It has been several years now that I have thought about and planned to canoe the Yukon river. However, it always fell through for various reasons until finally, this was the year to make it happen as I had two weeks vacation during the first half of June. My friend Shinyi was able to take a couple of weeks off work on short notice, so it was a go. It did not matter that she had only ever camped in car park campsites or had never been in a canoe, (she has paddled in Dragon boats though) she was eager for a wilderness experience up North.
A few years ago, as I was planning this same trip, I struck up a conversation with Sue, a passenger on a Toronto - Vancouver flight. Turns out she lived in the Yukon and had invited me to contact her and her husband Larry anytime when I would be in Whitehorse. Well I looked in my little note book and found her e-mail address. I fired off a "do you remember...?" email and she responded with an invitation to stay at their home! True Northern hospitality.
After writing lists of stuff to bring and getting all the gear ready, we took the flight to Whitehorse where Larry picked us up. We spent two nights with them with great food and conversation. They lent us their truck to get our groceries and we picked up a rental canoe from one of the outfitter companies in town. We were originally planning to put in the Yukon river which flows through Whitehorse, however there was an alternate river, the Teslin, which runs parallel 100 km to the east and joins the Yukon downstream a few days from Carmacks, about 400km away and our final destination. Larry was willing to drive us the 100 km to Johnson's Crossing, a bridge on the Alaska highway that crosses the Teslin and the put in point for paddling that river.
The weather was cool, mixed cloud and sun, with the occasional downpour. Shinyi got the hang of paddling pretty quickly. The first few days on the Teslin, the current was not very fast but it picked up considerably as the days went by. On our first night, we met another camper, a young man named Kris, from Sweden. He was on a solo canoe trip for 50+ days and going all the way to Dawson city. An avid fisherman, he would spend several days at one camp and fish most of the day (catch and release). He had found a great spot across the river from the campsite, in a shallow, swampy bay where the pike were biting big time. He took me there the next morning and sure enough, on the first cast, bang! a 10 pounder. I caught five of them, thanks in large part to his hand made floating lure that drove the fish crazy as it looked like a mouse in distress swimming on the surface of the water. We ended up keeping one for dinner. I thought of the canoe trips of my youth, with the filets fried in crushed cornflakes and flour batter that my Mom would make and that I had brought a bag of. It was that long ago too that I had last eaten Northern Pike, or "Jack" as we call them in Manitoba.
We kept on down the river, many sandy cut back banks, forests of black spruce and the occasional bluffs of alder. There were several mountains on the horizon, traces of snow on their peaks, melting as the days went by and swelling up the river that was noticeably getting a higher water level. The map that we bought at the rental store was very detailed and showed the many streams coming into the river as well as topographical features such as "hoodoos" (see first photo) naturally sculpted towers of sand and clay caused by erosion. Included were sites of historical interest like the relics from the Klondike days, mostly ruined log cabins. Campsites were also indicated. Although you may think you are in total wilderness, which you are... there are still quite a few people that paddle these rivers, especially the Yukon, and most of them are Europeans. There may only have been a day or two out of eight where we did not see or meet other paddlers and it was still early in the season.
There were many islands on the river and it was fun to paddle down narrow segments which made it feel like you were on a different, smaller river. It also meant that you were closer to both banks and better to see wildlife which, we did see... several moose with their calves, a couple of porcupines, beavers, many bald eagles, some osprey. Unfortunately, we did not see any bears. Not that I wanted to see them near the campsite, but from the canoe it would have been awesome. At one camp, where there were many firefighters set up to battle a blaze further downstream, they had seen a grizzly swim across the river and head up a steep bank.
By late afternoon of the fifth day, we were to say farewell to the Teslin river as it joined the Yukon river. This junction, called Hootalinqua, was a popular meeting and trading place between various first nations before the arrival of Europeans. It then became a village for miners working the area as well as a supply spot for those looking for gold during the Klondike. The Yukon was quite wide here and it almost looked like a lake. You could see the distinct two colours of each river, the Yukon being more blue than the darker Teslin. We camped on the western shore where there was an established campsite with outhouses and picnic tables amongst some old log cabins. As there was a large fire downstream that had already consumed 20 000 hectares on both sides of the river, there was a camp of about thirty firefighters. A few choppers came in and out, dropping off supplies. They told us it was ok to paddle down as it had subsided quite a bit with the cool weather and rain, but to paddle in the middle of the river for the following 40 + km. It was at this camp that I caught and ate my first Arctic Grayling, a small but very tasty fish.
Leaving the next morning, we had to stop at an island where there was the remains of an enormous steam ship, the 'Evelyn Norcom', that ran up and down the river in the early 1900s. It was like four barns long made out of similar wooden planks. The boiler room was impressive. As it was a historical sight, the firefighters had set up hoses and spray stations just in case.
Downstream, we entered the forest fire zone and there was a lot of smoke in the air, with small burning fires here and there. Some areas were charred, the relief of the shore and mountains completely visible.
We spent another three days paddling down the Yukon river, stopping at more historical sites, abandoned villages and a cemetery. It was fascinating to think of those people, often from far away, who had tried to make a go of it finding gold in the wilderness and harsh climate of the North. Each campsite we found was different than the next. The routine was the same, set up the tent, start a fire, put up a tarp if it rained. After cooking dinner, we had to put the sealed plastic barrel with the food between 50 to 100 meters away from the tent. Trees are too small to hang food from as we do in BC. Evenings, I sat by the fire and enjoyed reading
The People of the Deer by Farley Mowatt, a second hand book that I had picked up in Whitehorse. A great story of his time spent with the last Inuit living off the land in the central Barrens of the Arctic in the late 40s. Never did see the sunset as we crashed and slept at around 11 pm, about an hour before it actually set. There was no need for the headlamp that I had brought along as it never got dark in the tent.
On the last day, about half an hour before arriving at the campsite in Carmacks where we were to leave the canoe behind, we got walloped by wind and rain. We got drenched. However, there was a warm dining hall for a restaurant to dry off and get organized while eating an excellent cheeseburger. I gave the rest of our food to a German couple that were on a 4 month paddle of the entire Yukon river, up to the delta in the Bering Sea. We hitched a ride back to Whitehorse, in time for some local beer and the third period of game 5 of the Stanley cup finals, then Larry picked us up for a last night in Whitehorse and in the land of the Midnight Sun.
