This was published 8 years ago
Canoeing the Yukon River, Canada: Learning the right way to paddle
Paddling across Lake Laberge before the wind whips up.Credit: Elspeth Callender
Two 40-something Australians met up in Canada last July to paddle a 416-kilometre stretch of the Yukon River by themselves. One steered from the back, the other navigated at the bow. They were on the water for up to 12 hours a day, sometimes in strong headwinds. Each evening they scoffed wine and cheese in the virtually ceaseless summer sun before setting up camp. After eight days, one wolverine, three bears and several moose, they arrived in the Yukon's historic Dawson City for a music festival they already had tickets for.
Neither had ever canoed.
The name Yukon derives from the Gwich'in word yu-kun-ah, meaning "great river". From Atlin Lake in British Columbia, North America's fifth longest river flows for 3185 kilometres – roughly the distance between Melbourne and Cooktown – through the Yukon then the US state of Alaska to the Bering Sea.
Sunset over Yukon River, Canada.Credit: Alamy
Philippa Cox is a midwife who'd spent the previous six months working in an Ethiopian refugee camp and Melinda Stanley is a Brisbane-based lawyer. Friends for years, they periodically converge on interesting places for adventure. This paddling expedition from Carmacks to Dawson, however, swept them further than usual from their respective comfort zones.
"We were so nervous, oh my god," Stanley told me afterwards on the phone. By day four they were both physically and emotionally wrecked, but overcame the pain and found their rhythm. "In the end," she said, "it was the best thing we've ever done".
The logistics of organising a river trip in Canada's far northwest Yukon Territory can seem daunting from Australia. Until you understand that the concept of outfitting has been a way of life there since the 19th century when European pioneers first penetrated the subarctic for fur trading, missionary ventures, scientific expeditions and mineral exploration. Now, companies dedicated to providing and organising the necessary equipment and transfers for independent excursions – from winter camping trips on snowmobiles to midsummer fishing on lakes accessible only by float plane – are just part of the Yukon furniture.
Melinda Stanley faces her fears with a grin.Credit: Philippa Cox
Kanoe People, on the banks of the Yukon River in Whitehorse, was conceived in 1974 and has been owned and operated by the same family since 1987. The territory's capital is so compact you can walk between accommodation, supermarkets, outdoor stores and KP. Last summer, I rented a sea kayak from them for my own Yukon River trip, launching straight off the bank right beside the outfitter.
Yet Cox and Stanley, without the paddling experience or local friends to guide them that I had, really found out what KP have to offer.
"We give people as much information as they want to hear," Scott McDougall tells me. "We point out the highlights, go through the basics, but I don't sugar-coat it. It's real. You gotta keep a smart head and handle your own emergencies."
Develop some paddling skills and you can tackle the Yukon River.Credit: Elspeth Callender
McDougall is a typical Yukoner: capable, reliable, authentic, kind and quietly wild. "Your No. 1 piece of gear," he reminds people, "is sitting on your shoulders."
Despite being busy over summer, McDougall's daughter spent a couple of hours with the two beginners. "She gave us skills to paddle, read the river and bank up," recalled Cox. "Kanoe People were incredible, especially Emily."
After gold was discovered in 1896 in a tributary of the Klondike River, which flows into the Yukon River at Dawson, the great river became a sternwheeler superhighway when it wasn't frozen over. Consequently, the 736-kilometre stretch between Whitehorse and Dawson – with its First Nations fish camps, simple campgrounds and Klondike era relics – isn't technically wilderness but might as well be given the remoteness and awesome fauna.
By the Yukon River.Credit: Elspeth Callender
"Every single thing we encountered was absolutely beautiful and so different," Stanley told me. And I know exactly the landscape she's talking about: a broad flat watercourse; boreal forest of stunted spruce and sweet-scented cottonwood; cut banks and towering river cliffs; sloughing grass with trees, still rooted in the topsoil, angling out over the flow. Eroded rock faces decorated with sculpturic hoodoos, purple fireweed flaming within stands blackened by forest fire, pebbly and sandy beaches, campsite clearings as perfect as film sets, never-ending twilight, glimpses of wildlife.
I ask about who tends to hire KP gear and the answer is "grandma, grandpa, their kids and grandkids". Any recent standouts? That's when I hear about the Australians. Scott McDougall was also at Dawson City Music Festival and tells me the first people he saw were "Pip and Mel", who just about knocked him over with their bear-hugs.
"Moments like that," he says, "are really rewarding."
TRIP NOTES
MORE INFORMATION
www.travelyukon.com; www.canada.travel; www.kanoepeople.com
GETTING THERE
Air Canada flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Whitehorse (via Vancouver); aircanada.com. Air North also flies between Vancouver and Whitehorse; www.flyairnorth.com.
STAYING THERE
Gold Rush Inn, 411 Main Street, Whitehorse. Rooms from CAN$190 over summer. See book.bestwestern.com. Aurora Inn, cnr Harper Street & 5th Avenue, Dawson City. Rooms from CAN$149 over summer. See www.aurorainn.ca.
Elspeth Callender was a guest of Tourism Yukon and Canadian Tourism Commission.
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