Walkabout

Bigfork hiker logs 2,500 miles in the Alaskan wilderness

Bush pilots shake their heads in disbelief and write him off as a goner. Alaskan natives have called him a liar.

No one who's familiar with the Alaskan wilderness can believe that Marty Zajanc has walked 2,500 miles over the past eight years through some of the most remote land in America's northernmost state.

Even more incredible, he's conducted some of the excursions without taking any food with him. Living off the land is part of the adventure, he maintains.

Disbelievers don't bother the 53-year-old Bigfork resident. He has documented his wanderings in travelogues and photographs, not for the benefit of others but for the book he hopes to eventually write.

Zajanc left last week for another round of hiking, this time a 500- to 700-mile route along the Noatak River, over the Brooks Range to Point Lay. From there he intends to make his way along the coast farther north to Barrow.

"It's plain outrageous," Zajanc admitted. "I'm hoping to make one more trip and stay alive.

"I GENERALLY take a very vague map," such as a state map ripped from a road atlas, he said. "I don't like much information on where I'm going."

Venturing into the unknown is part of the appeal for the lifelong hiker who makes his living as an outfitter. He's veered a couple of hundred miles off course at times.

"I follow beauty, detour toward adventure, and seek the hidden path of knowledge," Zajanc said. "Therefore, I have no idea where I"ll end up or how wise I'll be

when I arrive. Self-knowledge is a huge part of why I do it."

He hikes solo, doesn't follow trails or a schedule and leaves no specific description of his route with friends or family.

"There'll be no rescue," he stated. "I have to make it out. People worry, but they know I'm good at what I do."

In his own self-assessment, Zajanc calls himself "an excellent survivor, but poor at providing well for myself."

His self-imposed survival missions are laced with a need to feel every aspect of the land, physical and philosophical.

"Several times, maybe three or four times, it's felt like I have stepped back into the mind of natives of several thousand years ago and have seen through their eyes," he said. "It's fascinating and fantastic."

Extreme hunger and thirst have often forced him into a primal existence in the wilderness.

"Basically, you become an animal," he said. "I've been so absorbed, on my hands and knees browsing for berries. You think like an animal."

The fight for food has put Zajanc in harm's way more than once. He remembers the time a 500-pound brown bear challenged him over a salmon he was cooking over a campfire.

"I was starving, and I was hungrier than the bear was," Zajanc recalled. "He smelled the fish and kept coming at me. It was raining and cold and I had a tiny fire going."

Zajanc yelled at the bear, then shot past his head with a .22-caliber rifle. Somehow, he was able to stave off an attack, scrambled out of the way and kept the fish.

He's dealt with a couple of "troublesome" bears through the years, venturing into brown-bear habitat with just a .22.

"The most I saw was 34 bears in one day," he said. "I've never had to kill one."

Zajanc has killed small game and birds, and relies on fish and berries.

He typically drops more than 20 pounds by the end of each trip, with or without food packed in. He lugs a 70-pound pack on the trips with food; 40 pounds without provisions.

Zajanc nonchalantly acknowledges the danger of trekking into the unknown, but that, too, is part of the appeal.

"I'm scared, but I'm always interested in overcoming fears," he said. "You have to be patient and flow with the land. It's better to go hungry than do something stupid."

He's tipped his small inflatable raft over in icy water during storms that have blown through unexpectedly. He partially froze his eyeballs during one cross-country ski trip through Alaskan wilderness. And one extended bout of hunger weakened his immune system to the point where he developed allergies to root plants such as willows and wild celery.

Otherwise, he's escaped serious injury.

He's dreading the wind he expects to encounter on the latest trip that's now under way.

Mosquitoes are another challenge.

"I wear a head net when the mosquitoes are bad," he said. "It's tough mentally with clouds of them swarming around you. In the tent, it sounds like it's raining. The bugs cut out 95 percent of people" who otherwise might consider hiking the Alaskan wilderness.

ZAJANC'S addiction to wilderness trekking didn't happen overnight.

A Montana native, he grew up in an Oregon lumber town and developed a passion for hiking early on in life and has made a living guiding others through the wilderness, mostly in the Alaskan Peninsula area. In 1972 he moved to the east shore of Flathead Lake and has been anchored to the Flathead ever since.

"I didn't start out thinking 'I'll walk across Alaska,' " he said. "I've pieced together journeys, about 2,500 miles, with a little floating, but mainly walking. I just kept getting more radical."

The cumulative route has taken him from the Alaskan Peninsula north to Iliamnalak Lake, through the eastern foothills of the Alaska Range to Tanana, across the Ray Mountains and Alatna Hills, then east along the Noatak River. Last year's trek was 200 miles up the Alatna River to the headwaters of the Noatak.

Much of the terrain he traverses is swampy bottom land."There's very little mountain climbing, and nothing technical," he said. "It's like walking across the continental U.S. when no one is home. It's complete solitude.

"I've never run across another hiker in all 2,500 miles," Zajanc added, though he's come across a few hunting camps along the way.

One time, as he trudged toward Denali (Mount McKinley), he came across a remote hunting lodge.

"I knocked on the door, and no one had ever knocked on their door, other than clients, in the 30 years they had been there," he said. "They asked me, 'where are you going?' and I said "I don't know.' They said nobody does that."

Another time, Zajanc had been walking for 18 days in the Mount Peulik area when he came across a hunter who refused to believe that Zajanc was simply hiking through the area.

"He kept asking, 'where's your plane?'" he said. "Several people haven't believed me. They always ask, 'where's your ax. Where's your saw?"

Zajanc is tough, sometimes "untouchably tough," when it comes to endurance, but said he has a sensitive side, too.

"Sometimes I get in touch with my inner princess and cry at the beauty I encounter," he confided.

He's glad he his Alaskan trekking later in life; any earlier and "my ego would've killed me," he noted.

Zajanc gets asked all the time why he chooses to go to such extremes in his trekking.

His answer is always the same: "So when it comes time to die I will know that I have lived."

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com