Yukon River Quest starts in Whitehorse, Yukon (about 50 miles downstream from the Bennett Lake system), and ends in Dawson City. Our goal was to travel down this 460 mile stretch of the Yukon river as fast as we could. Andrew and I paddled a double kayak; others also chose to paddle canoes, voyageur canoes (holding 6+ people), and single kayaks (they get my respect). Everyone started at noon on Wednesday (June 30), and needed to finish in Dawson before midnight on Saturday night, 84 hours later. However, with mandatory rest breaks at Carmacks (7 hours at milepost 200) and Kirkman Creek (3 hours at milepost 362), we had 74 hours on the water to complete our task. Except at Lake Labarge, a 30 mile long lake a few hours out of Whitehorse, the Yukon river was flowing at a reasonable clip, so our main goal was to stay on the water as much as we could and paddle with reasonable effort.
Our first goal was to get to Whitehorse, however. I drove to Vancouver and caught a flight to Whitehorse on Air North, where I relaxed amongst the amenities that this town of 25,000 had to offer. While small, this town contains two thirds of the inhabitants of the Yukon; Dawson City ranks second largest at about 1,500 inhabitants.
Andrew drove up. He really wanted to bring a fast kayak, and because we had not signed up immediately, the rental companies in Whitehorse had only barge-like boats left for rent. His kids had studied the Gold Rush in school, and so he brought the family and turned the trip into a "fun-filled family vacation road trip", at least so much as a 4000 mile roundtrip drive through barren wilderness can be called that. Our rental from Popeyes Marine and Kayak Center fell through (don't ever rent from them), so we scrambled for an available boat, and we ended up buying one on Craigslist from a place near Nanaimo, with
Andrew to pick it up on the way up to Whitehorse. They listened to "Call of the Wild" book-on-tape along the way to get themselves in the appropriate mood for the Yukon.Together at Whitehorse, we shuffled gear, went grocery shopping, and attended pre-race meetings and gear checks. Come Wednesday, we place our boat along the riverbank next to 75 others, and we waited for the start in unforgiving cold and rain. While temperatures had been in the 70s under a blaring sun all week, Wednesday brought grayness, wetness and coldness. I put on my gortex bib, paddle jacket and gortex hat. I was happy that I could wear them without overheating.
The horn sounded and the race was on. We ran 200 meters across the park to our boats, then pushed off into the Yukon to start the race. I had never been in our boat before, and I discovered that I needed a little practice with the new-fangled rudder system.
We almost took out a photographer standing on a submerged sandbar before I veered out into deeper, faster water. I tried to draft the person in front of me, but I zigged and zagged and could not control the turn of my boat. The voyageur canoes came up behind us like semi trucks, and I veered out of their way. Many other canoes and kayaks shot past us on their way down the river. We lagged. I'm sure I'll figure out this whole rudder thing in a few more hours. We have lots of time to practice.For three hours we travelled downriver to Lake Labarge. As we made our way onto the lake, the wind built up two to three foot wind waves that quartered us from behind. The kayak zigged and zagged and we started to successfully surf a few of the waves, especially after I tightened the tensioning straps for our rudder. Now in our element, we elatedly passed several teams ahead of us. We made one quick stop along shore to retension the rudder straps, but otherwise we planned to stay in the boat.
We passed a couple more teams at 9pm at the end of Lake Labarge who were changing into their night clothes. Our gortex bibs were fine for the night, and we had cagoules to throw over us if we got a little too chilly, which we eventually did.The Yukon twisted and turned snake-like through the Thirty Mile River section, a 30 mile stretch between the end of Lake Labarge and the confluence with the larger Teslin river. I felt like we were moving slow, although we were making a reasonable effort. I convinced myself that our boat must be slow, and that made me feel a little better. The current always looks better on the other side of the river, and I spent a little too much time wandering back and forth across the river to find the fast current, which never seemed to be there once I arrived.
As we rounded a curve after the Teslin, I saw my first beaver. Only 10 yards away on the bank, it looked like a furry basketball. On three more occasions in the trip we saw beavers along the edge of the river, all gathering small branches and twigs for their beachside cottages. We never saw a single deer, elk, moose or bear, which surprised me a bit. Beavers own the Yukon.
We followed our laminated charts as the river curved this way and that way. We had twenty pages of charts to get to Carmacks, and we seemed to go more and more slowly through them as twilight came. While the light never faded past twilight in the midnight
to four AM hours, it still took a toll on our senses, and we continued to grow sleepier as the morning hours crawled past. Andrew took a catnap in front to reinvigorate himself. I tried raising the rudder so that Andrew could steer while I dozed, but we promptly turned sideways and rammed the shore. Note to self: back person needs to steer at all times. How dismal.At our lowest low, we stopped in order to quickly switch places. I tried to nap in front, but I could not relax, as I felt I was going to pitch sideways into the water. We stopped again to switch back. However, this extra movement plus a few coffee beans woke me up enough that I could keep going without falling asleep. We finally pulled into Carmacks exactly 24 hours after we started, hurt and tired.
Volunteers helped us in Carmacks by setting up our tent, drying some of our clothes, and filling up bladders with water. We ate burgers, milkshakes and french fries at the canteen, changed clothes, mindlessly rushed around doing tasks I cannot remember, then went to bed. I could not sleep at all due to a horrible pain in my left shoulder, but after some ibuprofen, aleve and melatonin, I calmed down and slept for four and a half hours.
We arose early and got ready to leave exactly seven hours after we arrived, which included drinking another milkshake. We resupplied with food and left a few extra unneeded things in our Carmacks bag, which would get shipped on to Dawson for us. After a quick gear check by the authorities, we went down to the dock and launched back onto the water for another 18 hour spin until the next rest stop. Another double kayak was only seven minutes behind us; we felt some pressure to keep up our pace to prevent them from catching back up.
On the water, my muscles and tendons complained much less than I had expected, and my fears subsided from the previous night of being unable to continue. Time flew and soon we came upon the first of two rapids: Five Finger Rapids. We stayed right as instructed, and with a few bumps we were through. Looking back, the other channels also did not look too bad, either, so conditions must have been miild. A half hour further on, we sidestepped Rink Rapids by also going right. These were the only two sets of rapids
that we needed to worry about, and they weren't much. A more prevalent danger, however, was gravel bars that dwelt just under the surface of the river. We occasionally ran into strong side currents that pulled us over very, very shallow bars and threatened to ground us if we didn't paddle hard to get away from them.We travelled past Hells Gate Slough stretching out in channels to our right while the main current shot quickly along the left bank. Shortly thereafter we passed Fort Selkirk, a historic trading post that was abandoned in the 1950s when the Klondike highway bypassed it and Yukon river traffic died down. At the checkpoint here, we called out our team number as we passed. Another team on shore played with their gear, and we quickly left them behind as we cruised along in the 5 mph current.
Many islands now dotted the Yukon river, and channels and sloughs weaved between them. Although we
typically followed the main channel, we occasionally darted down small channels that cut more direct paths around a curve when the main channel swung wide. In general, we discovered that the shorter path was usually the better path.After 18+ hours and only one five minute stop along the way, we pulled up at Kirkman Creek, a primitive campground without road access that was the site for our second and final rest break. We filled up with water in the stream, ate soup and sandwich, and then spread our sleeping bags out on the lawn for as much rest as we could get during this three hour stopover. Five minutes later when it started to rain, we moved into a couple of tent shelters that they had provided, although the rain splashed through the mesh of the tent and soaked my bag before the storm cloud passed. I did manage a good solid hour of sleep. We ate some very expensive cheeseburgers and got back on the water exactly three hours after we had arrived. At this point, another double kayak was 20 minutes behind us, and a solo kayaker and solo canoer were only a few minutes ahead of us. We felt reinvigorated.
Seconds after we got on the water, a squall came through and a storm dumped on us. I threw on my cagoule. The solo canoer had pulled to shore and we lef t him behind. Shortly thereafter, the solo kayaker ahead of us decided to take a shortcut through a sandbar, and we left him behind as well. He was navigating solely with his GPS, which seemed fairly difficult. Andrew and I each had a detailed river map, and together we came up with a plan on the most efficient course down the river. Alone, trying to look at a map on a 4" by 2" screen, I would have been much more confused about which islands were which and what channel went where. Andrew and I started doing "tempo intervals" - we paddled reasonably hard for 20 minutes every hour - so that noone behind us would be able to catch up again. We never saw another paddler again until the end of the race.
A couple more squalls came through, along with thunder and lightning. We battled a strong headwind for a time, and it reminded me why double kayaks are called "divorce boats". Every lift of Andrew's paddle brought a windblown splash to my face. My hood up and my cap down low on my head, I gradually fell into a repetitive head-tipping motion in order to block the spray while taking occasional peeks at the map to keep us on track. We had just passed the confluence with the White River, and gravel bars and submerged trees peppered the river. We could hear the grit and gravel grinding against the hull of the kayak, and the water was opaque and churning. Lightning struck again, ahead of us. I became a little worried.
The river turned in the opposite direction of the thunderstorm, however, and gradually grew deeper and less angry. The current moved us quickly along, and before we could count to a billion, we saw the Moosehide Slide marking the hill above Dawnson City. Although I joked about arriving at Dawson when the bars closed at 2am, the skies of the "midnight sun" looked like a Seattle afternoon. We pulled into Dawson City in fine spirits,
changed out of our wet gear, and headed to our hotel where Andrew's family was sleeping. We'll come back and pick up our kayak later. It's time for bed.
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