A DREAM RUNS THROUGH IT

The Lodge at 58° North

The Naknek River’s blue-green waters flow in smooth sheets as the sun’s reflection winks up at our lodge’s upper deck. It’s early, but the sun has already tracked up and over the hills on the opposite bank: a quintessential Alaska summer sun. From here I can see the tops of the guest cabins peeking through dense greenery as they cling to the side of the bluff. Our lodge, The Lodge at 58° North, is perched on an inside bend upriver from Bristol Bay, just outside of Katmai National Park. These waters hold ocean-bright salmon, arctic char, grayling and trophy rainbow trout, while the land hosts brown bears, moose, caribou, foxes, and countless other wild species. Looking over our bluff, knowing what it took to get here, I never take these views for granted.

I began guiding in Bristol Bay back in 2008, and I learned then how this place is like a mirror into the past, an image of what North America used to be. Up here, the inland riverbanks are more or less the same as they were 100 years ago. Populations have increased minimally, and industrialization is held at bay by protected lands, national parks, and natural barriers. Even with changing ocean conditions, protected headwaters have allowed salmon populations to flourish. Each year we get to watch the runs bring the bounty of the sea inland. When you walk the banks of the Naknek at the end of a run, the river looks like a sockeye graveyard. But every carcass is rich with nutrients the land needs. The salmon runs are ingrained in the history, the culture, the industry, and the very soil of this place. Without the salmon, this area won’t survive.

During a salmon run, you can feel the wildness of nature and its seasonal revolutions — you’re fully in it. I think that’s the main reason why The Lodge at 58° North actually came to be. I was guiding, driving the jet boat up the winding Naknek, when I spotted the patch of land where the lodge would eventually stand. Something about that bend in the river just drew me in. It was as if the old-growth trees and salmon-rich waters were inviting me to stay a while. How could I argue? Minutes from the rainbow fishing grounds, smack dab in the middle of salmon fishing grounds, and just above the tidewater. In the middle of all that abundance, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this is the best spot on the river.”

Everyone has defining moments in their life. For me, those moments arrive in a visceral experience of a warm light, like a beacon in my soul is letting me know I’m on the right path. I might feel utterly lost, but then something unexpected happens, and if that beacon lights up, I know I’m where I’m supposed to be.  

The first time I experienced this light was after years of listlessly pursuing a life that wasn’t mine. When I was seven, all I wanted to be was a veterinarian. But after a decade of working to be at the top of my class and joining every extracurricular I possibly could, an internship at a local vet’s office squashed my dream. I realized I didn’t want that kind of life, working 9-to-5 on repeat, patiently waiting for the freedom of retirement in my 60s or 70s. 

For a while after that, I was rudderless, earning money waitressing and bartending. While I was happy for the newfound sense of freedom, I was missing purpose and direction. 

But when some friends took me salmon fishing, that beacon in my soul lit up for the first time. I’m not sure if it was the power of those magnificent fish or the raw beauty of the landscape. All I knew was that I wanted to be on the water for the rest of my life. 

Years later, seeing the property jutting out into the Naknek for the first time, my beacon lit up again, and I knew that if I was ever going to make a place for myself up here, that would be the spot.

It took a lot of years to get there, though — thirteen to be exact. In between, I fished a lot, got married, made countless friends, and cultivated the dream of a lodge we could build and oversee every piece of. A place where we could turn clients into guests, ensuring a holistic and, hopefully, transformative experience. We wanted our guests to come out the other side feeling a deeper appreciation for the land, the creatures in it, and the people they were with. In all of our combined years of guiding, we’d learned that the seemingly small connections left the biggest, longest-lasting impressions. 

I OFTEN GET ASKED “AREN’T YOU TIRED?” OR “DON’T YOU WANT A BREAK?” AND WHILE REST SOUNDS NICE, THIS KIND OF LIFE IS WHO WE ARE.

My husband and I cut our teeth with our first lodge in Oregon, employing as many of our friends as possible to get it running and keep it going. After we got comfortable, we looked north. We had spent summer after summer guiding in Alaska without a permanent spot. And that bend on the Naknek still looked like a porch light inviting me in every time I passed by. So when that heavenly patch went up for sale and the owner reached out asking if we wanted to carry on his legacy, we snatched it up. In late October of 2021, we got the keys, and it was ours. My beacon burned as bright as ever.

While the bluff was finally ours, there was still a lot of work to do. Cue the fixer-upper montage: We had to barge in lumber and fly in the rest of the raw materials. Days of over 20,000 steps became the norm, as we walked an endless loop from the riverbank to the upper deck. Labor is hard to come by up here, and everything is expensive. Fresh food isn’t so fresh after ten days of transport. The sheer remoteness of Bristol Bay – our greatest advantage in fishing – was our biggest obstacle when it came to lodge ownership. While our place in Oregon taught us the basic knowledge needed to tackle many of the tasks ourselves, we learned once again to rely on our talented, tenacious, and incredibly gracious group of friends. 

The entire process became a game of figuring out what we could do ourselves and what we could repurpose from the existing structures on the property. We built raised beds, a greenhouse, and a chicken coop. After we convinced the chef from our Oregon lodge to join us for the summer, we were able to check fresh bread as well as an incredible menu off of the list. We pre-ordered meat from a family friend who raises pigs in Oregon. Checking 150 pounds of meat as airline luggage might have raised a few eyebrows, but everyone up here knows the struggle. 

Here’s how I see it: The blood, sweat, and tears you shed in order to make a life around Bristol Bay is a small price to pay to call this place home. More than that, the hardships of an Alaska lifestyle are one reason this area has remained so wild. While salmon runs are declining across the globe, this ecosystem thrives. The robust health and acknowledged value of the salmon in Bristol Bay are both rare and intrinsically reliant upon one another.

So when people come to visit, we want to act as stewards of the bounty here. Even with record salmon runs, we try to focus on the moments rather than the catches. Salmon are fickle creatures, and some days they’re hard to come by. Sometimes, those are the days you end up loving most, though. You can just sit and be present in the enormity of the quiet beauty that surrounds you. That’s the thing – if you go into this experience with a focus on connecting to this enormous and breathtaking landscape, you can’t lose.

That’s the kind of trust we look to build here with our guests. We will continually pull out all the stops to ensure they know they are cared for. If someone doesn’t get that because they have a one-track, catch-based mindset, then maybe we’re not the right guides for them.

I often get asked, “Aren’t you tired?” or “Don’t you want a break?” And while rest sounds nice, this kind of life is who we are. It’s taken years to build this dream. It’s a nonstop grind to run a lodge – it can be challenging to guide our guests every day, and even harder to do it with authenticity and sincerity. 

But the people are the reason we do all of this. I love offering an experience they can’t get anywhere else: They get to witness the bounty of this watershed and feel the untamed life coursing through it. So as I spend a brief morning moment looking out over our bend in the Naknek, with this land’s raw beauty on full display, it's not hard to get that misty-eyed feeling of gratitude – gratitude for our people, the salmon runs, this place, and the trusty beacon that led me here.