For those of us who have never thought about growing up on a river miles away from a grocery store or a post office, Jody Payton’s upbringing is unimaginable.
Growing up, we would take our snow machines to school in the winter and in the fall take the boats to school. During freeze-up and break-up, we’d just miss a little school.
His school was a twenty minute boat-ride from the homestead that his dad built on the edge of the Yentna.
Payton lived his whole life up river. He has three siblings, all of whom were born on the river, but he’s the only one who still lives and works along it. Growing up, most of his friends lived along the river.
Yeah, and there’d be annual get-togethers to look forward to. And there were bible camps and there were just different events for Fourth of July, or August 1st, or Thanksgiving or New Years. You know, that you would look forward to the whole river clan getting together.
Payton learned everything he knows about life on the river from his late father, who moved to Alaska in 1975.
He was just kind of an engineer, just thought a little differently and he was a dreamer, too.
Payton currently lives in Willow with his wife and toddler. His job is to deliver supplies—wood, propane, furniture—to the lodges and communities along the Yentna.
Here, let me tie the back of the boat up, too, so we don’t drop one in the river.
He worked at fishing lodges and in the oil fields before deciding to build an aluminum barge and take up deliveries.
The idea behind building the barge and working out here was really just to be able to move back out here and earn a living.
He spends weekends in the summer and winter with his family at the house where he grew up.
Payton loves the force of the river at all seasons. The ice jams in the winter to make what he calls a “super highway,” then breaks in the summer.
And that can be pretty violent, because it’s built such thick ice through all winter and then when it finally melts off and the river is really pushing out some water, it can take gigantic chunks of ice and hurl them right up on shore.
He hunts, fishes, and can identify almost all the plants and animals along the river.
Payton says it takes a unique person to live the way his family did and he does.
So there’s the certain type of people that want to live out here, and then there’s the certain type of people who actually can.
He says most people get scared away by the mosquitoes, or can’t figure out how to get a boat up the river or a snowmobile over it. There’s a few however, like Payton’s father, who have figured out how to do it successfully.
He didn’t come a-knowing, he came a-learning. And had to figure out the hard way on a lot of stuff.
Payton is grateful to have been born into it. When asked if it’s a hard way to live, he says it’s all he’s ever known.
I didn’t know any different. If you pulled some kid out of wherever and stuck him out here, he’d probably struggle. But when you grow up out here, you don’t know any different. It’s just the norm.
Payton can do it all. He built his barge by hand, knows how to navigate the river tides, and even taught himself guitar when he was ten years old.
Guitar…
His childhood home is an impressive dark blue building, artfully decorated by his mom. There’s a large garden that sprawls out in front, and raspberry bushes laden with fruit in the back.
Payton, a family man with a love for the watershed, is happiest when he’s out making deliveries or playing guitar around the campfire.
For KTNA, I’m Nell Salzman.
