I'll bet most people in lower 48 don't even know what overflow is.
I had never heard of it until I moved to Alaska.
And strange thing is I never hunt caribou during the fall hunt. I prefer -20-/-25 late winter on the Taylor Hwy. A person can spend a month up there and not see another person. No bugs, no heat. Just quiet.....
I had to look it up. This thread is the first I've heard of it.
I observed an interesting overflow several times on Kotzebue Sound when I lived there.
The incoming tide would crack the ice out away from shore, from underneath pressure, water would gush up through the crack, carrying tom cod or smelt/herring with it.
The ravens loved it. There would be hundreds out there feeding on the fish.
The first over-flow I went through years before , farther north, out of Pt Hope, was actually up a river a few miles. A strong north wind pushed water into the lagoon and up the river, lifting the ice and cracking it along the shorelines, with subsequent overflow., skimmed over with thin ice and falling snow by the time we headed back to town from a weekend caribou hunt. My partner was riding the sled behind, after his 3-wheeler had brokendown.
When the snowmachine went through, I got wet to above my waist, but we got it out again, non running. I had to leave it there for another day. The sled and rider had not gone in.
Fortunately I had a complete change of dry clothes on the sled except for my outer layers Getting nekkid at 12 degrees and in a 10 mph wind (it had dropped) was a lot of fun, as was the 12 mile hike back to the village, in frozen snow pants and lower parka. We got picked up 4 miles from the village by other hunters, which was nice.
Remember, this is the Arctic - no trees, firewood, or shelter, except for whatever snow bank one might be able to dig a cave in. Which is what I did overnight when I went out 3 weeks later (storms) to get my machine back to town, using a borrowed machine and sled. By this time, my snowmachine and sled were buried beneath about 8 feet of snow, so the cave I dug after probing for it seved a dual purpose. There were big bear tracks just outside when I got up at daylight the next morning, having slept in the cave on the frozen caribou in the sled that I was towing when I went in.
"Adventure" is way over-rated, trust me.
There is a reason to have an "Eskimo parka" in that country, and mine saved my butt on that occasion, and at least one other time. For those wondering, an Eskimo parka is a pull-over, made of mouton sheep skins, skin out, deep hood edged with, preferably, wolverine fur, so it can be folded out to make a tunnel in front of one's face. This not only protects the face from wind and frostbite, but lets one breath somewhat warmer air than ambient The body of the parka is fairly loose fitting which provides an airflow from bottom, and out the neck, which helps remove body moisture from inside. It works best in very cold conditions. You still don't want to work too hard and get all sweaty, tho.
That can kill you quicker than a gun barrel shattering from the cold!
Over the centuries, those Eskimos have learned a thing or two.
