Jökulhlaup
A mid-July holiday in McCarthy, Alaska
Photo by Author - Kennicott River Flood, 2018
I saw a graph pop up a few days ago on my Facebook feed from a few friends in McCarthy, Alaska. A mostly even blue line squiggled across the white paper when suddenly it erupts to the north of the chart in a long spike. I knew exactly what it meant without even reading the fine print. No, it wasn’t Covid.
It was Jökulhlaup.
Jökulhlaup is an Icelandic word describing a glacial outburst flood that occurs when a lake fed by glacial meltwater breaches its dam and drains almost suddenly and quite massively.
Mid-July - I think it was 2016 or 2018, and I was halfway through playing a gig at The Golden Saloon. It was an off-the-cuff, solo acoustic gig when a band didn’t show up that week, and I covered the slot. It wasn’t a packed house that night, but there was a good crowd. People were listening, and a few folks danced on the worn wooden floor. Every stool at the turn of the century bar was full. Locals stood around in Chaco’s and hiking boots, chatting it up, sipping cold hoppy suds from a bartender’s good draft pull.
Considering other summer gigs I’ve played at The Golden, it was fairly mellow, and I was enjoying the opportunity to play songs I wouldn’t normally play during a raucous gig. I noticed a few other folks come in the door and thread through the space in front of the bar. They mentioned something to a couple of friends then left without getting a beer. One by one, the bar emptied, and locals flowed out the door like a dam broke.
Jökulhlaup
It’s a local McCarthy holiday when Hidden Lake, nestled far up in the glacier north of town, breaks and dumps a massive load of water down through the glacier’s plumbing like some huge hand flushing a giant glacial toilet. It spews ice-cold silty water and icebergs into the Kennicott River, running parallel to town about 3/4 of a mile to the west. A footbridge spans the river with a parking lot on one side and the road leading to McCarthy and Kennicott towns on the other.
I played a few more songs, but the audience’s attention was gone. Stark bewilderment reverberated from the tourists as they looked around the near-empty bar and wondered where everyone suddenly went and why. I tried to keep a straight face. Sooner or later, someone would tell them, or they would stumble back to their tents or RV’s at the parking lot and witness the spectacle happening on the footbridge in the twilight.
Jökulhlaup
The gig ended early, so I grabbed a box of wine, some extra layers and snacks, and walked down the road past the swimming hole. Cheering, and the loud roaring of the river, was audible a half-mile away. When I crested the small hill leading to the bridge, I saw two bonfires going - one on each side of the footbridge and an entire towns-worth of people standing on the metal scaffolding above the rushing water. Is the bridge designed to hold that much flesh and bone?
Some townspeople were throwing back PBR’s standing around the fire. Others on the bridge watched kayakers in dry suits carry boats over their right or left shoulders across the span, dripping with icy water, heading back for the head of the river, the toe of the glacier, to ride again. Skilled packrafters and kayakers ride the flow, which goes from reasonably mellow on a regular day to ripping whitewater in a matter of hours when Hidden Lake breaks.
What caught my eye was a crowd of people gathered in the center of the bridge surveying some wreckage, but it wasn’t a kayak. It was a pontoon sailboat someone parked in the lake at the head of the river. The flood unmoored it and sent it flailing downstream, slamming the mast into the footbridge, which someone told me “shook the bridge good” when it hit and folded against the steel. Locals cheered (I could hear them a half-mile away) and cracked open a few more PBR’s.
Jökulhlaup
The party goes all night most years, or at least well into the wee hours of the morning. People are magnetized and mesmerized by the power of this landscape, the smallness of being human in such a dynamic environment. Yes, a yearly flood is as sacred as any human holiday in this town. And I found myself this week missing the excitement and craziness of gathering with the community on the bridge. If I mention that word any other place than Iceland, the response would be, “What? What is that?”
It’s so uniquely McCarthy to celebrate with more gusto than New Year’s Eve or Thanksgiving, the flushing of the great glacial toilet. And it’s what I love so much about the community - they dance to their own flood.
Jökulhlaup 2021 happened on July 15th. Thanks, everybody, for sharing the love, excitement, and photos on social media with those of us who missed the party this year.
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© 2021 Michelle McAfee
