The Run Up to the Adventure

The Adventure starts in Calgary, Alberta, Canada....

Imi and Howard will be meeting in Calgary on 13th June 2011, to start this Yukon Adventure. Howard having flown from London, and spent 5 days in Brooks, Alberta, connecting with his North Pole expedition followers from Brooks Junior High School, and Imi, having travelled from River Falls, via his parents in Kitchener, near Toronto Canada.
The Adventure will begin at the Greyhound bus station in Calgary, as we step on a greyhound bus that will take 33 hours to get us to Whitehorse some 2200 kilometres north west of Calgary. In keeping with the Simply Adventure philosophy, and Imi’s preference, this marathon bus trip will be a baptism of fire, no doubt full of stories, and a wonderful precursor to our river canoeing adventure, also a time for bonding and final planning.
We will arrive in Whitehorse on the 15th of June, and collect our two person open canoe from Up North Adventures, and then spend the next two days sourcing provisions and the outstanding items of equipment that we will need for the trip down the river.
We plan to start from Lake Lebarge, just outside Whitehorse on the 18th of June. Lake Lebarge 50 kilometres long and 3 to 5 kilometres wide, and is noted for its strong and sudden storms. Also noted for its cold water the lake will provide a potentially challenging initiation to our embryonic canoeing team, as we try out various paddling options and techniques in preparation for the flowing river they we will encounter on leaving behind its vastness.
From Lake Lebarge, the river will take a fairly tortuous route to Dawson City passing through huge areas of true wilderness, where the shore lands and islands are covered in aspen, birch and poplar and we can expect to encounter muskrat, beaver, fox, wolf, bear, eagle, trumpeter swan, along with a diverse range of migrant waterfowl, who make the river their temporary home.
The river was an important transport route during the Klondike Gold rush which started at the turn of the 2oth century and continued through to 1930’s. While the area has been largely returned to pure wilderness status, we will encounter lots of history in ruins and other artifacts from the incredible activity of this era.
The plan is to camp out near the river each night, and future postings from these camp sites will take readers right into the heart of our daily river journey and our campsite experience. The possibility of encounters with bears will mean that we will always be practising sound bear cohabitation strategies when setting up camp, moving around our immediate camp area, eating and sleeping.
The 48 kms from Lake Lebarge to the Teslin River (Called 30 mile Section) is supposed to be a fascinating section and one rich in gold mining history, being the base and operating area for many of the river steamers used in the gold rush times. At between 50 and 100 metres, the river is relatively narrow, and we are expecting it to be quite fast flowing, at around 5 miles per hour. These conditions were challenging on the river for the river steamers and as evidence we expect to see a few wrecks along the way.
Near the small settlement of Hootalinqua the Teslin River then joins the Yukon doubling its size, and dramatically changing the rivers character. We will no doubt stop and explore the wreck of the Evelyn, a 45m paddle steamer, before continuing in the wider and slowing flowing combined river.
Carmacks is a town of less than 500 people, situated about halfway along our journey and we plan to restock on food and any other consumables we may need. Soon after Carmacks we will encounter the most challenge of the trip, Five Fingers rapids, and hopefully by then we would have our canoeing teamwork fine tuned so we have an eventless passing through its fast flowing turbulent waters.
The river will then take us past fort Selkirk, an abandoned trading post with much recent (1850’s history) as well as older native Athabascan significance. From there it is on the Dawson City, with the White River joining the Yukon, with its unique volcanic silt load adding a new dimension of colour to the river, before we hit the confluence of the Stewart river, marked by Stewart island, and the soon to be no longer Stewart City, as the river carves its way through it.
Dawson City is a town with a population of less than 3000, that essentially grew out of the Klondike gold rush days, and has much of its historical past remaining.
We look forward to sharing our experience.