Shungnak is a small Eskimo village on the Kobuk river, about 150 miles east of Kotzebue and between the villages of Ambler and Kobuk. It is also about 250 miles NNW of Lake Minchumina (which probably has no significance to anyone but me!). It has a population of around around 300, I think. The majority of the people are Eskimo.
During and shortly after World War II the Federal Aviation Administration had a small station between Shungnak and Kobuk, which Dad was in charge of. During this time he build a 3 room cabin which he named it "Hubbard's Cupboard the Second" (the first being a place he used to visit when he was a child in the Ozarks.)
The cabin is just upstream from Shungnak. Unfortunately it is falling in the river. As a kid we used to visit there regularly, and used it as a summer vacation home. We would fly up there in the Cessna 180, land on the sandbar downstream from the cabin and walk up to the cabin. This made a pretty idyllic retreat for us!
The Kobuk River ice gets to be very thick in the winter time, and breakup is always a considerable event. My Dad has 8 mm movies of breakup and, while I've never seen it, it looks pretty spectacular!
I've only been there a couple of times since I was a teenager. Once in the winter and once in the summer. The first time I was flying support for my sisters when the ran their dog team from Fairbanks to Nome to Bettles. Being March there was plenty of ice so we landed right in front of the cabin. The second time was with a friend (also named Ray!) that I flew to the Red Dog mine (he wanted to check out the employment possibilities there--which turned out to be good, since he has been working there for the last few years!). I was in the Cessna 140 (on wheels), and it was summer, so I landed in Shungnak and borrowed a boat from some of Dad's old friends. We went up to the cabin. The river was on the very edge of the river, and beginning to fall in. Sigh.
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