Alaska Dispatches
# 8  —  30 October 2000

Stuck in the Muck

I got stuck in the muck yesterday.
I was out hunting seals and searching for mouse food with Paul, Georgie and John. It was fairly cold out, especially as the afternoon wore on and the sun began to sink, but I was feeling snug in my neoprene waders. My chest waders, designed for hunting or fishing while standing in deep water, consist of a 5 mm thick neoprene body suit attached to insulated knee-high rubber boots. I had been coveting waders since borrowing some for a hunting trip earlier in the fall. I picked up a pair while we were down states, and had been looking forward to the opportunity to try them out. Fresh out of the bag, my waders had that fresh out of the bag look.
The day had been painfully uneventful. We didn’t spot a single seal or find a single stash of mouse food worth taking. Mouse food is edible roots and parts of various plants that the field mice collect for the winter and store in shallow pits that they burrow in the tundra. There are a few varieties, and it is boiled and eaten like a vegetable as well as mixed into Akutaq. The kind I have eaten is similar in texture to sweet potato and is surprisingly tasty.
We took a side channel of the main river home, stopping several times along the way on the high tundra to continue our fruitless search for mouse food. The tide was coming in, but wasn’t quite in enough, so that our skiff got stuck repeatedly. At several points we were forced to haul up the outboard, step overboard and push the boat along by hand. I stepped into the knee deep water with confidence, happy to be getting some use out of my new waders.
For our final mouse food hunt we anchored the skiff and climbed up the river bank to high ground. We walked along silently, stomping the tundra for the soft spots that signal the possibility of a mouse food cache. I was walking slightly behind Paul, and we came to a wide riverbed with the slightest bit of water trickling down the center. Paul crossed, taking a wide arc. I decided to cut the angle a bit to catch up to him on the other side.
It was slow going but I trudged along. As I walked I noticed that I was sinking further and further into the mud. I crossed the midpoint of the riverbed and started up toward the high ground on the other side. And then I was stuck. I just couldn’t pull my left boot out. I stood there and chuckled, pulling on my foot every now and again, twisting and turning it this way and that, but to no avail. I joked with Paul to tell Leisy and Jules that I loved them. He was nonplussed. But then again Paul is always nonplussed.
After several minutes, my boot was defiantly still in the mud and I began sweating from trying, in vain, to yank it out. I struggled to keep my right foot from getting stuck as well, but the mud was relentless. As soon as I let down my guard for a second, my right foot began to sink in, so that I was forced to work to release it. To free my right foot, I had to put pressure on my left, thereby further ensconcing it in the mud. If I relaxed for a few seconds my right foot would get stuck, and I would be forced to once again rob Peter to pay Paul. This must be what quicksand feels like. You have plenty of time to ponder your situation and concoct ideas of various ways to extricate yourself from it, but nothing seems to work, and all the while the muck is tightening its hold.
After twenty minutes in the mud I was tempted to ditch the waders and just get myself out of the riverbed, but Paul counseled me against this notion. In addition to the new waders, I was wearing a new down coat and a new pile top. I had reached into the mud to try to coerce my boots out and had covered my sleeves with thick, dark and cold mud. The sun was setting, my forearms were wet, and while I wasn’t terribly worried, I was starting to wonder if I should be, and if Paul and Georgie, who had come over by now, had some tricks up their sleeves for prying someone from the muck.
At this juncture I was in up to just below my left knee, and standing upright was difficult. I continued to tug at my left foot, stretching the neoprene as it dragged on the attached boot, until suddenly I felt a slip and knew something had gone wrong. My left foot had come out of the boot, which was now completely submerged in the mud. Things grew more uncomfortable quickly, as I couldn’t put my left foot down at all. I began to get nervous in a more serious way.
John appeared over the crest of the river bank, probably wondering what in the world had happened to us. Paul asked him to go back and grab the oar from our boat. In the meantime Paul and Georgie grabbed bunches of dry grass that they handed down to me and instructed me to use to fill the hole under my right foot. The grass helped a bit, but despite dozens of handfuls, did not stop the mud’s pursuit of my right boot.
When John arrived with the oar, Paul first tried extending it to me and trying to pull me out with it. No dice. Next he handed me the oar and I tried to stick it down toward my boot and pry it out. That didn’t work either. As I alternated between struggling to free myself and saving my energy I grew more and more sweaty, cold, tired and anxious. I cracked a few jokes about my predicament, mostly to keep my own spirits up, but I think everyone knew I was scared.
Paul stepped closer, risking getting stuck himself, and dug around the place where my left leg entered the mud. After 30 minutes of digging with the oar, filling the holes n the mud with lots of dry grass, eventually working my foot back into the boot and tugging on it some more I was free.
Well, at least my left foot was free. In the process of digging out my left boot my right foot had gotten stuck. At this point, however, we knew the drill and worked quickly to free my right foot and get me out of the river bed.
My entire lower body and both arms were covered in mud. I was led toward a big puddle and told to wash the mud off of myself, but I was exhausted. Our boat was on the other side of the river bed anyhow. On the way back across the riverbed I followed quickly and carefully in Paul’s footsteps.
Sitting in the boat, shaking, thankful, cold and embarrassed I just wanted to be home. The sun had set completely, the air was bitter cold and the wind was gusting. I finally caught site of the lights of Piniq, and as we zigzagged up the river taking bend after bend the lights would appear and disappear, until we finally came around the last bend and they appeared and stayed put.
It felt wonderful to walk through our front door. While I was probably not in any real danger today, as I sank deeper and deeper into the mud it felt more and more surreal, and my mind entertained various possible outcomes. Would my comrades have to go back to the village and assemble a rescue party? How long would that take? Would I be spending a night on the tundra? What would a night on the tundra be like? Would I keep sinking further and further into the mud? Would the sinking eventually stop, before I was completely submerged? Would I be able to keep my cool? How long could someone last out on the tundra in October?
I know nothing of the ways to cope with the tundra, the mud, the rivers, the sea or the extreme cold that approaches. We are really out there, especially when we leave the village, and potential dangers loom around every bend. New gear is great, but is not enough. I need to be careful and mindful and respectful of the wild that surrounds us.

©2000, Michael Thornton Wyman