The brief Yukon summer was over. Even the fall colours had faded from the hillsides. But a friend in Dawson City was adamant: “Nobody should leave this area without seeing the Dempster.” My two-month stint as a tourist-cum-hotel worker in the former gold-rush town of Dawson was finished. A road trip would round things off nicely. Hitching a ride on the 740-kilometre Dempster Highway proved surprisingly easy. I put my thumb out on the first frosty morning of an adventurous week, riding the initial 365 kilometres with a young mechanic in a hotel utility vehicle. Thereafter café proprietors, hotel staff, and truckies arranged my transport.

The only public highway in North America to cross the Arctic Circle, the lonely dirt road runs north-east from near Dawson City, up through the Northwest Territories to Inuvik and the Beaufort Sea. Opened in 1979, and named after Inspector William Dempster of the North-West Mounted Police (he went to the Yukon in 1898). It cuts through vast tundra plains and hump-backed mountains on the line of an old dog-sled route. The isolated settlements along its length are Eagle Plains Hotel at the halfway point, and the towns of Arctic Red River and Fort McPherson. A scheduled bus service operates in the summer. Tents and mobile homes dot plains carpeted with wild flowers, and backpackers head off to see such attractions as the Tombstone Mountains. But this was October and the approaching winter had ended all that. The few other vehicles we saw were mostly small trucks piled high with the belongings of Native families heading south for the winter.

The harsh beauty of the Dempster unfolded gradually in tracts of conifer forest and open river valleys, the Ogilvie Mountains in the distance. A black fox slipped away into the undergrowth as we passed. Later I saw a ptarmigan, already in its white winter camouflage. When the idea of the highway was first raised, environmentalists protested, fearing it would disturb the caribou that stream through these valleys every November in herds of 100,000 to 120,000. But the migrations still happen. As the Inuit say, “No one knows the ways of the wind or the caribou.” Eagle Plains was more a small town than a hotel. Alongside was an Indian Affairs office, petrol station, highway maintenance base, and a public laundry and store. Further back was a summer camping area and helicopter pad. Set on a bleak plateau in a wilderness that stretched to the horizon, the buildings seemed small and insubstantial. Inside, the spacious comfort of the hotel was a surprise, but the off-season, semi-deserted bar and restaurant felt spooky. And anything but cheery were the photos of Albert Johnson, the so-called Mad Trapper of Rat River, gunned down by the Mounties after a three-month manhunt in 1932, over a trapline dispute. In an after-death photo, the grimacing trapper seems to smile triumphantly, “Free at last!”

Next morning I found that hotel staff had organized a lift for me on a supply truck. The cheery driver of a juggernaut semi-trailer was a knowledgeable guide, the high cab a scenic vantage point. Behind us, the second driver slept in a full-length curtained alcove. The pair drive the 3,500 kilometres between Edmonton and Inuvik every week, carrying fresh fruit and mail, only stopping to unload and have a hot meal. From Eagle Plains to Inuvik the road moved into true tundra — treeless, mountainous, desolate, snowy, and beautiful. The truck ground its way over the 1,574-metre Richardson Mountains, via Georges Gap. If caught out by a storm in such country, vehicles stay put, sometimes for days. Flashing lights at Eagle Plains and Fort McPherson tell drivers when the road is closed. In emergencies, the road is used as an aeroplane landing-strip. Tourists usually spread the trip over four days. Toward the end of my two-day cross-country surge I began to see why.

We crossed both the Peel and McKenzie Rivers on vehicular ferries, lining up with oil tankers, timber trucks, and a few private cars. Sludgy ice covered the water. The big freeze was starting. Soon the ferries would be hauled out and the Dempster Highway closed for six weeks. “To allow the snow-bridges to form,” Bill, the truck driver, said. Then until spring, he and his partner drive their 50-tonne truck across the ice of both rivers. Ice travel has obvious dangers. Later, an Inuvik man told me of jumping from a hatch in the cab of his truck at night, as it sank through the ice of Great Slave Lake, headlights in the dark water marking its descent.

Inuvik, on the banks of the McKenzie River, is 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, a frontier town if ever there was one. It is said to exist on tourism and government money, but there is huge untapped wealth in off-shore oil and gas. As I got down from the truck, a wizened native woman asked me where I was from, and cackled a sort of welcome. The one main street was lined with bars, souvenir shops, and eating places, the igloo-shaped Church of Our Lady of Victory standing opposite the Boreal Bookstore. The shop shelves held the poems of Robert Service, charts of the Beaufort Sea, and the inviting Alaska Wild Berry Guide and Cook Book.

During four colourful days in Inuvik, I attended a native wedding anniversary event, went bar-hopping with a local book-seller, and attended a slide-lecture by two skiers on their traverse of the 200-kilometre Canol Heritage Trail. But the highlight was definitely a day trip to outermost Tuktoyaktuk, flying there over the marshy delta of the McKenzie River in a Twin Otter.

Tuktoyaktuk is a scatter of box-like houses on a sandbar beside the Beaufort Sea. In the minus 15C two fur-hatted Inuit sat chatting on a truck bumper. A deaf-mute lad wrote directions in the snow for me, but I never found the craftswoman I was seeking.

Next day I left Inuvik as I had arrived — riding high on a semi-trailer. The travel brochure was right, “Canada’s Northwest Territories are within reach, yet beyond belief.”

On the flat icy surface of Alaska’s Inside Passage, sound skips across the water like a stone, distorting distance and betraying those who would move silently through the morning fog. The blow of several orcas filters through the mist and I sense they are near. It is cold this morning and calm. The sun has tried to break through twice without success. The silence is broken only by the cry of a lone eagle taking fish from the littoral. Minnows begin to jump, a sure sign larger hunters are about. My breath hangs visibly white on the air and I zip my fleece up under my nose. The calm is broken when a young harbor seal shatters the surface, lunging for my boat and startling me into action.

In another time and place I might let him rest there, but I sense what is coming and he cannot stay. I slap the water hard, and he veers off, only for a second, but this animal is panic-driven and will not be easily deterred. He approaches a second time and I fend him off with the flat of my blade, watching his pleading eyes as he arches for a final dive. He disappears behind a trail of bubbles. A brief silver flash passes under my boat and a second later I am hit square in my flotation vest by a young salmon. It flops onto my spray skirt, fighting to get back into the water. Then one fish after another begins to strike the side of my boat. Suddenly a black dorsal cuts the water like a periscope, bearing down on me. A quick look around tells me I am surrounded. The first orca crosses my bow, lunging as it takes a fish in midair, and before I can react, I am encircled by hungry hunters. The pod is herding a school of salmon, driving them against a rock wall 20 yards to my port. The pod is arrayed in a semicircle from 12 to 6 o’clock around my boat and it has the salmon cornered. The fish are running in total panic as shiny black fins cut the water like knives, churning it a crimson red as the orcas take their prey. The salmon are slamming head first into the wall, knocking themselves senseless. Of all the places I could be paddling right now, I have found the eye of the storm.

These carnivores have been around my boat on numerous occasions and have always shown themselves to be curious and friendly. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a recorded attack on a human or boat. They are ruthless when it comes to taking prey, yet gentle when in contact with man. Still, I fight the urge to panic and sit quietly in awe as a deadly ballet plays out around me. A white saddle patch zips under the boat, rolling at the last second to clear my keel while another whale passes parallel, showering me with blow as it moves in for a kill. Glistening dorsals cross left and right, parting the water like torpedoes. I can feel their clicks and squeals echoing through the fiberglass hull of my boat. They are executing a perfectly coordinated hunt, calling to each other, giving orders, and all of it in spite of my presence. The whales pass within inches, some lightly grazing my boat, but they know where I am and avoid any solid collisions. I sit still, not wishing to press my luck, when it suddenly occurs to me that the whales are actually using my boat, driving some fish against it as a barrier, stopping them just long enough to be taken. I am soaking wet from blow and covered with bloody scales. Twice, I must brace against the churning, and carefully push a meaty hunk of salmon off my deck with my paddle blade, not wishing it to tempt a hungry whale. For most of an hour the whales take fish, then gradually, the action slows. They have eaten their fill and I see Dall’s porpoises moving about, taking the few stragglers. Orcas often allow their smaller cousins to join them near the end of a hunt to clean up leftovers. The final touch is something I have never seen. Half of the pod forms a single line, parallel to the wall, and then turn their flukes toward it. They begin to slowly lob tail, causing waves to break against the rock. They are dislodging the few scared salmon that have taken refuge in the cracks and crevices while the rest of the whales and the porpoises take down what is left. It is the final act.

In a few moments they go from a feeding frenzy to total lethargy, logging on the surface, gorged and happy like large black sausages floating around my boat. The sudden calm allows me to take a headcount and I realize they are all females or juvenile males; not one mature bull among them. While orcas are a matriarchal society, it is the alpha bull who stands as protector, and this hunt was sanctioned on his watch. I know he is nearby.  I try to imagine where I would place myself as the bodyguard of a dozen feeding whales, and paddle farther into the channel to sit and wait him out. Within a minute the tip of his tall black dorsal rises slowly; there is a soft blow that the wind carries toward me in a mist, and I am sitting by the great whale no more than 30 feet away. He has surfaced gently, and his black dorsal towers over me by five feet. Sunlight twinkles on his ebony back and his saddle patch reflects like an alpine glacier. His dorsal has a slight bend to it and a missing chunk tells me he has met at least one large shark. He is half again as long as my boat and outweighs me by nine tons. He is a flesh eater whose teeth can shred a great white. I am sitting alone next to the greatest predator ever to rule the ocean.

He has not surfaced by chance as he is too wise for this to be a random happening. He chose the time and place to show himself and is now making a statement. I am not alive by accident, for if he thought me a threat to his pod, I would have been the first victim. He knew of my presence long before the hunt began and not only tolerated me but allowed me to bear witness. I feel this as strongly as if he were talking to me. My boat sits between him and his pod; a position he would never allow an enemy to reach. Perhaps I have been demoted to a curiosity, but I choose to think of it as communication. His black eye, no larger than the tip of my thumb, is fixed on me as I try to fathom the thoughts behind it. For a moment I feel quite dumb, lacking the ability to understand what this animal would tell me. Fearing an overstay of my visit, I dip my paddle slowly and begin to push away. As I do, the bull moves forward, inching ahead at minimum speed. I paddle a little harder and he is with me, so I dig in and begin to push shovelfuls of water behind me as my bow starts to cut a wake. The bull starts to pull away, then senses my frailty and checks his speed, matching mine, even and steady. His head rises and falls, eye just under the waterline, watching me, urging me on. In my head I hear him saying, “stay with me.” He is allowing me to paddle with him and I take up the challenge. My heart is racing and tears begin to cloud my vision.

Even in his lowest gear it is hard for me to keep pace, but I am now part of his pod, and he is my leader, and this will never happen again. I pull my paddle now, abandoning technique, trying to maintain speed. My arms scream with pain but time has slowed. All that matters now is that I stay with this great beast. For a brief time there is nothing but the two of us, moving as one, and if ever an animal gave a gift to man, this is mine. I have no idea how far we have come, and soon I can go no farther. I lay my paddle across the cowling and glide to a halt. I am cold, wet, exhausted, and have never felt more alive. The great whale sees I have stopped and logs a moment, his black eye fixed on me, and then he dives. For a few seconds I am totally alone in deafening silence. I look around and feel very small. The bull surfaces in the distance where the pod is reforming. He is probably reporting to the matriarch, telling her of the strange creature who entered their space. They turn their flukes toward me and begin to swim. The fog closes slowly and I watch dorsals fade into it like a movie ending, while I sit, sucking air, taking in what has just happened. I hear the cry of an eagle in the distance and turn my bow toward land to paddle home.

Alaska ist Bärenland. Ein einheimisches Sprichwort lautet: Wenn Sie keinen Bären sehen, ist er trotzdem nicht weit Schon tagelang kreuzen wir in einer abgeschiedenen Wasserwelt aus mächtigen Buchten, engen Fjorden und lang gestreckten Meeresarmen, die durch eine dichte Inselkette vor den Wellen des Pazifischen Ozeans geschützt ist. Ein unbedarfter Beobachter könnte glauben, wir hätten uns in dieser Wildnis verirrt. Doch unser Kapitän kennt den Kurs durch das feuchte Labyrinth des Panhandle. So nennen die Amerikaner diesen Teil Alaskas, weil er nach Südosten hin wie der Stiel einer Bratpfanne aus der gewaltigen Landmasse des größten amerikanischen Bundesstaates herausragt. Es ist eine wilde, einsame Landschaft, in der die Menschen nur vereinzelt und als kurzzeitige Eindringlinge vorkommen. Ein zusammenhängendes Straßennetz existiert nicht, seine Konstruktion wäre wegen der ständig den Weg versperrenden Meeresarme, Bergketten und Gletscher ein Unternehmen, an das selbst im Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten noch niemand einen ernsthaften Gedanken verschwendet hat. Statt Häusern oder gar Siedlungen erblicken wir am Ufer deshalb nur dichten Wald und angeschwemmte Baumstämme auf den Stränden. Irgendwo sollen hier zwar auf isolierten menschlichen Außenposten vereinzelt Fischer, Holzfäller und Abenteurer leben, doch bekommen wir von den schrulligen Einzelgängern keinen einzigen zu Gesicht. Stattdessen taucht von Zeit zu Zeit eine Bärenmutter auf, die ihren Nachwuchs ans Wasser führt, um ihm das Lachsfischen beizubringen. Bären sehen wir hier überall.

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Nebelverhangen präsentieren sich die zahllosen Wasserfälle von Misty Fjords - ein mysteriöses Rauschen und Plätschern ist rundherum zu hören. Senkrecht ragen die Granitwände im Tracy Arm aus der Wasseroberfläche heraus, und der Kapitän manövriert das Schiff so nah an die steil abfallende Uferlinie heran, dass wir von der Reling aus die Felsen mit der Hand berühren können. Die unaufhörlich abbröckelnden Eismassen des LeConté-Gletschers wären anderswo auf der Welt als touristische Attraktion gehörig vermarktet, hier dagegen ist außer uns in weitem Umkreis kein einziger Mensch anwesend. In den Fjorden des Panhandle gehören die landschaftlichen Höhepunkte so sehr zur Normalität, dass manch ein mitreißendes Panorama nicht einmal einen Namen trägt.Nach einigen Tagen Seefahrt durch diese einsame Wasserwelt glauben wir schon kaum noch an die Existenz menschlicher Siedlungen, aber schließlich läuft auch unser Schiff im Hafen von Juneau ein. Selbst in dieser städtischen Umgebung jedoch scheint die Wildnis die Oberhand zu behalten.

Juneau zwängt sich auf den schmalen Uferstreifen zwischen dem Meeresarm und einer steil aufragenden Bergkette. Die Wohnviertel mit ihren bunt bemalten Holzhäusern klettern so weit den Hang hinauf, bis sich beim besten Willen auch die kleinste Hütte nicht mehr an den abschüssigen Felsen festklammern kann. Viele Gebäude in Juneau sind nur über steile Holztreppen zu erreichen. Wir wollen außerhalb der Stadt einige jener Pioniere treffen, die sich in die Wildnis des Panhandle zurückgezogen haben, und begleiten deshalb einen der Buschpiloten, die mit ihren Wasserflugzeugen die einzige Verbindung zu den Einsiedlern und Zivilisationsflüchtlingen aufrechterhalten. Die Piloten sind hartgesottene Eigenbrötler, die gleichzeitig die Funktion als Flieger, Mechaniker, Steward, Taxifahrer, Zeitungsbote, Briefträger, Transportarbeiter und Handlanger ausfüllen.

So ist es kaum überraschend, dass die obligatorische Sicherheitsbelehrung in der Wildnis unkonventionell abläuft: "Schwimmwesten sucht ihr am besten unter den Sitzen oder hinten zwischen dem Gepäck. Türen sind zugleich Notausgänge, aber die kriegt ihr im Ernstfall kaum auf. Weitere Anweisungen auf den Papieren, die hier irgendwo rumliegen." Immerhin - die Sicherheitsgurte müssen sorgfältig angelegt werden. Das einmotorige Wasserflugzeug mit den Schwimmkörpern unter dem Rumpf startet im Hafen von Juneau zwischen Segelyachten und Fischerbooten. Mit an Bord ist eine junge Frau, die im Supermarkt ihren wöchentlichen Einkauf erledigt hat und nun mit einem Dutzend Einkaufstüten, einer Kiste Eiern und einem Paket Coladosen in ihr Holzfällercamp zurückfliegt. Dort, neben einem halb fertigen Haus und einer Handvoll Wohnwagen, landet das betagte Flugzeug auf dem Wasser. Hier warten schon die Bewohner auf das Flugzeug. Jetzt steigt eine ältere Dame zu, die ihre Tochter in einer der Nachbarbuchten besuchen will. Sie hat früher in einer Fischfabrik gearbeitet und dort jeden Job erledigt, der gerade anfiel: vom Sekretariatsdienst im Büro über das Verpacken in der Lagerhalle bis zum Fischen auf hoher See. Seit sie pensioniert ist, gewinnt sie Pokale beim Preisangeln, sammelt kiloweise Beeren und erzählt, dass sie auch im Alter von 70 Jahren noch ihr Feuerholz eigenhändig aus dem Wald holt. Beim Zwischenstopp vor der Rückkehr nach Juneau lädt der Pilot Post und ein paar Zeitungen aus, dann fliegt er weiter bis zum Ende eines Fjords, wo bereits vier Männer warten, die sich am Wochenende einmal in der Hauptstadt vergnügen wollen. Nun muss er über Funk einen Kollegen herbeirufen, da nicht alle Wartenden ins Flugzeug passen. Ohne Improvisation geht nichts in Alaska.

Anreise: Mit Condor http://www.condor.com nach Anchorage, von dort weiter nach Juneau mit Alaska Airlines http://www.alaskaairlines.com mit Lufthansa http://www.lufthansa.de nach Seattle, weiter mit Alaska Airlines nach Juneau.

Kreuzfahrten: Exkursionen durch die Fjorde des Panhandle bietet der amerikanische Anbieter Alaska Adventures im Sommer bis Ende August an, eine achttägige Kreuzfahrt ab umgerechnet 3390 Euro ab/bis Juneau, http://www.alaskatravelservice.com