Deland Anderson:

Rivers are the arteries of Alaska. Some are ancient. Some are brand new. Some are famed waterways. Others are so isolated only wild creatures travel their courses. Some rivers rush from glacier to sea in less than 10 miles. Others meander for hundreds of miles through lowlands, seemingly forgetting their way. Some form great tidal estuaries, alternating by the
hour from salt to fresh water. Some, like the Yukon, puke out huge masses of driftwood. But all are in essence doing the same thing: bringing the mountains into the sea in a relentless susurration. On their way they form eddies, riffles, rapids, holes, shoals, braids, oxbows, cascades, falls, ice jams and any number of other phenomena. They are there night and day, winter and summer, generation upon generation. And all we have to do is watch them flow and we will be brought back to our primordial beginning, when water covered the earth.