YUKON RIVER DAY 9 & 10

For these final two days I, sadly, have no pictures myself, but I will borrow from Kendra's blog (click on italicized word to go there) unashamedly and also from Rachel's facebook. Thanks.
Day 9 began as yet another rainy day. At this point we were pretty sure that we would never see the end of the rain and might actually need to grow gills to survive.
Here is the campsite we woke up to - much different from how it looked when we went to bed. It's a good thing we moved out tents.Yet another rainy day...Everyone bundled up against the elements.Desperately trying to dry out around the mid-morning fire and snack barrel.
Once the rain let up everyone began to relax a little.
The latrine that Ray made. He's an expert.
This time we were not going to get rained upon - we even made a cooking shelter.


Day 10 we actually awoke to sunshine. We were so excited. What a great way to finish our epic adventure. It was with great relief that we paddled into Dawson City at about 2:00 in the afternoon. George had arrived with our truck and was waiting at the landing site for us. We spent a fantastic night on the town - gambling at Diamond Tooth Gerties, having a few drinks at various bars around town (complete with Brian and Kendra doing the sourtoe), and watching the shows with cancan girls. It was a trip to remember. I may even do it again one day.

YUKON RIVER DAY 8

In the early morning hours of day 8 it began to rain again. As you can imagine we were getting a little tired of the rain by this point. The only good thing is that it stopped raining long enough each evening to get everything dried out again. We got into the canoes and I hit the proverbial wall. I was cold, wet and miserable. My hands were completely cramped up and aching up to my elbows. I just sat in the front of the canoe crying and feeling sorry for myself. Brian was a saint - he just comforted me and told me to rest. He would have paddled the whole day himself for me. I was pretty pathetic. Eventually though, I began to toughen up, grabbed my paddle in my gnarled hands and dug in. Once the rain let up we stopped for another fire. Then the cameras came out again.
Giving the thumbs up - all is o.k. I will survive.Still trudging on. This was the day Brian was positive we would get pie. Maybe it was the thought of this that kept everyone going on this dreary day. In the distance we saw this sign. As signs on the Yukon river are few and far between, we had to check it out.
Upon closer inspection here is what it said:So, we naively paddled as hard as we could toward the pie.
What we found was a little bit disturbing. It is what Brian now refers to as "Hill billy pie". We reached what we thought was the "bakery," there were no signs marking the place, only a couple boats pulled up to shore. It was pouring rain once again and no one was too anxious to get out of their canoes and step into the mud to see what was over the rise. However, Brian wanted pie so bad at this point, and had been raving on about pie for so long that everyone else now wanted pie too, that we were elected to see if it was the place. There was also a campsite here. We were all imagining a nice campsite, with a cute little bakery and showers. Needless to say that is not what we found. We knew we had stumbled upon the campsite only because there was a big oil drum with "garbage" painted on it. There were some fire pits and picnic tables, but the ground was very uneven - rolling hills with no flat spots to pitch a tent. Then we looked farther and saw a few buildings, a man peering around the corner, and 3 dogs charging toward us. As we bravely came nearer to the buildings the man began to frantically look around for someone else to talk to us as we was clearly not comfortable talking to people. Finally a woman came into view carrying a large basket of laundry which she was washing in an old machine outside and hanging to dry in the rain. She grunted to us before yelling at her kids to get their grandmother. These 2 chubby little girls came running and went to find her. While this was going on we signaled to the others to come up. Finally we had found pie! Brian bravely asked "what kind of pie do you have?" Answer: "apple!" Okay then. When we had finally all received our pie and homemade rootbeer we crammed into a very small gazebo to eat in relative dryness. We made the hasty decision to find to a different campsite. Brian decided that it was reminiscent of the movie "Deliverance." Maybe it's a good thing that we have no pictures. It is an event better left in our memories.

On to other things...we saw a lot of bald eagles on the trip.
The case of the disappearing campsite: After the bakery fiasco, we were on the lookout for a good camping spot. We came across this island with a nice, although rocky, point. We checked it out and dragged our canoes around from where we had landed to where we wanted to be. Then we set up camp as usual.
Ray built the latrine, as usual, complete with lots of mosquitos.
Brian dried out the tents. Apparently he had a lot of extra energy (probably from the pie) today and put it to good use drying the tents. Kendra and I were laughing so hard while watching him. Somehow she managed to get both pictures and a video. (She has also been writing a blog you can follow here.) You will highly enjoy the video - make sure you have the sound on as the music is perfect.



After supper we all took a dive in the icy cold river while holding soap. It was at the point in the trip that we all smelled so bad that being in an enclosed tent was beginning to get unbearable. The men all dove right under the water and came up feeling very refreshed. None of us women were quite so brave - splashing water was enough.
It was around this time that we looked at the area we had pitched our tents and noticed some streams starting to flow near them that hadn't been there earlier. So, we made the wise decision to move our tents and canoes to higher ground. This proved to be a very good decision. In the morning our original area was under water, as was our fire pit from the night before too. I guess all the rain caused the river to rise just enough to flood that part of the island.

YUKON RIVER DAY 7

From this point on in the trip we don't have as many photos. I think the rain was starting to get to everyone. Along with that my memory card was full. But the memories are still there.
We got up in the morning and before we had even packed up our belongings it began to rain again. Suddenly everyone was moving double time, trying to get things put away before it all became drenched. We were in such a hurry to get out of camp that I didn't have time to brush my teeth until we were in the canoes.The scenery still remained gorgeous. We just had to see it through a layer of clouds.
Part way through the morning, when we were all suitably soaked, the rain let up. At this point we stopped for a break. Super Ray lit a fire (even though all the wood was soaking wet) and we huddled around it for an hour or so. There was steam rising off everyone as we attempted to dry off somewhat. It was at this point that Kendra started to become a little delirious and thought the fire was a duck.


Rachel, Kendra and myself after we were beginning to dry out. Everyone highly enjoyed the snack barrel on days like this. In fact it was transported in front of Brian in the canoes and I have yet to figure out how it still had food in it by the end of the trip. I thought he would be dipping into it all day long for sure.We set up camp on an island that will be sandy in a few more weeks, but at this time was mud. But camping spots were few and far between, so we couldn't afford to be too picky. There were moose tracks all around our campsite.
All in all it was another good day. The rain stopped after lunch and all our gear was dry before we climbed in for the night.

YUKON RIVER DAY 6

Day 6 was a much quieter day after all the excitement of the rapids. We woke up to a promising day, which unfortunately turned into a rainy day by the time we were packed up and back on the river. But we were looking forward to seeing some new sights.

Rachel and Ray were the most experienced canoers in the group. They made the whole trip look so easy. While Brian and I were working hard just to keep up they seemed to be effortlessly paddling yet managing to stay well ahead of everyone else. (Rachel told me later that she was working hard too.) They rarely made mistakes in reading the river currents. So, it was with great amusement that we watched them get stuck on this sand bar.
One of the interesting points today was Minto. Apparently there is a settlement at Minto and Brian had his heart set on getting some pie. We never found pie here unfortunately. I think we just missed the town. We did, however, find the barge that transports mining trucks across the river. It looked like a pretty quiet day for the barge, so we pulled over at the opposite bank and had a lunch break.

We were keeping close watch in case the barge needed to move across the river. Of course, that is exactly what happened. So, we quickly packed up our lunch stuff and raced back to the canoes to get out of the way. The captain of the barge was very accommodating and gave us time to clear the area before he landed.
We really didn't expect to see so much barge traffic on the river. These barges (there are actually 2 here) are used to haul supplies to various mines along the river. They are based in Fort Selkirk.Our destination for the day was Fort Selkirk. Brian was convinced that he would get his pie here. But his plans were thwarted again.
They had a really nice camping area, so we pitched our tents and continued the drying process.
There was a fabulous dining shelter complete with drying racks for all our gear. Since we were the only ones at the site we quickly took over the shelter. Some people arrived a couple hours later, but had only put in at Minto and had no need to dry out yet.
The gang.

The settlement of Fort Selkirk is an historical site for the Northern Tutchone people. They are restoring all the buildings. It was a very interesting stop. Here is a virtual museum.

The dining shelter.
It was quite a haul up some rickety steps with our gear.Another successful day on the Yukon River. But, still no pie.

YUKON RIVER DAY 5

On day 5 we left Carmacks at about noon. Everyone was so exhausted from the long day before that a more leisurely morning was deemed necessary. It proved to be a great decision as it started to rain during the night and we wanted to dry out our tents as much as possible before packing them up. So, once again Rachel made us an amazing breakfast. Complete with 3 pounds of bacon - it had to be used up. We ate a LOT of bacon, then packed up the rest and took it with us. We had planned to borrow bikes from the campground and bike to the store in the morning, but it was raining so hard we decided just to stop by the store when we canoed past.

Here we are heading off for the day.
While we were in Carmacks we met a group from Switzerland - 2 couples and 2 kids. They built this raft, complete with blue water barrels for flotation, a wood stove and a steering rudder. They plan to take the raft all the way along the Yukon River to the Bering Sea, a journey of approx. 3000 km.
The bridge in Carmacks.
It poured rain all afternoon, but in spite of this we were still in good spirits.
Taking a much needed break on this miserable day.

When the rain let up it was such a relief. Everyone began to smile and laugh again.
This is approaching the 5 finger rapids. You can see the stairway that leads down to the viewpoint overlooking the rapids. This is the part of the journey that had me the most terrified. I have never been through rapids before and it was with great trepidation that I faced this part of the trip. The river was fairly high so they were not as bad as they could have been, but even so, the waves were 2-4 feet - enough for a rookie like me. I made sure that everything was tethered into the canoe and I was well protected in case of immersion. Then I yelled at Brian most of the way through until I realized that it wasn't that bad and I was actually enjoying it. In fact when we got to the Rink rapids 8km later we wanted to shoot the rapids in the middle, but we ended up too far to the right and missed most of the excitement there. Here is a video from youtube of someone going through the rapids. It's taken by someone watching from the bluff and gives an idea of what we were in.

Brian and Phil looking a little wet after the rapids.
Yes, I was very wet too. That's what happens when you are in the front.Kendra and Phil's canoe - everything was floating. I think they hit the rapids more to the right hand side and ended up getting into rougher water.
We managed to find this fantastic high water camp that night. The rain had stopped so we were able to dry things out before we went to bed.
I think the site was an old NWMP site. There were a couple old buildings still standing.
Rachel getting the chili ready for supper. It was a big hit on such a rainy day.

Ray rigged up this contraption for drying out his shoes, etc.
All in all it was a fantastic day even with the rain. However, at this point we didn't realize that the rain would continue for another 4 days.