A Note on the Text and Photos
On our trip up north I kept daily notes in a small journal, usually in the evening when I was too tired to write anything particularly interesting. The pages that follow are based on those notes and my memories of the days, and certainly are not what I wrote at the time. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, but there are places where it has been necessary to omit certain details and events. During rest days, and during our time confined to our tent during bad weather, I wrote more copiously, trying to record what I was feeling and what I thought about. Reading back through these notes now, several months removed from them, I can see them for what they were and understand better what I was trying to write about. The distance in time has helped me gain perspective on our trip and what it was all about. Like any party confined to each others' company for many days on end, we had good days and bad days. Days when everything worked well, and days when we argued and fought. Days when the Scud and the Stikine seemed like the greatest places on earth, and days when the land was too ferocious to be meddled with. I've tried to write about our trip in the best way possible, attempted to give the reader some understanding of not only where we went and what we saw, but what we went through. Of course, I don't have access to the minds of Mike or Bob and so what follows should be regarded as my own interpretation of our journey. I believe that they would agree that I am substantively correct, though they might not have been afraid when I was, terrified when I was, angry when I was, morose when I was, depressed when I was, elated when I was, intrigued when I was, bored when I was, excited when I was. You get the point.
All three of us carried a camera and we later shared pictures. Approximately 60% of the photos that I used were my own, 25% Bob's, and 15% Mike's. Because the pictures are so interwoven with the text, I chose not to give photo credits for each one. Bob's photos are distinguished by a slightly smaller size that the others. Mike's are the same size as mine, though the colors rendered by his Canon 5D are quite different than those rendered by my Nikon d70. I can tell them apart, but most non-camera people will not be able to do this. Hence, if you see a larger photo and find it particularly good, you should attribute it to Mike. Unless, of course, he happens to be in it.