On July 2nd we headed off to canoe the Yukon River from Whitehorse to Carmacks (200 miles).
Grandma Liz, Grandpa Bob (from Ontario), Cousin Kenzie (from Saskatchewan) and new friends John, Adam & Nick (from Ontario) all came with us. Grandma was the "land support" crew and met us at certain points along the way.
Overall we had alot of fun. It took us 7 days and we had a good mix of paddling and fishing to keep everyone happy along the way. Mother nature had some interesting thoughts on the weather (2 days hot & sunny, 2 days cloudy with intermittent showers, 1 torrential storm day & 2 days moderate weather with some sun) but we perservered!
The boys had 2 great days of fishing
and that definitely set the bar high for the rest of the trip... One crazy hour of pike fishing in a magic fishing hole where every cast got you a pike - how can you ever replicate that!
The three of us managed to survive sleeping in a 2 man tent that is close to 20 years old although it was definitely more challenging with all the rainy nights - really missing the dryness of the camper at times!
Once you get across Lake Labarge you move into a section of the river called "The Thirty Mile" which is really quite scenic...
The Yukon River has a long history as a river for trade and commerce. Prior to the goldrush in the 1890's the first nation people of the region used the river for sustenance and for moving into other trading regions. With the goldrush and the onslaught of activity in Dawson City, paddle wheelers and other barge's became the main mode of transportation for people and goods between Whitehorse (where they arrived by the White Pass Rail way) and Dawson City. In order to fuel the paddlewheelers, there were numerous wood camps along the river that provided cut wood to keep the paddlewheelers going...
We spent some time at a site called Hootalinqua
http://www.chrs.ca/Rivers/Yukon/Yukon-F_e.htm which shows an amazingly well kept paddlewheeler and was a major stop on the river with a NWMP facility, a storehouse and a ship repair station.Hunter was amazing for the week - he found something fun to do at every turn and loved being in the canoe. During the torrential rains he was sitting in his yellow rain suit, sitting a top all the barrels (in his king of the castle position) singing "mr sun, sun, mr golden sun... please shine down on me". He discovered the game "20 questions" and managed to re-name it "the household item" game as that quickly became one of our first questions - "is it a household item?". He also really enjoyed having a broader audience for "eye spy" and was on par with everyone else in terms of guesses.
Here are a montage of various photos from the trip:
