The day is glorious. We awake in our cozy chalet at the The Lodge at 58* North, soft drizzle falling as we climb the long stairs up to the main cabin where we enjoy a breakfast far too delicious for the fuzzy edge of civilization. We load up our gear and selves into the red and white de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver seaplane bobbing on the Naknek River outside, patiently tethered to the Lodge’s dock along with atrio of SOTAR 10′ fishing rafts. Quietly our eight-person collective takes off using the river as our tarmac, easing into the cool grey sky, floating towards the distant mountains as dawn breaks over the Alaska Peninsula. We sit in silence for almost an hour—yes, partly because of the hum of the Beaver’s turbo radial engine, but more so because of the vision passing outside our windows.
There really are no words for the trembling beauty of Alaska, for its breath-stealing virgin vastness. The engine’s drone, a weird rhythmic mantra, lulls you into a zone; the bright pink rays break over the Aleutian Range in the distance, lighting up the Katmai National Park below—some four million acres of untouched Alaskan wilderness, vast, wild and breathing. And I mean untouched as in pure, utterly unsullied by human hands. We pass not a single road carving up the green tundra below, not one home, cabin or manmade structure blighting nature’s beauty like acne. For forty five minutes, straight-line to the lake where we’ll land, nothing mankind to disturb the soul. Just the endless soft grass, the occasional grove of white spruce and birch, thickets of cottonwoods running along riverbanks, and the shimmering aquatic capillaries spreading from unseen springs. Dazzling how the water reflects the waking sun as we fly over, creating static lightning bolts in stark relief to the dark land.
We will take several more flghtseeing adventures aboard The Lodge’s intrepid 1954 Beaver floatplane over our week here in King Salmon, and each and every time the journey keeps us gobsmacked. The spirit of the tundra holds us silently mesmerized like a snake charmer. But this day being our first outing, landing on a lake in the middle of nowhere breaks the revery like waking from a spell. Descent, contact, splash, you’re here. A half-hour hike through bush follows, arriving at an idyllic brook where we’ll spend the day fly-fishing. Or rather, learning to fly-fish with the help of Justin Cramp: elite guide, proud co-owner of The Lodge at 58* North along with his wife Kate, and all-around amicable chap.
If you’re an obsessive angler, which most who venture this deep into the Alaskan frontier are, you’ll spend many a day whipping flies in places like this. Terminally happy, serene, fulfilled. The winding brooks bubbling, teaming with rainbow trout and shimmering Dolly Vardens. Yet, a ceaseless bot of paranoia spins somewhere in the back of your brain—something stirred by Kate’s comments from breakfast: “If we see a bear, don’t panic,” she mentioned casually over coffee. “Since the Katmai has never allowed hunting, bears don’t see humans as a threat. Most of the time they’ll barely even look at you… unless they’re with their cubs, of course.”
There really are no words for the trembling beauty of Alaska, for its breath-stealing virgin vastness.
It’s that last caveat that, no matter how brave you might be, will haunt your brain. Of course in some way you 100% want to see a bear, to witness the glory of Alaska’s famed browns in the flesh. You didn’t come all the way out here to not see the largest land predator roaming the face of the Earth (second only to its polar cousins, actually). But there’s also a very normal, pervasive fear of becoming lunch fodder for Fozzy, so you intermittently scan the creek beds and foliage. Just a ping of fear keeping you alert during the fly-fishing meditation. We catch a half dozen Dolly’s regardless, all of which we release. No luck on the rainbow trout on this day.
After our morning wetting lines, we hike to a larger nearby lake to rendezvous with the Beaver, which needs more watery runway to take off fully loaded. The tundra underfoot is so soft our feet disappear in the undergrowth as we walk, literally swallowed by the moss and lichens with every step. It’s wild, and exhausting. We stop for a water break and, for the first time in our three days in the 49th State, the sun finally shows its glorious face. Poking through the Alaskan overcast, lighting up the wide open valley before us. And that’s when we see it; a giant grizzly languidly emerging from the bush about 200 feet away. Absolutely gargantuan, this animal. With a name like brown bear you might expect more of a chocolate color, but in the sun its long fur glows golden like a mutant retriever. Shoulders gorilla-like and massive. rippling through its coat as it trots its way towards us, ambivalent. Either unaware of our presence or, more likely, simply unbothered.
We will see many more bears in a couple days when we visit the famed Brooks Falls—you know, those famous terraces where salmon leap out of the water in absurd numbers, desperately trying to reach the next plateau, only to find a bear’s open jaw thanking them for their efforts—but there it is expected. To see one here, the King of the Tundra stalking his native terrain, sovereign and free, is a moment not soon to be forgotten. When we finally arrive back at the Beaver bobbing on the remote lake’s shore, our pilot Craig welcomes us with a Yeti filled with cold Coors Light. The industrial beer will never taste more delicious than while gazing at the remote Alaskan lake through the wings of a pontoon plane.
Luxury At the Edge of the World
“What we’re really trying to do is redefine what a remote Alaska fishing lodge can be without sanitizing the Alaska out of it,” Justin tells us the next afternoon as we sit around the main lodge’s dinner table. “For a long time there was almost an assumption that if you wanted the ‘real Alaska,’ some level of discomfort just came with the deal. We don’t think that’s true. You can spend the day flying over country without a road for hundreds of miles, land a floatplane on a lake in the middle of nowhere, share a river with brown bears and chase wild fish—and still come home to a beautiful room, a great cocktail and a meal that would be exciting in any city in the country.”
We’ve just wrapped another day of adventure, Alaska style, and I’m enjoying one of Hospitality Manager Victoria’s well-blended Negronis. Today the wind hit hard, so our Beaver mission was scrapped. Funny enough the wind was fine in the morning, it’s just the Doppler predicted afternoon nastiness that made taking off from the distant lake impossible. So instead we spent the morning zipping across the Naknek River searching for sockeye. “The important part is that one can never come at the expense of the other,” Justin shares from the comfort of the main cabin, a warm counterpoint to the wind whipping the trees outside. “We don’t want to manufacture adventure or put a velvet rope around Bristol Bay. It’s supposed to be unpredictable.” He takes a sip of a local craft beer. “Sometimes the weather changes the plan. Sometimes a bear changes the plan. Sometimes the fish change the plan. That’s Alaska, and those unscripted moments often become the stories people remember most.”
“What we’re really trying to do is redefine what a remote Alaska fishing lodge can be without sanitizing the Alaska out of it.”
Lodge at 58* North co-founder Justin Crump
The story of Justin and Kate Crump is the one I remember most, and just might become a reality show someday. The couple serendipitously arrived in the area separately: Justin’s great-uncle commercial fished in Bristol Bay since the 1960s, resulting in him spending high school summers working aboard a 32-foot gillnetter, a high-performance fishing boat highly specialized for Bristol Bay. He then later worked for commercial fishing companies in nearby Dillingham, from where he attempted to launch a private rafting and fishing outfit. But meeting Kate changed those plans. Kate herself was the first and only female steelhead guide on the Oregon coast, suffering much dumb chauvinism along the way. She’d heard stories about the area’s epic salmon runs, wild untouched watersheds, giant rainbow trout and freeform bear encounters.
“I wanted my own stories,” she says. “I’ve always had an internal beacon that tells me when something is right, and it went off almost immediately upon arrival in the region.I knew I would stay long before I had any of the stories I so desperately wanted to experience.” Her instincts have proven sound, as the incredibly accomplished guide—an ambassador for Patagonia, YETI, and Sage—has become one of the most respected voices in the fishing community. (Check out her tireless work for The Wild Salmon Center, Trout Unlimited and Pacific Rivers.)
After years studying the Naknek River’s many mysteries, learning the fishery and lodge business from wise mentors—including Tom, the owner of the Rainbow Bend Lodge—in 2016 the duo started their own small guide business. When Tom wanted to retire he offered to sell them his lodge—an absolute treasure given how rare private land is in the heavily protected area. “We wanted it badly,” Kate shares, “but we just couldn’t afford it.” No less than five years later they’d scrabbled together enough downpayment for an SBA loan, closing on the property in October 2021. “And then came the much bigger job,” Kate exhales, “of turning an old fishing camp into The Lodge at 58* North.”
Every inch, every upgrade, every remodel rendered by their own hands (and friends and family), slowly they transformed the Rainbow Bend Lodge into the Lodge at 58*, a place that feels both of this land and beyond. The elegant main cabin—with vaulted ceilings, stylish leather furniture, beautiful Inside Buccola Designs suspended lighting, Douglas fir wood throughout and endless glass looking out at the Naknek River and forest beyond—welcomes guests for cocktails and meals, offering a sanctuary for us to mingle and share stories of the day. Friends will be made, tall tales eye-rolled, and martinis sipped.
Fueling this frenzy is Chef Jason Brown who makes an exquisite new meal every night of the week, then renews the menu every two weeks from scratch. The first couple years he challenged himself to make a new dish every day and never redo it, like you might have seen in The Bear. Except in The Bear Carmy is in Chicago with every ingredient known to mankind within a five block radius. Here, at the end of the world a basic ingredient can take two weeks to reach the Lodge; the challenge feels unnecessary and more than a bit maniacal, which is just the kind of crazy some refer to as brilliant. Chef Jason expertly combines Alaska’s abundant natural resources—think salmon caught fresh from the Naknek, scallops from Bristol Bay, and premium meats from the Mat-Su Valley—with his unique “Bush Gourmet” culinary style. One night he might blowtorch filet mignon table side, another he plated black cod marinated in miso, served atop a cube of crunchy fried rice like you would see in Katsuya‘s spicy tuna crispy rice.
Then they poured in dashi broth with pickled coleslaw on top. Holy moly. This dish would excel at a Michelin-rated gastronomic destination; this deep beyond the bush it is simply unfathomable. It only partly explains why a 4 Day / 4 Night package starts at $11,500/person (6 Day / 6 Night package are $16,500/person)—the price being a golden ticket to experience what they’re able to accomplish here on the edge of the world.
We spin to see three giant bears colliding against each other just five feet away, jaws open and roaring… So we cower behind a flimsy sign as two metric tons of apex predator clash.
The Crumps succeed in creating a familial environment because every member of their staff feels handpicked, from pilot Craig to Chef Jason’s team to the superb guides. Plus since there’s only three guest cabins—meaning a typical week hosts just eight to ten visitors, tops—staff usually outnumber clients. It also gives the Crumps the ability to tailor experiences every day, rather than relying on rigid predetermined programs. Because as Justin explained sometimes the wind, or surly bear, can alter plans. Our cabin, the only one down by the river, is a two-story A-frame with minimalist Scandinavian design and charm, the perfect sanctum to rest one’s head after a day of serious outdoor campaigning. No dusty knickknacks or stuffed moose-heads to be found anywhere, just clean, simple and well appointed relaxation with a queen-size bed on each floor.
One of the more remarkable achievements—other than the wood-fired sauna, built this year—is their greenhouse, custom-engineered for the area’s unique growing season in 2023, and expanded every year. Justin points out how every single improvement in the Lodge, no matter how simple, can become an exhausting logistical exercise as every single item has to transported here by airplane, barge or container. Take the soil, so inhospitable they had to ship in hundreds of bags of dirt and nutrients over the years, mixing them by hand into the ground. Even composting here can take two years to complete a cycle. “You learn very quickly to plan ahead,” Justin sighs as we tour the greenhouses, each filled with an Eden-esque bounty of broccoli, lettuce, snap peas, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, turnips, potatoes, herbs, and edible flowers. “There is something slightly absurd—and very Alaska—about spending years making dirt so you can grow a carrot for dinner.”
Fulfilling A Nature Quest
On our final day we’re lucky to get our last flight in the Beaver, this time to the famed Brooks Falls located in a region of the Katmai Park dubbed the ‘Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.’ So named for the vast damage caused by the 1912 eruption of the Novarupta volcano, which spewed ash some 20 miles into the sky, burying the surrounding Ukak River valley in smoldering grey nothingness. Today the area is verdant, teeming with unmatched salmon runs and not coincidentally the densest brown bear population on the planet. The flight out is, per usual, an absolutely mind-blowing affair—this particular journey highlighted by a pass over the Iliuk arm of Naknek lake, radiating a iridescent blue from its glacier headwaters, a hue like that of Bora Bora.
Spending any time in the single-engine, high-wing seaplane fills the heart with glee. The Lodge’s Beaver, now over 70-years-old, performs its duties like a champ. In its nearly 80 years of service—launched in Canada in 1949 by de Havilland, a full decade before Alaska became a state—the “plane that tamed the Alaskan frontier” earned many more nicknames, from the “Harley Davidson of the sky” for its no-nonsense Pratt & Whitney radial engine to the “half-ton flying pickup truck” for its impressive cargo limits to the “workhorse of the North” for its ability to easily swap between pontoon floats, wheels and even snow skis. When you’ve earned as many nicknames as Snoop Dogg, you’ve done something right.
From the shores of Naknek Lake we hike the elevated platforms of Brooks Camp toward Brooks Falls. It doesn’t take long before we see our first bear wading in the estuary below. We all freak out. Not five minutes later on the hike, an even larger sow rumbles from the foliage below, this one followed by a trio of cubs so furry and adorable even the manliest of men would feel a warming in the cold cockles of their heart. It’s like going to some random peninsula where they have hundreds of unicorns hanging out, and by the end of the day you’re just like, hey, no big whoop. Unicorn.
Except it is a very big whoop; every time you see one of these roaming kings your heart stops a beat—even when you get to the Falls, and no less than a half-dozen chill in the waters like a giant jacuzzi, lazily swiping at one of a million sockeye that swim past every minute. The whole scene echoes vibes of really rich, overly satisfied millionaires sitting at a VIP Vegas buffet. Casually grazing, eating a nibble of caviar here, one slice of A5 Wagyu ribeye there, discarding the rest like jetsam. Just a casual caloric fueling: not disgruntled per se, but not exactly gruntled, either.
Makes you really wonder what these poor salmon did in their former lives to karmically deserve this ruthless fate. Here’s your lot: when it’s time to spawn, you have to somehow navigate your way thousands of miles back to your birthplace. You’re going to have to swim upstream against the current for miles, and should you find a waterfall well you’re gonna have to leap your way up it somehow. Oh, and at these six-foot falls there will be perfectly engineered half-ton killing machines trying to maul the shit out of you. Eat just your brains and belly fat, and then discard you like pistachio shells. Should you somehow miraculously make it all this way and survive the marathon distances, escape the currents, and pass the killing machines,, you will enjoy a half-nanosecond of pleasure spawning, releasing gametes into your ancestral waters, before your body will instantly begin to rot. I hope those intervening years noodling around the Pacific Ocean are worth it.
When three of us break off to explore a recreation of the Native American Alutiiq homes nearby, the event occurs that magazine editors would call “burying the lede.” The prelude reminds me of that scene in Castaway where Tom Hanks is in the plane bathroom, nonchalantly focusing on his cut thumb, when suddenly the fuselage explodes around him in pure chaos. We’re sitting there casually looking at a map with our guide Hayley when a sound like a rock slide hits our eardrums. We spin to see three giant bears colliding against each other just five feet away, jaws open and roaring in play-fight. Except it isn’t play to us puny humans, the sudden deafeningmaelstrom injecting us with an endorphin rush orders of magnitude greater than any Six Flags rollercoaster. We cower behind the flimsy sign as two metric tons of apex predator clash, paying us zero heed.
Which clarifies two things immediately: one, these animals really don’t give a damn about our presence here. We are neither villain nor brunch, just probably weird Old Spice smelling interlopers. And second, the gargantuan power and mass of these monsters boggles the mind. “Please disregard the smell,” my friend mutters seconds after they disappear, chasing each other down a trail. While none of us actually soiled our rubber waders, we all comprehend exactly what he’s saying. In five seconds the Ursular vortex comes and goes like a panic attack, but the effects last much longer. My heart beats like a jack rabbit for a good 20 minutes, endorphins coursing my bloodstream as we gasp air in silence.
“Our job is to build an extraordinary level of hospitality around that wildness, not replace it.”
Lodge at 58* North co-founder Kate Crump
While that last encounter didn’t exactly make me want to go home, it’s fair to say I felt totally fulfilled in my nature quest. In our six days at the Lodge at 58* North we’d seen a gorgeous red fox cross our pickup truck, a tiny black mink poke his head out of the water two feet away as we fished from a gravel bank, and many a regal bald eagle watching us from treetops. And then of course, the bears, Dolly Verdans, and sockeye and king salmon. We had officially Alaska’d the hell out of Alaska, and done it all from the luxury of a resort that’s impossible to believe can exist way out here beyond the frontier.
“Our job is to build an extraordinary level of hospitality around that wildness, not replace it,” Kate tells us on our last night, after we breathlessly share our near death experience with the trio of playful brown giants. “That’s probably what I’m most proud of: we’ve taken an old-school fishing lodge and, piece by piece, turned it into something that feels entirely our own. But I’m equally proud that as we’ve made it more refined, we haven’t lost sight of why we’re here.”
Follow Executive Editor Nicolas Stecher’s travel, spirits, automotive and F&B adventures on Instagram at @nickstecher and @boozeoftheday.