Arctic Wild — Attraction in Alaska

Arctic Wild was a great company to canoe with through the Gates of the Arctic Nat'l Park in AK. Hubster and I are in our mid-60's, both healthy and fit and were glad we went on the trip while we are able. It was an epic adventure and a trip we'll always remember with fond memories. If you're on the fence about this trip, take the plunge and go for it. The Noatak River and surrounding landscape are beautiful and peaceful, especially during calm waters.

Arctic Wild emailed a checklist of things to bring, which was pretty spot on, and provided rain gear and equipment if needed. Our Pre-Tour meeting was very informative; don't miss it! After the meeting, the staff inspected our dry bag contents to ensure we were not bringing too much or too little. Everything including tent, sleeping bag & sleeping pad had to fit in a 110 liter dry bag and weighed to ensure the load on the bush plane wasn't too heavy to carry. We were allowed the big dry bag & a day bag (optional) for hikes; my day bag was also a dry bag backpack.

Our two guides were experienced wilderness guides & were constantly working (scouting for optimum passage thru the river, setting up & taking down the kitchen/common area at each campsite, cooking meals & cleaning up, leading us on hikes at our stopovers, etc). They acted appropriately and gave us the confidence to deal with an adolescent bear that visited one of our campsites; safety always came first!

It helps to separate your clothes into ziplock bags and put the bags into a small dry bag. This makes preparing for the next day much easier; you don't have to unpack the whole big dry bag. Waterproof pants and/or bib and knee high rubber boots are a must. Arctic Wild also suggested packing the tent & sleeping stuff last, so they're at the top of the big dry bag when setting up camp.

It rained 8 of the 10 days we were on the river... most of the time, just a light to moderate sprinkle with heavy rain overnight. Although I had the heavier rain jacket and a waterproof bib, my heavy water resistant jacket and waterproof pants were enough for light rain. I wore light gloves most of the time and only used my rubber fishing gloves with knit lining twice. But the fishing gloves kept my fingers warm when the other gloves got wet or the weather was exceptionally cold and rainy. The river got swifter as we moved downstream because of the rains. Toward the end of our tour, we were flying down the river, which was fun.

If you want to take photos, bring a camera with extra batteries. Hubster & I relied on our cellphones (in airplane mode) and a solar charger for photos. But the sun wasn't out very much. We ran out of battery after Day4 and milked the times that the sun was out in the morning, during our stops and at the campsites. It helped that the others in the group were willing to share...

Rafting the Kongakut River to the caribou migration calving grounds in ANWR is something my husband and I have wanted to do for a long time. In December 2023, I contacted Arctic Wild to make reservations for the trip. I was told 2024 was full, but we could reserve spots for the June 2025 trip. We did that in February, sending in our information and deposit as required. The payment was processed and I have a handwritten note saying we’re “all set.”

In October, I had not heard from Arctic Wild for several months so I called asking when we would start getting information like equipment lists and things. My past experience with outfitters is that they keep people informed – I think it’s called customer service. After a week, when no one responded to my phone call, I sent an email. Sally responded to that and said she’d get back to me the next day after talking to Michael. Three days later, I emailed again and was told they had “somehow made a mistake on our reservation and overbooked the trip.” And unless someone else was willing to back out, we were out of luck.

On an overbooked trip isn’t it last-in-first-out? I know we weren’t the last in. According to Arctic Wild, they had a “database crash”, so it isn’t their fault. Sally’s last email said “I know it doesn’t feel fair that it is your reservation that is affected by our database crash.” I was not affected by a database crash, I was affected by poor company management. I would imagine with a database crash someone would have had to put the database back together, and it was a human error that resulted in their overbooked trip. They had my money in their bank account.

The abrupt cancellation of this expensive, long-planned trip affected other people as well. People who were adjusting their schedules to ours so we could get together.

Arctic Wild didn’t apologize. They didn’t try to rectify the situation, except to tell us we could sign up for another trip of theirs. We contacted other Alaska guiding companies and no one else is running the Kongakut. I guess when you have a monopoly there is no reason to treat your clients with respect.

I was less than pleased about the lag times in communication (days). Sally saying she had to wait for Michael and Michael saying I had to talk to Sally. Sally not knowing how to use their billing system. These kinds of things happen, usually I just let them go, but I should have realized it was an indication of how they run the company.

The trip may be beautiful, but it's clearly a toss of the dice whether or not you get in with Arctic Wild, no matter how...

The Great: The lead guide, Andrew, was the best I have ever seen on about 15 of these guided trips - He was informed, happy, and utterly capable of guiding us down a river he had never seen before. Arctic Wild's policy of allowing the customers hike/roam freely all day, solo, if desired, and without guides or restrictions, was absolutely wonderful. I would consider Arctic Wild again for this reason by itself. The Good: The 2nd guide could have used more experience on how to control boats, e.g. don't expect the person in front to "paddle harder" to provide the main steering and to anticipate the boat's motion, not react to it. She was unexpectedly pressed into raft duty on this and was otherwise excellent and professional in all categories. The food was not outstanding, but certainly well prepared, sufficient in quantity and well thought out. Most of the gear was functional and the organization overall was mostly professional. The Bad: The Arctic Wild provided tent had all three zippers unable to stay closed, they may have been worn or overwaxed? Either way, it is simply not acceptable to go into arctic conditions with a tent that could not keep the cold wind out. That cost a rating star. Fortunately, we had very good weather most of the trip. The Unfortunate: Summer floods prevented us from going canoeing on the Canning river, as was planned and paid for. I understand that Arctic Wild was making a decision based on our safety and that those decisions sometimes need to be made on trips like this. What costs a star is that the customers were not asked for input on all the possible alternative rivers. Instead we were simply put on a shorter distance trip, in rafts, on a river that was "unnavigable" - the guide's description. Arctic Wild has wanted to do a trip on the Eraksrak river and we were clearly used as guinea pigs. The guides frequently, and sometimes everyone, had to get out and pull the loaded boats over too-shallow gravel bars and mud. We saw only a few animals (some caribou, one grizzly and one wolverine) although the birders in our group seemed reasonably entertained. The area of the Eraksrak river struck me as fairly barren overall. By missing out on the Canning river, we also missed entering the ANWR, which had been a goal of several of us. On the plus side, the Eraksrak river had literally zero evidence of previous human presence, no trash, no former campsites, no...