continental shelf.“, says José Leal. The Brasilian native is a marine biologist and the science director of the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on Sanibel Island, the only shell museum in America. „Florida is at least twice as wide under water than it is above water. A lot of mollusks are growing there. So if there is a storm, if there is a changing current, if there is a strong wind all the shells are pushed onto the beach.“ Mollusks are the animals that produce the shells to protect their vulnerable body. „Mollusks are the most diverse group of animals in the ocean. So they play major roles in food webs and in the structure of the living planet.“, says Dr. Leal. It is estimated that there are over 80.000 different species of mollusks. Squid and octopus belong just as much as snails. But the majority lives in the ocean and really likes Florida’s shallow waters.

Day 5

Ding Darling

How a Cartoonist from Michigan became a bird conservationist in Florida.

„I was sitting out on the grass flats on a just spectacular blue sky day with flat smooth water when about a six foot reef tip shark paddled up to me.“, says Mark Melancon. „He scared me as much as I scared him because he turned around and bolted in the other direction and threw a foot and a half wake going away from me.“ The shark was almost two meters long and harmless, usually. Other than a bull shark. „I was with my paddle club and we were doing a group paddle and I had turned around on my board and face backwards to take a picture of the group.“, Mark continues. „ And all of a sudden my board exploded out of the water.“ This story also had a happy ending. Instead of the aggressive shark that Mark intinially suspected, it turned out to be a good-natured manatee being responsible for the surprise attack.
 
 

 
 
Mark is my guide this morning. We want to fish, he from his board, me from my kayak. That is becoming increasingly popular here in Florida, as an alternative to deep-sea fishing with expensive powerboats. We paddle out of the little bay in the north of Sanibel and go east first, back into Pine Island Sound, that I have almost circumnavigated since I started a few days ago. Mark was born in Louisiana but he’s been living on Sanibel for years, owns a gym and rents out stand-up paddleboards. „I can’t tell you how much I love it here. It’s the first time I’ve put down roots since I was a kid.“, he says. In the afternoon we throw out the lines again. People are waving from a viewing platform on the shore. We have reached the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, that covers a great portion of Sanibel’s east coast.

„We have over 250 different types of birds throughout the year.“, says ranger Toni Westland. „The majority of them are snowbirds. They’re here January through April.“ Toni welcomes Mark and me as we land on a small beach within the refuge. Just like the birds the warm weather lured her in. Originally Toni is from Wisconsin. „I don’t like snow. At a young age I went ice fishing and I used to go deer hunting, bear hunting in the cold. But then I realized you could do all that fun stuff in the warmth.“ She has been working in the Ding Darling Refuge for the past sixteen years. It is named after cartoonist Ding Darling who became famous for his newspaper cartoons a hundred years ago.

„He also was a duck hunter.“, says Toni. „And he decided if I’m going to hunt the land and take the resources, the hunters should also be giving back and conserve the resources.“ Darling became an activist and initiated the duck stamp, in 1934 he drew the first one. Since then hunters have to purchase the stamps before going after water fowl. The money coming from the stamps is used to create and establish refuges and conservation areas. „This was designated the Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge in 1945. Because of him. And then they renamed it in his honor.“, says Toni. It’s a paradise not only for the birds but also for the many birders who come regularly to watch and observe them. American pelicans, ospreys, herons, roseate spoonbills and the rare mangrove cuckoo. The list of birds you can see here is long. „In the summer the tides fluctuate a lot and we will actually see stingrays in here, sharks, manatees and dolphins“, says Toni. „Oh, it’s beautiful out here.“
 

Day 6

Finish With Police Siren

Dirk paddles the last miles across the tropical paradise.

My last day on the water. Susan picks me up in the morning, with her official vehicle, a brawny powerboat with two equally immense motors and a siren. She is working for the marine unit of the sheriff department in Lee County, that covers the city of Fort Myers and the islands I have visited. „We assist Fish and Wildlife with all their laws that they enforce.“, she tells me. „We also work hand in hand with the Coast Guard.“
 

But today Susan will escort me to the take-out at the Sanibel Causeway, using her police siren, of course. „To let everybody know where we’re going “, she says and starts the engine. Susan is here because of Nancy McPhee who initiated the Calusa Blueway and asked her to come. Nancy accompanies me as well, together with Mike. He traded his kayak for a paddleboard so Nancy can paddle his wooden boat. „Long ago the Calusa paddled these waters, they lived off the waters, they harvested fish.“, says Nancy. „And with the Calusa Blueway the idea was to just get in a canoe and paddle from one end of the county to the other and along the way you’re experiencing a little bit of everything we have to offer here. Whether it’s in a mangrove tunnel or near the fish stocks. You’re immersed, sitting in a craft on top of the water and you’re visited by manatee and dolphins.“ And Mike adds, „It’s really cool that the Calusa Blueway connects everybody just like when the Calusas were here. The water still connects us all. I love it.“

© Video Day 5: Matt Steeves

Westworld

Everything in the small town of Moab evolves around outdoor activities. During the high season hundreds of thousands of visitors are pulled in by the spectacular nature. Dirk Rohrbach set out to explore.

Hiking, rafting, canyoneering and, of course, mountain biking. With what should I start with, having just five days? So many options. Moab is a paradise, whose beauty captures everybody as soon as you pull off Interstate 70 and turn south on Highway 191. Here, nature showcases the most spectacular desert landscapes ever sculpted by a creator. Bright red rock formations, thousands of massive, surreal sandstone arches, deep, cool canyons carved by the emerald green Colorado River in millions of years.

I just can’t let go of the camera in my hands!

This is not my first visit to the area. I’ve been here before, just passing through on my way from Colorado to Alaska. It was the end of May, the start of the tourist season, when thousands of visitors flock daily into the small town. Arches National Park itself, at the gates of Moab, draws more than 1,5 million people annually. Almost everybody comes by car or RV, trying to squeeze through the main street during the day. After only a short night camping along the Colorado I fled back then. Now the premises are much more promising. With peak season being over there is still a lot going on, but it feels a little slower paced. However, this week could become quite turbulent again. The annual Moab Ho-Down is set, a colorful festival all about mountain biking. The experts are testing their skills with various races and competitions and fans can try out the world-class trails and celebrate with movies, a community ride and campfires.

 
 

 
 
But first, I want to explore the canyons. Michelle is my guide. «Those walls over there, gleaming in the sunshine, are called Wall Street. One of the easiest and most accessible climbing areas around here.» She points across the Colorado, where the road worms its way between steep rock walls and the river. «We got some petroglyphs right here to our left.» I can’t really see the paintings passing by in the car but will check them out on my way back later. Shortly after, we are pulling into a small parking area. It only took us fifteen minutes to get here from downtown Moab.

Adventure is within reach everywhere.

Ours for now is called Hypatia Canyon, a four mile long hike through rocky canyons and over petrified sand dunes to three rappels. Michelle has been here many times. «Everytime it’s different. New wildflowers are blooming, something’s turning yellow, leaves are falling off. It has just rained, so everything’s greener. Where the sunlight hits the rock changes with the season. The temperatures change with the season. You notice different colors. Do you see that white stripe up on the rock there? That’s a layer of limestone. Normally this used to be a really dry area with those sand dunes everywhere. And then there might have been a couple hundred thousand years where it was much wetter, there’d actually be a lake here. And then all the animals living in the lake died, creating sandstone at the bottom. Every time I’m surprised by something.»

During high season Michelle guides up to ten groups per week into the canyons. «There are definitely days when you feel tired. The sand feels a little deeper, the pack feels a little heavier», she jokes. But the people often are super-psyched about being out here, and that is contagious.

After one and a half hours we are approaching our first rappel. The trail until there has been steep, rather climbing over rocks than walking on a trail. But now we have reached a high plateau, where the view takes my breath away, even without the physical exercise. The sun beams from the deep blue, cloudless sky onto the red rock fins, that are reaching all the way to the horizon in gentle verves. In all directions narrow canyons are trenching the rock. Colorado mountains are shimmering from a distance. We deeply breathe in the clear dry air, pausing for a moment. Speechless.

«This is a 130 feet drop down there», Michelle breaks the silence. A few wind-beaten junipers are lining the rock edge, where we want to rappel from in just a few minutes. Exactly across, the giant Teardrop Arch swings across the canyon. We can hardly see the shady bottom, where we intend to land on. While Michelle starts preparing the ropes, I take off my backpack she gave me, scratched from many tight canyon walls. I put on the helmet and climbing harness and slip into the working gloves from the hardware store. They will protect the hands from heat caused by friction of the lines while rappeling. Michelle anchors the lines at one of the junipers. «I would guess it’s a couple of hundred years old. Maybe you think it’s not that big, but the root structure is twice as big as what we see here. There are roots growing into all the little crevasses around us. This guy is not going anywhere», she tries to calm me down after the rope is connected to my harness and I slowly start to shift my weight backward, my heart pounding. In small steps I now start to walk towards the rock edge, noticing how all the muscles seem to harden. Weird feeling. And a plea of the basic instinct that I trustfully hand over to Michelle as she secures me while I tumble into the unknown.

I risk glancing down into the deep, unveiling like a scary black throat below me.

Now, I become even tighter and refocus on the rope in front of me. Keep it tight, release it, step by step. The closer I get to the bottom, the more my tightness vanishes. I finally reach the bottom. Made it! The adrenaline still pumping through my veins. I can feel the rush as I look around, watching the play between light and shade in the canyon, observing how the sunrays first graze the arch and then touch the fine, red sand next to me. Let’s do it again! Right away!

«I like the idea that it’s got all these twists and turns, obstacles up and down, you never know what’s around the corner», Michelle raves about canyoneering after rappelling down to me. Next, we slide across the rock into a small, waist-deep pool of ice cold, muddy water. Then the canyon widens, the leaves of cottonwood trees rattle in the breeze as the sun dries us while we continue hiking.

 
 
 
 
In the next hour we will crawl over a wedged trunk through a small gorge, plunge into another pool and rappel two more times, the last one being a stunning 100 feet drop, levitating. Then my first adventure in the outdoor paradise ends. And I already realize, that it doesn’t take much to hopelessly fall in love with this place.

«I like the community here, that always supports each other. There’s always somebody ready to climb. There are so many things to do here.» Michelle still sounds excited, even after many years living in Moab.

«And then looking at the scenery around you, the colors, red rocks, blue skies, green trees, the snow on the rock. Out here there’s plenty of open space, that’s part of why I moved here. And I like the fact that it’s a small town. It’s cool that people travel a long distance to see what we have to offer.»

BY MOUNTAINBIKE THROUGH THE CANYONLANDS

To The Colorado River

My next adventure starts in Canyonlands National Park.

Delicate Arch is probably the most photographed rock arch in the world, the superstar among the many natural wonders in Utah. It’s displayed on the most popular license plate of the state and in every tourist brochure. One could not have placed this landmark at a more spectacular spot: 60 feet tall, free-standing, on the edge of a natural rock basin. No wonder many visitors to Arches National Park are crawling across the slick rock in one line like ants to have their picture taken directly underneath, after an hour of hiking. If you’re looking for little fewer crowds, try Canyonlands National Park with only half as many visitors per year as Arches. But that’s still roughly 750.000.

«I picked this particular tour because there’s a fair amount of downhill, which means not a lot of pedaling. And that was very, very attractive!» Bob Matheson makes no secret, that he would like to keep the physical challenge limited in order to be able to enjoy the sensational views better. We are six this morning, four mountain bike novices and two guides. One will steer the support vehicle, the other will guide us on the bike. A final brief look, first on the map then on the scenery. Amazing! Wish I was a poet, potentially finding a few more elaborate words to describe it in a more eloquent way. One of the most spectacular and dangerous roads winds through the canyon directly in front of our eyes: The Shafer Trail.

Just a few days ago it almost became the fate of a trucker trusting his GPS more than his common sense. In one of the many switchbacks he maneuvered his eighteen-wheeler nearly into abyss. Hence, we start extremely cautious downhill, trying to control the speed on the rough trail by breaking intermittently. Glenn, who like Bob hails from Canada, does this in such a vigorous way, that his disc brakes run hot shortly after and guide Brian needs to extinguish it with water from his drinking bottle.

«I love deserts so I landed in Moab», Brian confesses, a gangling, always cheerful tall man, during the short break. «It’s clean and orderly and so quiet, too.»

«It’s like an open textbook of geology», his colleague Dave adds. «Different layers present themselves quite nicely. We’re looking at 250 million years of deposits here.» And they don’t always shine red. Some shimmer in a dark blue or greenish way and belong to the so-called Chinle-layer bearing uranium, that was exploited on a very large scale primarily in the 1940s and 50s. «That’s where we find the dinosaur fossils, as well», Brian reveals when we resume riding. We briefly stop at a petrified femur along the road and then roll down on a straight that leads directly into the horizon. After a 1200 feet drop we now need to get out of the saddle for the first time. Our first ascent follows the Colorado River meandering through the canyon 400 feet below us. On the left the mesa-plateau of Deadhorse Point State Park thrones, offering the best view of the180-oxbow which the river is conducting here.

In 1990 Ridley Scott was shooting the last scene of one of the most successful road movies of all time right there. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis played the best friends Thelma and Louise, who were chased by the police and steered their Ford Thunderbird over the cliffs.

We are having lunch where the two were racing into death at the end of the movie.

«It’s gonna be what we call a Rim-Tours-Deli-Sandwich!», Dave explains. After unfolding chairs to relax he is preparing a little feast and arranges a small buffet on a camping table. «We have some really good tater chips, fruit, cookies, all that good stuff.» Dave came to the area in the 80s for mountain biking. When he was offered a job in a local bike shop, he didn’t hesitate and left his home, Anchorage, Alaska, to move to Moab. «I can ride my bike for a much longer period of time on world-class trails, that’s why I stick around.» Bob and Glenn arrive, visibly exhausted from the last ascent to ‘Thelma & Louise Point’.

The list of movies filmed in and around Moab is long, going back all the way to the 50s, when John Ford was shooting his legendary westerns here starring John Wayne. Later TV productions followed, like the series ‘Westworld’ and blockbusters like ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘Star Trek’, but also flops like ‘After Earth’ with Will Smith and ‘The Lone Ranger’ featuring Johnny Depp. Brian spotted both of them during the filming from a distance. «Michael Schumacher used to come to town to ride the Slick Rock Trail back twice a day before his accident. He was easy to spot, he had the Colnago-Ferrari mountain bike back when carbon was ooh-lala», he remembers.

After lunch our two guides switch roles. Brian hops in the vehicle, Dave joins us on his bike. The trail now changes its profile, no more long descents; it goes up and down, not in an exhausting way but noticeably. Bob and Glenn fall back while Dave and I ride next to each other talking about life in Moab. It is ‚superfantastic’, Dave claims, but it also has its challenges. «Seems like everybody I know has two or three jobs. Housing and stuff can be challenging, but almost every night you get a killer sunset!»

Moab shares the fate of many natural paradises. Everybody wants to live where it’s beautiful, including the superrich, and even if it’s only for a weekend or a short vacation. They can afford a luxurious home, that remains empty most of the year, and boost the property prices. Seasonal workers with their income from salary and tips can’t keep up. But that deters nobody.

« I get to ride my bike every day, it’s a healthy lifestyle, out in the sun. Awesome!»

 
 

 
 
«We’re heading towards the potash mine area», Dave points out. «You should be able to see their evaporation ponds right over the hill here.» The mine is one of two remaining in the US exploiting potash to produce fertilizer. «It was established in 1965 and employs about 200 folks, definitely making its mark on the economy.» Before tourism started to boom in the 90s, mining was the most important industry in the region. We follow the tall mesh wire fence separating the mine area from the trail, climb a few hundred feet for the last time and then gently roll over rough gravel down to the Colorado River. There our little mountain bike-adventure ends, after about 20 miles total. «I am a little bit tired but very happy»! Bob rejoices upon arrival, right after putting his feet in the cool Colorado River water. And Dave adds:

«Another great day at the office, can’t wait to do it again! I love my job!»

THE MOAB HO-DOWN

Party, Race, Filmfestival

Even though California is viewed generally as the birthplace of mountain biking, the pros found their Eldorado in Utah.

Porcupine Rim, Captain Ahab, Dino-Flow or The Whole Enchilada are names of legendary trails in and around Moab. There are more than 100 total and growing because the trail system is constantly being expanded. At the end of October, the mountain bike scene gathers here for the annual Ho-Down, a bike and film-festival with various races, jump contests, movie nights and costume parties. «Now we started focusing on having it be a fundraiser for our local bike park.», says Tracy Bentley, who created the festival in 2006.

Tracy originally came to Moab from Missouri in the late 90s and runs the Chile Pepper Bike Shop, one of the largest in town. «The park has beginner to expert-level jump lines, there’s a skills area and a pump track», she explains, the revenue from the Festival is used for maintenance and to finally build a bathroom facility. «We’ve also given some of the money we’ve raised to the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management, to do some trail survey and for new trail development.»

A community ride across town kicks off the festival, with several dozens of riders, many of them disguised and already tipsy. «Moab has become a pretty artsy community», Matt Hebberds thinks, one of the riders. Matt is an icon, a member of the Mountainbike Hall of Fame, who moved to Moab from California in 1990 and owns a company offering tours.
«When I moved here, there was like four bikers. And since that time it has just expanded with bicyclists, activists, artists. It has definitely become a really cool community.» And most everybody in the industry doesn’t look at the others as competitors but as part of the community connected through the love for biking and the outdoors. That is especially true for the participants of the races over the weekend.
I borrowed a bike from Tracy, the race track is only accessible by foot or bike. It is Saturday morning, perfect conditions, pleasantly cool, the sun shining proudly from the familiar steel-blue sky. And I fail right away.

The trail is too challenging, my skills as a mountain bike novice too botched.

 
 

 
 
To prevent a fatal crash I dismount and proceed by foot pushing the bike. After a steep half-hour uphill I reach the finish area for the first stage of the race. Almost every minute a rider crosses the blue ribbon on the trail, that marks the time measurement. «It’s my first race ever!», confesses Dustin from Denver, who has just arrived. «It was fun. It’s a fast technical, so as long as you keep your weight back, you’re usually pretty good.»

I already get dizzy just watching. Around 60 riders have joined the race this year, Andrew and Brody being most likely the youngest. They are twelve and eleven years old, both from Aspen, in Colorado as well. «It was an awesome course. I crashed and hurt myself on the chin. And I bent my bars down a little. But I like the exhilaration!», Andrew beams. «I kinda got lost and couldn’t find the trail. But it was good», Brody adds. They started mountain biking at the early age of three and want to become pros, of course.

«Mountain biking brings me closer to God. Being able to ride is a good way to communicate with him. And spending time in God’s creation is just amazing!»

Joshua Barnes, 26, from Grand Junction, Colorado, wants to become a pilot. The races provide a good excuse to run as fast as he can, he says. Now Kristin crosses the finish line, completely out of breath. Years ago, she came as a tourist from Florida to town but now lives in Moab and works for one of the outfitters and in a restaurant. «It was the people, the beauty, the endless recreation. I’ve been to a lot of places and keep looking for the next place to move. But there is no better place than this one. Don’t be telling too many people!» she jokes, adding, everybody is happy here, because they’re getting to do what they want all the time.

In fact, over the past days I actually have only met people appearing extremely relaxed and content. Maybe that’s the magic of Moab, irresistible like the beauty of nature and the urge to constantly wanting to be outside to not miss anything. What the heck! I just need to come back to Moab for more of the numerous possible adventures here.

Big River

»Big River« is what the Athabascan Indians call the Yukon. It’s one of the mightiest rivers on the planet. In this episode, Dirk Rohrbach travels the river all the way to the Bering Sea in a self-made canoe.

To this day, it serves as the main artery for the villages in the heart of Alaska with no access to roads. The river became legendary during the gold rush in the nineteenth century, and it gained a mythical status through the novels of Jack London, Robert Service and Pierre Berton. This is my third journey to the Bering Sea along the Big River, and once again I’m back in the birch bark canoe I made for my solo trip a couple of years ago. But this time, instead of starting my journey at the Yukon’s headlakes in Canada, I’m setting off from a colossal structure in the heart of Alaska.

All packed and ready to go, I push my canoe into the water. Rain from the mountains has caused the water level in the Yukon to rise substantially. And it looks like the weather’s about to take a turn for the worse – according to the forecast, the mid-summer heat of the past few days is due to be followed by cool temperatures and some stormy conditions.

I want to camp on river islands whenever I can on this trip. These islands offer the best protection against mosquitoes and bears. They’re usually too windy for the former and too uninteresting for the latter, or so canoeists naively believe.

I can most definitely say I have no desire to encounter members of either species. A nice bear photo would be great – with a telephoto lens, of course.

But what I really want to focus on are the villages along the river. I’m fascinated by the lifestyle and I want to document how the villagers live. So on I go, and three days later, I find myself at an important intersection in the remote Nordic wilderness.

The indigenous peoples used to do their trading here, where Alaska’s two biggest rivers meet: the Yukon and Tanana River. Like many other villages, the one that exists here today was only founded in the nineteenth century, when it started out as a trading post and fort. Although there are just 250 people living in Tanana, it’s regarded as the hub of the Interior Alaska’s bush. That’s because of its strategic riverside location and its close proximity to the Elliott Highway, which is currently being extended. When it’s complete, the highway will connect Tanana to Alaska’s meager road network so that people can finally travel to the metropolis of Fairbanks by car. A lot of the locals reckon this will benefit them and make life a little more affordable, which includes lower prices for the store managed by Dale and Cynthia Erickson on the riverbank.
 
 

 
 
“Life in the city is a lot easier than living in the village,” says Cynthia, explaining why so many people have left the bush. “Housing is cheaper and you don’t have to cut wood or haul water.” She’s thrilled about the new highway. “It’s gonna open up a whole other world for us. Cheaper supplies, fuel and maybe some tourism.” Until now, most of the goods are flown in by plane. That’s expensive, of course, and the flights are often cancelled when the weather’s bad, meaning no fresh food supplies for days.
 
 

 
 

In the evening, we sit in front of the big window in the upper story of the building that’s home to her store and the local post office. We chat about Cynthia’s German roots: “The Germans were up here chasing my grandmother. Hello?”, she jests. She also has Athabascan ancestors. “And some Yup’ik Eskimo. So, we’re related all the way down to Holy Cross, at the end of the Yukon. Cynthia says the German in her comes out when she shows her stubborn side. She tells me almost all the residents of Tanana are Athabascan Indians: “We feel Indian, I feel Indian, because I was raised Indian, but I’m going to the store and buying microwave sandwiches, pizza and Pepsi. And when your culture is living off the land, you know you’re hunting, you’re fishing, you’re packing water, you’re cutting wood, I mean that’s a lack of identity. The government is coming and really taking your pride and self-respect. You’re living on welfare, you’re in a free house, everything is given to you, so that’s really broken up the family foundation and the dynamics.” So, as well-intended as the supposed state and private aid initiatives may be, the truth is that they often lead to dependency. We all know the consequences, some are even cataclysmic: alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. Very few places have suicide rates as high as they are out here in the Alaskan bush, Cynthia tells me. She wanted to do something about it, so she decided to organize regular meetings for kids and adolescents: game nights and handicraft events; things like that. This ad-lib refuge evolved into a permanent institution. “We called it “My Grandma’s House”. Because generally most of us have a good grandma. You know, it’s moose soup and fresh bread and grandma’s love. So it was a place of comfort and happiness.”
 
 

 
 
Strung along the banks of the Yukon are various smokehouses. This is where fish is gutted before it’s hung up to be dried or smoked. The shacks are pretty basic in their construction: a couple of plywood boards, some corrugated iron and blue tarp you see everywhere in Alaska. That’s it. Most of the salmon caught in the Yukon are scooped up on with fish wheels, some of which are enormous. The gigantic wire baskets rotate on a floating raft secured in the eddies close to the shore. They’re powered by the current of the Yukon itself, like perfect instruments of perpetual motion. The locals tell me hundreds of fish may be caught from the river this way every day, confirming the success of these archaic yet ingenious fishing machines.
 
 

 
 
As the Yukon River flows past Tanana, it is almost a mile wide with a strong current. After merging with the masses of muddy water from the Tanana River a couple of miles upriver it becomes an even mightier force and ultimately Alaska’s river, even though its head lakes are in Canada.
People’s eyes light up when they talk about the Yukon.
Resonating with their words is a combination of respect, awe and gratitude. “It’s just kind of like blood flowing through your body, it’s just part of you. You could leave for a while, but it’s the call of the wild, that’s calling you back home. It’s just part of you.” Cynthia says, adding in her characteristic dry tone: “And if you ever leave, and go back to Germany, then you wanna come back. See, we can’t get rid of you!

 
 

 
 
The sun is shining and the air is completely still when I leave Tanana the next day. Although the conditions are perfect, I stay close to the right bank as I paddle along the river. True, I can’t always make the most of the strongest current while I’m coasting, but I’d rather be able to get to dry land quickly if the conditions take a turn for the worse. The Yukon has gotten so vast by now, plus the weather can suddenly flip and start blowing a dangerous wind, so it’s better to be on the safe side. And as it just so happens, a storm front pushes across the river later in the afternoon. Within minutes, the calm water morphs into a raging torrent, thrashed by the heavy squalls.

All in all, I have to wait eight hours before the wind dies down and I can get back to coasting along in the warm glow of the evening sun. When light rain begins again later on, I look for a place where I can set up camp for the night. I find a passable stretch of shoreline on a large, wooded island and pitch my tent there. Then I bring some water to the boil on my little camping stove to cook my pasta from a pouch, and I sink down into my camping chair to eat my meal. As I spoon the pasta from the pan in my rain gear, I see two otters swimming past me on the waterfront.

Alaska is amazing, even when the weather is miserable.

Chapter two

Riverbank People

The encounters along the banks of the Yukon River are what makeS traveling here so unbeatable. I meet a musician at heart and a stranded Russian who is really a philosopher.

Fresh out of the shower, I leave the washeteria in Ruby to the sound of loud music filling the air for miles around. Rather than heading back to the riverbank where I parked my canoe a couple of hours ago, I decide to take a short detour and follow the sound of the music, still clutching my washbag and my damp towel under my arm. A couple of minutes later, I’ve discovered the source of the noise: a man in sunglasses and a baseball cap is playing his guitar on the porch of one of the houses nestled along the hillside. Beside him are some pretty powerful speakers; they’re buzzing and feeding back non-stop, even when the musician takes a quick break to reach for his open bottle on the railing and take a long slug of beer. Then comes the next riff, and he suddenly leans towards the battered microphone clamped into the stand in front of him and belts out “I met a gin-soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis…”.

It’s almost enough to make me rub my eyes and ears in disbelief. The Stones, live on the Yukon, interpreted by a slightly tipsy guitarist wearing socks but no shoes? It turns out the guy’s name is John. “Tonight’s my last night,” he tells me. “Tomorrow I’m heading back to work on the North Slope.” He’s going to be spending several weeks away from his family to earn the money he needs to support them. “My wife knows that I’m a musician, that’s why she lets me play here,” John adds, launching into a self-penned song he wrote for his dead mother.
 
 

No doubt, the people you meet on the Yukon are what makes traveling here so unforgettable.

And here in Ruby, they’re that extra bit interesting. When I was out buying a can of soda in the village store not long after I arrived in the afternoon, I came across Cynthia from Tanana’s father. He told me about his German father, whom he never met. And he talked to me about Billy McCarty Jr., one of Alaska’s best dogsled makers. The next day, I go to see Billy in his workshop. Here, I not only learn how he makes the sleds from birch wood, but I also discover that Billy’s father took part in the legendary Serum Run in 1925. A diphtheria epidemic was raging at the time, and it was down to a relay team of dogsled runners to transport the vaccine they crucially needed to Nome on the west coast. The Iditarod Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome commemorates this heroic and ultimately successful operation. It’s been taking place since the 1970s and has long become a famous event in its own right. In 1975, the race was won by a young guy by the name of Emmitt Peters, who was born in Ruby.

But the person who has made the biggest impression on me on my travels along the Yukon is a man called Jake from Galena. Most people simply know him as ‘The Mad Russian’. One of the insights he shared with me when we first met is still etched in my memory. “The distance at which you are used to looking at things, changes the way you think about stuff.”, says Jake.

“If you have space around you it changes something in your psychology.”

 
 

 
 
Even though the Yukon stripped him of all his possessions a couple of years back when the ice break-up in the spring caused a flood, Jake is still living right on the shoreline, still as broke as ever. “The river doles out its resources, the way things happen in such a just evenhanded impartial way and not cold impartial, but very beneficent impartial.” Jake believes. What he’s referring to more than anything is the river’s role as a source of food. “You get this feeling of found wealth. It was given to you out of the generosity of the river. That affects your character, affects basically the way you treat others.”
 
 

 
 
Jake hasn’t returned to Russia since he left his homeland with his dad as a teenager in the 1980s. “It is alien to me very seriously alien. I can’t believe what’s going in there, I can’t believe how people tolerate the tyranny, how they love it.” He chose the Yukon because it is the exact opposite of Putin’s ‘tsardom’. “The river is an entity, it has dynamics, it has the pattern in which it changes and undulates. You watch the river go up and down. It’s very dynamic and this dynamism is very constant, it’s very solid. Like there’s nothing much you could do to the river. So there’s this great security for me in like watching him and the micro-actions remind me how unstoppable this creature is. There’s something very safe. It must be why people like Putin. Everybody wants to like huddle next to something stronger than they are because we all feel insecure and lost in this incomprehensible universe. Well, this is better than Putin! I think it’s better than Putin, no offense to my ex-country.”

I make the most of my break in Galena to carry out some desperately needed repair work on my canoe. I slipped on another shallow just before I got here, and before I knew it, there was water onboard.

The constant forces at work on the canoe are also affecting it structurally. It’s been coming apart at the seams in various places ever since I started this trip. I collect fresh resin from the trees in the forests surrounding Galena, then I add some old bear fat to it and generously smear it onto the seams.

The bear fat was given to me by a woman from the village of Fort Yukon on my first trip. I’ve been carrying it with me since: I keep it inside a plastic bag in my repair kit, which otherwise consists of a couple of spruce roots, some small patches of spare bark, and a makeshift meat tin for the resin. A birch bark canoe like this one may be more vulnerable to the elements than one made from plastic or aluminum, but at least you can repair it anywhere on the journey using whatever nature has to offer.

When the afternoon comes around, I bid farewell to Jake, and I take to the water of the Yukon once again in my freshly sealed canoe. The somber heat of the day hangs over the river, and there’s no sign of the usual cool breeze. I try to produce even the tiniest amount of airflow with my speed, as if I were cycling, but I soon abandon my attempts. I’m just too limp to keep trying, much like the Yukon. After a few hours of sluggish paddling, I reach a sandy island in the middle of the river and decide to pitch camp there. And when I’m unloading, I get a pleasant surprise.

Chapter Three

Smoke on the water

On pointless pests and useful creatures. And an Independence Day parade.

Just minutes after the lightning strikes, a dark plume of smoke rises into the sky. It’s hard for me to estimate the distance of the wildfire in this vast landscape, but a quick glance at the map gives me an idea of its proximity to Nulato. Luckily, this small village is located on the other side of the river, but it still has to be evacuated a couple of days later, as I learn when I’m further down the river. The unrelenting emissions of dense smoke pose too great a risk to people’s health, particularly for children and old people. It’s a problem they have time and time again in the Alaskan summer, especially when it gets as hot and dry as it is this year.

 

 
 
The infinite swarms of mosquitoes are certainly less dangerous than wildfire, but they’re infinitely more annoying in the Alaskan summer to make up for it. And the little black flies that seem to be waiting for me when I get to Holy Cross are almost even worse than the mosquitoes. They may not be as obvious when it comes to sucking blood, but they do love to form swarms with hundreds of their conspecifics and cloak helpless paddlers in the dense cloud, battering brains with their high-frequency humming and their lack of regard for personal space. They creep into your mouth, nose, ears and eyes; they even follow you along the river when the air is calm. And every now and again, they bite.

I admit it, I’m questioning Creation at this point. I reach for my mosquito head net, wishing the storm would come back just for a while. Damn creatures…

Arriving at the village of Russian Mission, I’ve finally made it to the Lower Yukon and the territory of the Yup’ik people. This was originally Russian territory, they first settled in their Alaskan colony in the nineteenth century before selling it to the US for 7.2 million dollars in 1867. The tsar needed the money for his wars, and by this time, the forests and waters had already been obliterated on the hunt for valuable furs. Russian Mission was founded as a Russian trading post sometime around 1836. It was the Russian orthodox missionaries who gave the village the name it still bears today. The old village church stands on a hill at the edge of town as a reminder of the local history, but unfortunately this former landmark is going to rack and ruin in the harsh northern climate.
 
 

 
 
A couple of miles downriver, I find a sandy spit and decide to pitch camp there. I want to get started early in the morning to make sure I arrive in Marshall on schedule by the Fourth of July. Yup’ik culture may have a greater bearing on everyday life out here in the Alaskan bush, but they obviously celebrate Independence Day all the same.

 

 
 
The parade through the town gets underway around midday. While lavishly decorated floats led by the local fire department, the high school cheerleaders or the war veterans in antique cars make their way through the main streets in the cities of the South, a lonely four-wheeler rattles along at walking pace here on the dirt roads of Marshall. Not only is the driver steering the ATV with expert control, but he’s also simultaneously managing to hold the pole up high with the obligatory flag while making sure the little child is safely seated in the carrier in front of him. More and more villagers join the colorful procession on foot, many of them wearing stars and stripes in the form of bandanas, caps or masks. Cries of “Happy 4th” echo through the air, while mini US flags are passed around and sweets are handed out to the kids. After the parade, they all meet for the obligatory barbecue in front of the tribal administrative building. Hot dogs with pasta and potato salad, all for just five dollars with a can of soda – irresistible.
 
 

 
 
The stormy winds are back. It’s cool out, and there’s some drizzle. The forecast for the next few days isn’t looking any more promising, but I want to keep going onward to Pilot Station anyway.
 
 

 
 
“People always say we live in such a pretty village. We live in a nice little valley, it’s nice and green right now in July, in the fall-time it’s red, it’s yellow, orange and it’s so beautiful. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” And indeed, she never has. Vivian Peters was raised in Pilot Station and wants to stay here forever. Six hundred or so people live here; we’re not far from the Delta now. When Vivian raves about the beauty here, she sure isn’t talking about the houses or the public buildings. They’re functional at best, often dilapidated. But at least many of them are colorfully painted, plus they’re gently nestled between two lines of hills that come to an abrupt halt towards the Yukon. “I love the river, I love the sloughs, the tundra. I love how it provides berries, blueberries, salmon, fish, moose, all kinds of fish. Yeah. And we get clams, too, across the river.” Vivian and her husband Terry picked me up this morning. Right in the middle of a heavy downpour, they steered their boat towards the riverbank where I stayed last night, and they invited me into their home for shelter. I warm myself up with a cup of coffee in the living room, then I follow the two of them to the back of the house, where they’re currently preparing today’s catch: Chinook salmon.
 
 

 
 
“I’m cutting the collar, cutting down the belly part so that I could have these for half-dried fish and they’re good during the winter. Vivian is leaning over a heavy-duty wooden table, which Terry made. He also built the smokehouse and extended the roof outwards to give his wife somewhere dry to work. She’s responsible for gutting and cutting the salmon. “I learned by watching my mother. I was ten years old when I first learned how to cut fish. My mom would just have us stand on the opposite of her and watch. And of course when we first start cutting our dry fish we made mistakes.” Vivian is focused on her work, chopping the fish with the traditional semi-circular blade used by the indigenous peoples. “My knife is a called ulu. It’s made out of the iron part from skill-saw blades.” Lots of different species of fish inhabit the Yukon River, but for Vivian and others who live along the river, everything revolves around the salmon.
“It’s very important, that’s what we live off, that’s what we eat. Most of us eat fish all summer long. Who gets tired of fish? Nobody gets tired of fish. You can cook it in different ways, you can boil it, fry it, bake it, good over the fire, there’s a lot of families who sit outside together and cook it over the fire and they just sit and visit together and talk. It’s like a family thing, you sit together and cook your fish outside. We can’t live off meat, I can’t imagine eating meat all the time. Even my kids get tired of meat. They want fish, they want salmon.”
 
 

 
 
And their favorite kind is Chinook, also known as King salmon. It’s bigger and healthier than any other kind, but it’s also rarer. Numbers of King salmon have been declining for years, to the extent that fishing banned, whether it’s for commercial fishing or for subsistence use. The fishing seasons and quotas in Alaska are regulated by the Department of Fish and Game. This authority is responsible for monitoring the migration of the salmon and decides when is the best time for fishing, depending on how many fish there are in the river. Salmon usually swim upriver in schools in a pulsating manner. Chinook salmon is one of three species that live in the Yukon – or perhaps more precisely, it’s one of the species that passes through its waters. Once they’ve hatched in the spawning areas, they head for the ocean and live there until they reach sexual maturity. Then after a few years, they swim back to their birthplace, travelling sometimes over 2000 miles upriver. And when the salmon finally reach their destination, they spawn and die. Nobody really knows why the numbers of Chinook salmon have dropped so drastically.
 
 

“I don’t think it’s just one simple answer”, says biologist Kyle Schumann, who works for the fishing authority. “I think it’s probably a combination of a lot of different things. A lot of people are leaning towards it being more of something that’s going on in the marine environment than it is in the freshwater environment. Because even though we’re meeting our escapement goals across the Alaska drainage and getting them into Canada, we just don’t seem to be getting the returns off of them that I think the managers and everybody would hope to. That kind of is pointing to something in the marine environment.”

Kyle is in charge of the fishing authority’s sonar station in Pilot Station. Every summer, he and his team pitch camp and spend months monitoring the trail of the salmon as they migrate along the Yukon River. “This our sonar computer, that’s running the sonar that’s down there on right bank where that buoy’s at.” The sonar equipment provides data 24/7 and tracks how many fish there are rushing through the Yukon at any given time. Test-netting is also planted in the river and monitored on a daily basis. This equipment is vital for determining which fish are swimming upriver when, and in what numbers. Kyle lets me take a look at the data that’s been collected so far.
 
 

 
 
“So, through July 6 we estimated that 1.2 million summer chum have gone by, almost getting close to 1.25 million fish there. It’s a little low, for Yukon River standards. I think the preseason projection was something like 1.6 to 2.2. million. So we’re gonna come in around the lower end of that. But still, it’s been enough that the managers have allowed commercial fishing and subsistence fishing.”

With drastic penalties for failure to comply with the restrictions – everything from fines and confiscating equipment (including boats), right through to prison sentences –, the authorities and their employees are not always popular with the people here. But history has repeatedly shown that unrestricted hunting and fishing can have dire consequences. Particularly in Alaska, where trappers had almost wiped out the entire sea otter population.

Chapter Four

To the ocean

The Yukon River flows into the ocean through three arms. I reach the Bering Sea at sundown. Ahead of me there’s nothing but water.

The four wind turbines in the distance tell me that Emmonak is within reach. But that’s hours before I finally make it to the city. That word, ‘city’: for the first time in weeks, it’s actually fitting to use it again. Although there are just 800 people living in Emmonak, the city is regarded as the fishing hub of the Yukon Delta coast. Everywhere I look, people are hard at work on their boats, some loading and unloading their cargos, while others race along the river in their skiffs at breakneck speed. Battered trucks clatter along bumpy tracks, and the noise from the fish factory only dies down a little in the early hours of the morning. People work almost around the clock during the peak salmon migration period.
 
 

 
 
“The state did a research of Emmonak, there’s the value of 41 full-time jobs here in the village, normally. So there’s a lot of social problems because there’s a lot of poverty here. This is the most poverty-stricken region not just of Alaska but the entire US”, explains Jack Schultheis, the general manager of Kwik’Pak Fisheries as I sit across from him in his container office. Chinook salmon fishing was a million-dollar business for a long time, but the industry’s collapse had serious consequences for the people in the villages. “A family used to make $40.000 a year is now making maybe ten, twelve. So, it’s a major issue here from the economic standpoint.”
 
 

Kwik’Pak was founded by five communities in the Yukon Delta in 2001. Over 300 people work in the factory during the salmon season in summer. Around 440 fishermen also come here to sell their catch during this period. That makes Kwik’Pak the biggest private employer in the whole region. “I think last year the value paid to the fishermen was 3.6 million dollars. And we paid another two million in wages here. Five million dollars today doesn’t seem like much money, but out here it’s a huge amount of money. Considering there’s only about 3500 residents here.”
 
 

 
 
Ron Jennings is one of the fishermen who sell their catch to Kwik’Pak. I meet him the day before I get to Emmonak, and we sit talking at a table in his little cabin. It’s located on the bank of the Yukon, across from where I’ve pitched my tent on the beach. When Ron returns from his night shift on the Yukon, he waves me over to join him and his family for a coffee. “I don’t need much, I just need the freedom to do what we wanna do. I’ll fish, I trap in the wintertime, I try not to work for anybody else but myself.”
Ron originally hails from Spokane in Washington. He came to Alaska with his father in the 1970s. His first stop was Valdez in the south-east, but then he moved to Nome to work in a gold mine and finally met his wife, whose family is from Emmonak.
 
 

 
 
Ron and his two helpers were out on the river last night. Ever since the chinook fishing ban came into force, chum salmon and coho salmon have been the sole source of income for the fishermen in the Lower Yukon, with chum salmon bringing in the most money. Ron is happy with his catch. “We’ve caught 107 fish weighing on average 6 to 7 pounds. At 60 cents per pound, that’s three or four hundred dollars. Not bad for a twelve-hour day. But it’s not always as good as that.” Ron needs to catch at least a hundred fish per trip to cover his expenses, particularly the cost of fuel.

Here at the end of the world, gasoline easily costs three times what it does in the rest of the US.

“In ten years everybody in the village is on welfare. Food stamps, you know, assistance. We don’t even get to do our subsistence hardly. If you go work, have a full-time job and you still can’t make it fishing. Still can’t make it with the prices up. That’s why we try to just make our life up here. Raise our kids hope they learn.“ I’ve heard this same thing so many times on my travels along the river. These people are losing their culture, an essential part of which is subsistence, self-sufficiency. And the less of a chance they have at being self-sufficient, the more they lose perspective and the more useless they feel. Maybe that’s why the work in the Kwik’Pak Fisherie in Emmonak is so important – not just as a source of employment and income, but also because it brings the people hope.
 
 

 
 
That evening, a thunderstorm delays on my onward journey to the ocean. Just a little over 10 miles to go from Emmonak until I’m right out on the coast. I sit next to my canoe on the riverbank with my gear all packed up, waiting for the weather to calm down in my old faithful rubber rainproof suit. It’s past 8 p.m. when I finally get around to starting the final chapter of my journey. I try to push the thoughts of my impending farewell to this river and its people out of my mind, at least for the time being. I still have one more night left and I want to spend it right beside the Bering Sea. I set my sights on the southern bank and cross the river one last time. I sail around the shallows, a sign that there’s not much further to go now until I reach the estuary. The Yukon flows into the ocean through three arms, the smallest of which is the central Kwiguk Pass, which also runs alongside Emmonak. Several islands are blocking my view out onto the ocean, but the river gradually opens up a good three hours later. I finally reach land at sundown. Ahead of me there’s nothing but water.

I haul my gear over the steep bank, then I pitch my tent on the surprisingly uneven ground and secure it with all ropes in case a storm breaks out at some point. After midnight, three Yup’ik people come to see me on their boat. They’re on their way back from a seal hunt, but unfortunately, they’re returning empty-handed. Together we take pleasure in the pastel colors of the night sky, which is now awash with hundreds of buzzing mosquitoes. When the family moves on, I seek refuge in my tent and stretch out in my sleeping bag, listening to the waves as they gently lap against the shore. “This Lower Yukon is like the mightiest place there is.” I remember how fondly Ron Jennings, the white fisherman from Washington spoke of this place. “Ain’t gonna find any place better. Some place you can’t see the other side. It’s like being out in the ocean. But it’s a river.”

Truly, a big river.

Translation by Isabel Adey

The Long Road to Water

A project that promises to help people and push me to my limits. A reality between moments of lethargy and the pressure to perform. Steven Hille travels to Africa to build a well.

When I get off the plane in Entebbe, the Ugandan heat feels pleasantly warm. It smells of hay, like it did in the holidays when I went to stay with Aunt Hilde in deepest Brandenburg. Smells often have this ability to make my mind conjure up events from years back in the space of just a few seconds, generating an incredible sense of well-being inside of me.

But this time it’s different. I was awake the whole flight, thinking about life. I’m unbalanced and unsettled; even the old familiar smell can’t change that. I quit my job a couple of months back. I didn’t want to keep doing advertising for companies whose work I don’t support. I saw no benefit to be gained from it. Instead, I wanted to work on projects close to my heart; projects that interest me and make a difference. And that’s the very reason I’m here now. I’m going to work in nature in Uganda and offer support for people in a village.

I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life.

Kampala

Welcome to Uganda

I’m greeted by a heavenly delegation, and we drive through Kampala at breakneck speed.

Waiting for me at the exit of the airport are two men and a rather pensive-looking woman. They’re holding a white sign that says the name of my volunteering organisation Karmalaya on it in purple. I’m happy to have the transport service, as I’m tired to death and can barely think.

One of the two men is presumably Father Joseph, the priest from the parish community in which I am soon to live. I just don’t know which of them it is yet. But instead of asking, I let them guide me to my car without saying a word, and I sit down in the passenger seat. My escorts don’t say anything, either. Strange.

We drive through the night full steam ahead.

Our journey takes one and a half hours, during which time I discover that Father Joseph is the one in the seat next to me, hurtling through the African night at formidable speed with an impatient combination of flashing signals and horn honking. Thank God the man’s a priest. He must have called on a whole army of guardian angels for this nocturnal journey. Father Joseph is in his late thirties, he’s wearing a pink polo shirt and has a slight belly. His full name is Father Joseph-Mary Kavuma. There’s a figurine of the Virgin Mary in front of me on the dashboard, and the Ugandan flag is flapping about restlessly by the windscreen in the car interior.

After an hour of frenzied driving through the Ugandan darkness, we arrive at a backyard in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. Roannie, my second escort, jumps out of the back seat and opens a rather sombre-looking creaky metal gate. We drive in. Just three hours now before the alarm is due to go off and it’ll time for Mass. I’m excited and looking forward to the time ahead of me, so I can’t get to sleep…

I’m only staying in the capital for a couple of days, then I’ll be hitting the dusty roads and heading north.

Nandere

Time, Uganda’s greatest wealth

Ant tasting, impatience, impossible tasks, and the first rain.

It takes us two hours to travel just 40 kilometres. En route to the village of Nandere, we pass by another village called Bwaise, which occupies an unfortunate location in a small valley. Each year when the rainy season begins and the water drains down from the plateau, heavy floods and mudslides ensue. That’s why the Ugandans say:

“Water is life, but not for people in Bwaise.”

Father Joseph shows me how high the water rises. It’s like a curse: these people spend months waiting for the rain, and when it finally comes, it arrives in such great quantities that the people can’t control it and the ground can barely hold it.

About 500 people live in the village of Nandere. There are two primary schools, an ecclesiastical school, a nurses’ home, a tiny hospital and a parish hall, which is where my room is located. Considering the conditions here, I live quite comfortably: I have my own room with a bed, a desk and a small cabinet. Very few people enjoy this much comfort in Uganda. The day after I arrive, I’m taken on a guided tour of the village by Colline. The houses, which belong to one of the primary schools, are old and run-down. For each of the small rooms there are eight children. They sleep on the floor without a blanket. Some of them even spend the night on empty bed frames – without a mattress. And still, they’re often better off here than they are at home. They get three meals a day and the education they so desperately need here.

My room is stone’s throw or two from the church. Each morning just before five o’clock, I’m awoken by the sound of the church bells ringing. Then off rush the primary school kids in their smart clothes, heading for church with their hymn books under their arms. The second service of the day starts at seven; it’s attended mostly by the older school children and the adults in the village.

I’m impressed by the strong faith these people have – almost ninety-five per cent of the Ugandan population are devout Christians.

A lot is different here compared to my sojourn in Kampala. I get up early and wash myself in a tiny shower room with some water from a bucket, and then I head to a common room in the parish for breakfast. I often eat katogo, plantain with sauce, or a slice of toast. I usually see Father Joseph Balikuddembe at breakfast. I know, it’s enough to drive a person mad: there are three priests in this parish called Joseph. Every so often I indulge myself in a spot of mischief and address all the villagers as Joseph or Josephine. They laugh and call me Joseph, too.
 
 

Father Joseph
 
 
On my first day here, we meet up with the local forest ranger. Father Joseph started working with the NFA (National Forestry Authority) two years ago, and he goes to trained foresters when he needs professional help and advice. William is a lanky fellow in his mid-fifties, and his head is covered in ripples of curly grey hair. He’s quiet and patient. We’ve arranged to meet him at seven in the morning. He’s almost punctual, arriving just seven hours late. It doesn’t even seem to occur to him to apologise come the afternoon. “That’s African time,” is the vague attempt at an explanation I hear.

William shows me the pine forest at the other end of the village. It’s seven years old. Planting it was one of Father Joseph’s first official duties after it quickly dawned on him that they ought to be planting more trees than they were felling. The first time the forest was thinned was two years back. Now it’s time to trim the trees. If the pine trees are to grow thicker trunks, it’s important to chop off any branches that are a drain on their resources. Easy, I think to myself, and start looking around for a saw. Nothing. So, none of the people here have thought to bring work tools? Well, no, because of course today we’re only here in the forest to investigate.

I’m getting restless. I don’t have time for this.

Even during my first few days in the capital city I found myself getting bored. I wanted to finally make a start and do something, make something happen. And now? Nothing’s happening, again.

But the next day it’s time for action. I ask Emma how high up we need to cut the branches.

“Eight.”
Eight? Did I hear that right? Eight, as in eight metres? How are we going to manage that? Instead of answering me, Emma simply whistles with her fingers to two workers in the distance, who produce some bricks from behind the bushes. Joined by the two workers and armed with two machetes, we head into the forest and clobber down a couple of young trees. The young Ugandans swiftly assemble the trunks to make a three-lagged ladder. It makes me feel uneasy when I think about standing on this handmade ladder, packing almost a hundred kilos of body weight. But it turns out to be very stable.

But two metres of Steven plus three metres of ladder still doesn’t equal eight metres.

So, we look for another tree trunk, which Emma severs with a powerful strike of the machete. We place our saw on this trunk – and the telescopic rod is complete.

It takes almost ten minutes to prune a single tree up at this height. That’s 6 trees an hour, 48 per day. But with around 500 trees in this section of woodland, there’s no time to lose.

My life over the following days revolves around pruning the trees. In the first few days, I only manage 15 to 20 trees before my arms start to ache and I feel like collapsing in a heap on the forest floor. But my physical fitness does get better. I manage to trim more and more trees in less and less time, and my work is done after two weeks of hard graft. I’ve actually managed to prune the whole forest!

A couple of days later, I find myself in some nearby bush country along with four other men from the region. The landscape is full of wildly overgrown bushes measuring up to two metres in height. I’m holding a machete in my right hand and wearing Father Joseph’s straw hat on my head as I sweat and pant in the scorching morning sun. We cut down everything that gets in our way with powerful swipes of the machete. Grass, shrubs, young trees – we clear them all from the ground. The men I’m working with aren’t from Nandere. They’re travelling through the region looking for work.

They earn no more than 10,000 Ugandan Shillings for a day’s work. That’s €2.50.

They get their breakfast in the village, where the parish cook prepares black tea and porridge. For the rest of the day, they feed themselves. On five out of six working days, they eat jackfruits they’ve picked from the trees around us.

But today there’s a delicacy on the menu for lunch: white ants! The ants flew away during the night, and what I saw this morning when I got up was nothing short of a true natural spectacle. Millions of white ants were flying through the sky, making the surrounding area look like it was cloaked in fog. Swarms of ants that had probably been flying for hours were lying limply on the ground. School children and villagers were collecting them in black plastic bags. One of the men shows me his bag. Wow, he must have collected about half a kilo’s worth. He’s carefully sealed the bag and laid it out in the sun. The blackness of the plastic bags is now baking the ants in the sun’s heat. Of course, he asks me if I want to try one of his white ants. I kill the creature with my first bite; it doesn’t taste of anything. What I’d been most afraid of was the thought of the ant crawling around on my tongue.

The next day I meet William. He’s come to help us plant a eucalyptus forest. We discuss the plan of action. First things first, we’ll have to wait until the rainy season begins before anything else can happen. We’re at the end of March now, and the rain is eagerly awaited here in Uganda. Then what? Then we can start planting the trees. That’s it. End of meeting. We need the rain first, then we can plant trees. Makes sense to me.

I spend the next couple of days in the parish. I help out in the garden and the kitchen, I mop my room, and I read a lot. I enjoy the isolation that comes with living in a 500-soul village in Uganda. There’s nothing to distract me here. For the first time in years, I feel evened out again. And I have the chance to reacquaint myself with what boredom feels like.

Much to my surprise, I find some music tracks on my phone. That’s quite odd, because usually I only listen to music on the radio. One of the songs that has made its way onto my phone for some reason or other is Toto’s Africa. I listen to the song again and again, and spend several consecutive afternoons lying lethargically in my room, staring at the ceiling.

And suddenly, just as the refrain is about to set in again with the words “… I bless the rains down in Africa…”, it starts raining. The children run out from the nearby school and I open my door to the front yard of the parish hall. The temperatures drop five degrees in one fell swoop. The air is filled with the scent of summer rain, a smell I’ve adored ever since I was a kid.

Finally, yes finally, the rainy season has begun and we can plant the forest. Excited, and in the hope that we’ll be able to get to work in a matter of moments, I run through the parish on the hunt for Father Joseph. He’s sitting with the field workers. I imagine they must be discussing the work schedule. Excitedly and hastily, I ask what the next steps are for us.

“Unfortunately, the rains have started now, Steven. We can’t do anything else at the moment.”
“What do you mean, unfortunately? But we’ve waited half a week! Why we can’t do anything?”
“We still have to burn the old plant debris before we can start to plant the trees.”

I’m speechless. We’ve been waiting for the rain for half a week. And it’s finally here, it suddenly occurs to the gentlemen that we’ve yet to burn the old plant debris. I can’t believe this place. Uganda. I retreat to my room and start listening to the song where it stopped.

… I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had …

Fortunately, the rain passes quickly, and the next day the heat of the sun is strong enough to banish the last drops of moisture. The controlled slash and burn clearance is carried out in just one day. Yet I still won’t plant even a single tree. That’s only going to happen two months down the line, as our forest ranger has neglected to order the 10,000 seedlings we need to plant the forest.

In the days that follow, I find myself thinking a lot about volunteering as a concept. Will the work I do make any difference in the long term? Or has my volunteering stint been nothing more than just a personal adventure for me?

I’m off to save the world.
But I only have four weeks.

I’ve come to Nandere to help people and dedicate my time to them. I enjoy working outside in nature. It’s an adventure for me and I’m probably learning more about nature and Ugandan culture than I’m actually able to teach people myself. The only thing that might be seen as enriching for the people here is the intercultural exchange. But I don’t really get the impression I can make a valuable difference. Worse than that, I get the feeling that I’m taking someone’s job away from them. I want to do something that goes above any beyond my volunteering stint, and achieve something that helps these people long term.

I get the feeling that the village of Nandere is more than capable of being self-sufficient. The fields surrounding the village supply plenty of fruit and veg, plus the wood industry makes a small contribution to the empty coffers of the village and the church. But sadly, water is in scarce supply when the dry season sets in.

The groundwater just cannot flow into the pit of the well as quickly as it gets pumped out.

The rainwater from the roof of the church and the surrounding houses is fed into an underground water tank with the capacity for 25,000 litres. But if there’s no rain, there’s no water for the parish. Every morning before school, and every day after school, Colline goes back and forth to the hand pump and carries hundreds of litres of water to the parish. There is a pipe system in the houses. But that’s obviously no use if there’s no water in the pipes.
 
 

Colline
 
 

When Colline sets out to fetch water and I’m close by, I go to help him. Only at this point do I realise just how hard this back-breaking work really is.

One day, I come back from football training covered in sweat and dust. I take the last bucket of water out of the barrel and wash myself in the shower. Wimp that I am, I’ve finally just about got used to showering with cold water. When I finish, I don’t just want to top the water level; I want to get more than I’ve used. I grab two twenty-litre canisters, and I head for the well. People are reluctant to leave me here alone, and as Colline is about to make his way to the well anyway, he accompanies me carrying two more canisters of the same size.

We have to wait a while when we get to the well. When our turn comes around, I put one of the canisters under the outlet and start pumping. I pull the lever up ten times, twenty times, thirty times. No water. It’s never been as bad as this. A little boy tells me I must be patient. A dozen or so more pumps, and the first bit of water makes its way up from the ground. It’s a wonderful moment, but there just isn’t enough. Only a handful of water splatters out into the canister with each pump.

It takes us twenty-five minutes to fill one of the four canisters. For just twenty litres!

I’m exhausted and deflated. I’ve always been very helpful with pumping the water over the past few days, and now some of the children and adolescents come rushing to my aid. After more than an hour, I head back to do my laundry carrying two full canisters.

Upon my return, I discover that the children have already filled the other two canisters and brought them back to the parish. I’m lost for words. I know exactly how strenuous it is both to pump forty litres of water and to carry it all the way back. I’m touched, and I find myself wondering whether the same thing would have happened to me in Germany.

When I leave the village of Nandere after more than three weeks of intense cohabitation, I’m seriously determined to set things in motion. I’ll be coming back, no doubt about that.

Planning

A promise is a promise

Wishes. Setbacks. And: can I even help?

I’m certain that I want to help the people in Nandere solve their water problem. Before leaving, I met with three engineers from the region. I asked them to find out if it would be possible for one of the three wells in Nandere to be repaired. A different plan emerged from our meeting: as Nandere is situated on a small hill, the idea is to dig a well at the foot of this hill. The water will be supplied to the village by means of an electrical pump and almost 500 meters of piping. I ask the three engineers to give me their quotes, but after a few weeks have passed I’ve only received two.

“If you had just one wish, what would it be?” I asked the people in the village before I left. The response I had from almost everyone was “water” or “rain”. Ever since then, this wish has been my motivation. I want to work as hard as I possibly can and do everything in my power to make it a reality. In June 2015, the project starts to take shape. I launch the fundraising page on betterplace.org.

Before anything else, I make a projection of how I’m going to manage to reach my fundraising target. “I have 707 friends on my private Facebook profile. If everyone donates just €10, we’ll have surpassed our fundraising target,” I write in my blog.

“And let’s be honest – how much is €10 anyway? Three beers down at the pub? A cocktail in a bar? A small meal in a restaurant? Two packets of cigarettes? What could you go without for one day?”, I continue. I’m convinced we’re going to be able to raise the money we need by next year.

My calculations are off.

In the months of June (€1466), July (€185), and August (€373.50), we raise a total of €2024.50. The project got off to a great start in June, with some particularly generous donations coming in from my blog readers, friends and members of my family. But there comes a time when my blog’s reach has been exhausted and I must change tack. I’ve got to make the project bigger, so I join forces with a blogger friend of mind, Katrin. She’s already spoken highly of the project on numerous occasions and offered me her help. We manage to find new donors through her circle of friends and the “donations instead of gifts” campaign for an alternative to birthday presents, as well as from readers of her blog.

I start looking for an organisation to give the project the significance it deserves in the outside world. I’m also in desperate need of expert support and legal assistance. And another thing: a charitable organisation would be able to issue charitable donation receipts, which would be helpful seeing that all the donations made so far have been considered gifts to me as a private individual. With an organisation on board, I want to come up with a sustainability strategy to help us guarantee long-term support. After all, we’re helping no one if the pump needs repairing after a month or so and there’s no money in the pot to mend it.

The search proves difficult. The project is too small for Viva con Agua, and Engineers Without Borders Germany doesn’t have any capacity to spare. Technology Without Borders Germany is the first organisation to express an interest in the project. They warn me about the tedious bureaucratic challenges that lie ahead and put me in touch with an energetic and experienced project manager in the form of Hannes. I get to know him and the rest of his regional group in Leipzig, at which point I admit that I’m a bit disappointed as I’ve only managed to raise €2328.50 of our €7015 goal. The members of the association don’t understand my frustration, they just pat me on the shoulder and tell me it’s a great achievement.

But things aren’t moving quickly enough for me, I wanted to have raised the money by now.

Hannes worked in Ghana a few years back; he set up a recycling project there. Now we join forces to set ourselves some new objectives. Our first job is to look for an engineer, and we soon find one in Steffen. Hannes and Steffen already know each other from beforehand.
 
 

 
 

In and amongst all the positive reactions to the project, I must also learn to deal with the odd critical voice. The sustainability of the project is called into question, as are its practical implementation and even its justification. On top of that, my motivation is scrutinised. I’m branded a colonialist, someone who wants to make a name for himself in Africa with help from donations.

But then Father Joseph gets in touch in a Facebook message:

Hello Friends from Berlin,

Fr. Joseph-Mary

I’m emboldened once again by this message. It reminds me and everyone else involved in this charity project just who this project is all about. November (€2083) and December (€3087.09) consequently turn out to be the most successful months for fundraising.
 
 

A rude awakening, right in the thick of it.

I’m forced to raise the total fundraising target from €7015 to €9215. I’d neglected to take certain costs into account in my initial calculations back in June: for example, the outward journey and medical care for the people involved in the project.

With help from my friend David, who also asks people to give a donation instead of gifts for his birthday, a radio interview, and my former colleague Ecki, we manage to finish fundraising on 10 February. I’m saved at the last minute, as my flight to Uganda is due to leave in eleven days.

 
 

 
 
My joy diminishes five days later, when I learn of the sudden death of the representative of my former volunteering organisation. He suffered a fatal car accident in the early hours of 15 February.

I’ll never forget the way he bode me farewell at the bus, wished me all the best for the future, and vanished. And how ten minutes later, he reappeared at my window of the bus, asking if he should accompany me to Kampala. He said he’d look after this 1.92-metre-tall, almost hundred kilo Mzungu.

Godfrey had studied in Austria. He had the chance to stay in Europe, but he chose Uganda. Because he loved his country and he didn’t want to leave anyone behind. Godfrey was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.

Finals

Giving and more giving

I meet old acquaintances, suffer new setbacks and leave Uganda before our project reaches its conclusion – but in the end, I’m successful.

Uganda, 21 February 2016: things are much the same as the first time I was here. The same smell of hay pervades my nose when I stand outside Entebbe airport. There’s a pleasant heat. And I’m feeling quite excited once again.

My rucksack weighs about ten kilos. I strap it onto my back and take another piece of luggage from the conveyor belt; it’s jam-packed with clothing donations. I don’t know what to expect, and I certainly don’t know if we’re going to reach our goal. But now I’m here, and there’s no turning back. “Let’s do this!” I say to myself as I dive headfirst into the final chapter of this adventure, which is going to push me to my limits once more.

Much to my surprise, I’m greeted by three old acquaintances who have come to pick me up from the airport. Father Joseph, Father Joseph Balikuddembe and Emma are there waiting for me at the exit. I hug them all wholeheartedly. The reunion moves me to tears. All the memories from my last visit suddenly come flooding back. It’s all so fresh in my mind, it’s as if I only left yesterday.

We pick up from where we left off. Our wild journey through the Ugandan night gives us chance to catch up in detail, with Father Joseph driving just as madly all the while – not even a tiny bit slower than he did the first time. The presidential election took place a couple of days ago. Yoweri Museveni was re-elected yet again – he’s been the President of Uganda since 1986. The suppression of his political opponents is the subject of international criticism; indeed, there’s a great deal of criticism in the country itself. Many people are set to hit the streets in the coming days to demonstrate against electoral fraud. Musevini is considered a corrupt individual. I find myself wondering how a country that’s full of corruption is supposed to evolve.

We make it to the parish yard at around seven in the morning. By this point, I’ve been awake for 24 hours. I’m tired, the mounting temperatures are sapping my energy, and I just want to go to bed. But half the parish is awaiting my arrival. I see so many familiar faces. Agnes and Colline are waiting to welcome me. There are hugs, drawings are handed to me as gifts, and our project receives God’s blessing. Never before have I been given such a warm welcome. After that, I can finally go to bed, albeit just for two hours.

 
 

 
 
A lot has happened in the space of the past year. The eucalyptus forest I helped to prepare for planting is already two metres high in places. It’s incredible how fast the trees have grown. I come across one of the sisters during an extended tour of the village. I immediately recognise her. I call out to her. “Oli otya, nyabo?” A huge smile beams from her face as she replies “Gendi”. I respond with a slight moan, like I’ve so often heard them do in Uganda, and retort with “Ni bulunge”: I’m well. I feel good.

It’s like I’ve finally come home after a long trip.

But along with all this human happiness, I also perceive some negative changes. The primary school just by the well – the one I thought was in such an appalling condition a year ago – has now been closed down. The scarcity of the water supply was instrumental in this decision, but disputes between the teachers were another factor. The old school building is deserted, and there are plans to refurbish it in the coming months. It’s a lot quieter in the village now. I see far fewer children. Sometimes, in the afternoons, I feel like I’m completely alone.
 
 

 
 

Obviously, I’m interested in how matters stand with the well now following this “population drain”. My first few pushes of the pump surprise me: ample water flows from the rusty metal pipe of the hand pump, which is much easier to use compared to last year. Was the water going to be enough for the village now? Colline, another boy and I carry a couple of water canisters to the well. I want to find out how much water there is inside. It takes us several hours to pump more than 200 litres of water. Then it becomes clear that the well is almost empty. By this point, only a meagre dribble of water splatters into our yellow canister. Our decision to build a well is still correct. Besides, the new well must be built if the primary school is to reopen.

At midday on the same day, I’m waiting to meet Moses. He’s the project manager from Busoga Trust, the company that’s going to be responsible for the construction of the well. He’s brought an engineer with him. Barefooted, I slip into my wellies and we head for the foot of the hill.
We pass by the banana plantations as we go downhill, walking half a kilometre until we reach the designated spot for the borehole. The engineer nods without saying a word. This is where we want to dig the trench for the well. Our plan is clear. But then we start talking about the contract and the costs.

Moses offers to save me five per cent on the overall cost. In return, he wants to execute the project independently. Without Busoga Trust, without thirty years of experience in well construction, without a contract, and without protection. All I have to do is transfer all the money we worked so hard to raise to his private bank account. It doesn’t take me long to decide against this plan. Obviously, I want to see the project through as per our budget and with Busoga Trust on board. Of course, Moses isn’t happy with this decision. Obviously not, because this way he can’t pocket the money himself. He threatens to delay the project.

On this afternoon of 22 February, I return to my room at the parish feeling disappointed. Overtired and unsettled, I lay down on my bed and reflect on what’s happened. Now’s the time to stay strong. This kind of situation is exactly why we decided to supervise the project on-site. That’s the only way we can try to prevent corruption and stay on schedule.

The next day, I come to an important decision irrespective of any other arrangements with Moses: with help from us, the people of Nandere are going to dig their own trench from the well to the centre of the village. This way, we can cut costs and get the village actively involved in the project. We’ll also save time because we can start whenever we want to.

We need to dig a trench that’s 470 metres long, 60 centimetres deep and 30 centimetres wide. We start work the next morning, borrowing a few work tools from nearby. It soon becomes apparent to me why we need a pickaxe. The ground is rock hard, and only the top layer is soil. Underneath this is a layer of stone that can only be loosened with the pickaxe. Once the top layer is off, we scoop the loose stones out of the ditch with a shovel. I’ve underestimated how much effort this is going to require and how much we’re capable of achieving. That becomes clear to me after the first half hour. I stand under the shade of a mango tree with my T-shirt soaking wet and my hands full of dust, panting like an old decrepit donkey.

The first day, we only manage 30 of the 100 metres we’d planned to dig. It’s even less on the second day, and by the third day I’m all out of positive thoughts. Less and less people help as the days go by. It’s hard to motivate them. Even if I manage to, they’re so overexerted from all the hard graft they end up never coming back. A lot of frustration mingles in with all the disappointment and sadness. I’m at a loss; I just can’t understand the people in Nandere. The well wasn’t my idea. It was the people in the village who wanted their drinking water so badly. But clearly they don’t want to work for it. I become acquainted with a different working culture over the course of these few days. It would appear that the people of Nandere find it more convenient to walk 30 minutes every day to get to a well outside the village, and then spend half an hour pumping water and march back again, than to spend their time digging a 470-metre ditch out here in the African hear with this crazy German guy.

By all accounts, the water was of fundamental importance to the children of the former primary school. Their school has been closed down. They’re the ones I decide to dedicate my work to over the next few days.

It’s them I want to do something for. They’re my motivation.

Emma and Raphael help out every day, and they become my best friends in Nandere. They have both achieved something in this village. They cultivate their own fields, make agricultural produce and sell it at the regional markets. Both of them can afford a small house, and they have something to eat every day. They’re doing well. And despite already having plenty to do in their own fields, they’re always doing their bit as part of the digging team.
 
 

Emma
 
 
One afternoon, Raphael and I are standing in a row inside the trench. The sun is beating down on us, and Raphael is hard at work loosening the stony ground with the pickaxe while I’m shovelling the stones out of the trench. We quiz each other on vocabulary as we work.

“What’s your name?” – “Errinya lyo gweani?”
“I’d like a water, please.” – “Njagala mazzi.”
“How much does it cost?” – “Sente mekka?”

I enjoy learning the Ugandan language. At some point, Raphael turns around and says that it’s finally time I got a Ugandan name; I deserve it for all my interest in Ugandan culture and the help I’ve given in the village.

“From now on, you’re going to be called Kasali,” he says, and with that, he concludes his little unexpected rant. I’m baffled.

Kasali? Sounds good. OK, that’ll be my name now.

My mood improves noticeably in the days that follow. For the time being, I stop using my German name. Most people call me Mr Kasali now, even Father Joseph. The trench gets longer day by day. We sometimes manage to dig over 40 metres in one day, but sometimes it’s less than 20. I’m on African time now; I’m calmer and I have fun doing the work.

Not even the eternal rounds of meetings with Busoga Trust bother me now. I’m confident, and I reckon we’re going to finish the well on time. Meanwhile, back home in Germany, Hannes and Steffen have formulated an agreement outlining all the important construction processes, the costs and a schedule for us. We’ll be able to finalise the agreement a week after I land. We set the deadline for the completion of the well on 29 March. If we don’t get it done by then, there’s no money for Busoga Trust. That’s a good enough source of pressure.

 
 

 
 
We manage to dig about half the length of the trench by the time Hannes and Steffen make it to Nandere. I’m so happy to meet these two Berliners when they get to the airport in Uganda. Finally, we no longer need to talk and make plans in never-ending WhatsApp chats. We can have real conversations, weigh up the pros and cons, and make decisions together. We take an extra-long walk around the village when they arrive. I feel like someone who’s proudly presenting their first flat to friends. A couple of villagers greet us when they see us. Children playing in the distance yell out “Mzugu” – Kiswahili for “white men”.

With Hannes and Steffen’s help, we manage to come up with a sustainability strategy. It’s not going to do anyone any good if there’s something wrong with the well and it can’t be fixed. Someone is going to have to look after the well and take responsibility for it. A professor from the University of Hohenheim has given us a tip: establish a water committee, and charge a fee to use the well. I’m initially opposed to the idea of charging a fee. But gradually we realise that doing so is completely necessary. The villagers should only be charged a few cents, but the schools and hospital will have to pay a more sizeable monthly fee.

I leave Uganda after just two weeks. It breaks my heart that I have to leave now. I’ve put so much sweat and tears into the well, and I would have loved to see it right through to its completion. I don’t catch a wink of sleep during the flight. I jot down some of my thoughts and memories in my notebook, and I reflect on lethargy, hard work, burnout and poverty. The lack of help I got digging the trench left me feeling sorely disappointed.

But perhaps it’s fundamentally better for us to take everything that bit easier?

Hannes and Steffen are taking over the project in Nandere now. They’re struggling with the same problems, but there’s two of them, so they can motivate each together. I’m in contact with both of them almost every day. They report to me with pictures of the progress they’re making over there. Everything’s back to normal here in Germany. My life hurtles by at high speed, so I never really get a chance to process my experiences in Nandere.

Then before I know it, Maundy Thursday is here and the time has come for the electrical pump to be installed in the pit of the well. Late in the evening, when my phone buzzes and I start watching the video of Hannes and Steffen, I find myself on the verge of tears. Water is flowing. There’s running drinking water in Nandere!

They’ve done it. The project that all began with a spontaneous decision I made – they’ve seen it through right to the end. Water is flowing. Incredible! From now on, the electrical pump is going to deliver clean drinking water 420 metres up to the water tank in the parish. From there, the water will continue around 50 metres straight into the centre of the village. Finally, the people of Nandere have running water they can drink. And finally, there’s enough water for everyone in the village.

The men from Busoga Trust even work on Good Friday so that everything can stay on schedule. They close the trench we so painstakingly dug. The power and water lines are already inside; they’ve been laid under Steffen’s watchful, critical gaze. The official well opening takes place the Tuesday after Easter. The Bishop of Kasana-Luweero performs the ceremony; I persuaded him to do it on a visit. Hannes and Steffen send me pictures of the opening ceremony. Exhausted but happy, they’re holding in their hands a plaque dedicated to Godfrey’s memory. Even after his death, he’s still a real role model.

Since then, I’ve heard from multiple sources how grateful the people are for our help, and just how much their quality of life has improved. Although a few challenges stood between the idea to build a well and those first drops of water, I don’t regret how hard I worked on this project, not even for a second.

It was a draining time, but it was incredibly educational.

Early in the morning on 2 May, I go to meet Father Joseph at Berlin-Tegel airport. He’s received an invitation to Chicago from the Catholic Church. This is the first time he’s been out of Africa. A flight to Berlin is considerably cheaper, so he’s decided to come and stay with me for a few days. I’m excited, and I’m so happy to have the chance to introduce him to my family and friends. As soon as we’ve exchanged greetings, everything goes back to the way it was before. We continue our running gags and joke around. I show him how our taps work here, and I show him that we can get hot water from the pipe, too.

How fortunate we can count ourselves.

Photos: Steven Hille & Hannes Schwessinger
Translation by Isabel Adey