Bill went for a 20 km bike ride in the am and stopped in Whitehorse to pick up bear spray (way too many bear-in-the-area signs!). While in the adventure store, he saw a notice about a four-hour canoe trip on the Yukon. He has been thinking about getting onto a river for our whole trip and here was our chance. My strong preference is for feet-on-the-ground adventures but why not indulge him, right?
So, after signing our life away (will not sue in spite of rapids,drowning, animal attacks, tipped canoes, hypothermia….), we were outfitted with pfd’s, given a map (our history with hand-drawn maps has never been good) and taken down to the river. The one strong admonition was head out 45 degrees up river and paddle hard to avoid getting caught in the eddy and crashing into the cement barrier on shore upriver. No prob. We were soon heading downriver and liking the strong current which meant not too much heavy paddling.
To cut the four-hour story short, the map was accurate in hind-sight, the 20 km trip was looong, the scenery was interesting for the first two kilometres and the same after that and neither one of us ended up with repetitive stress injuries… To be fair, we did see a bald eagle nesting area with immature eagles dotting many of the trees. That was cool.
What was not cool was the guy picking us up at the end of 20 km forgetting and us waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes for the return ride. Others were there too, including a tour from Mexico who were not prepared for the challenge of the river (Bill ended up teaching a very tired and frightened young woman the mysteries of the J stroke to keep her canoe going straight). While waiting for our ride, they complained that after four hours of paddling, they were hungry! Many apologies from owner later, we stopped by Tim Horton’s for chili and home.
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| Yukon River by canoe |
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| Two of probably twenty eagles |
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