Yukon trip - Part II

My sister gave me a hard time the other day for starting to write about my Yukon canoe trip and then not carrying it on. It's been 3 months now, but I'll see if I can tell the story.

On the morning of our second day we woke up to a breakfast of cinnamon bun leftovers. We finally finished off the gigantic bun we'd bought the day before, and were thankful to not need to eat it anymore. We'd had enough.

Right outside our tent were footprints that explained some of the noise from the night before. I think they're moose hoof prints, but when it's dark outside and you're in Grizzly country every sound has added meaning. Particularly when you're a city dweller like me.

We got out on the water for our day's paddle. It was a little overcast / smoky still, and not particularly warm, but it was a decent enough day to be out on the water. After a couple of hours of paddling we came to a point where our map said that there was a small settlement off to our left. We were able to beach our canoe and head up a little hill to check it out. It was a small homestead that someone had built for themselves many decades ago.

There were several of these during the trip. Little homes and communities that people had built, usually back when the Yukon river was the primary means of transportation between Whitehorse and Dawson City. It was pretty interesting to think of this big river where we were all alone being populated and acting as a vibrant transportation route 100 years ago, when now there is almost nothing along its length.

We returned to our canoe and continued our paddle. A great deal of the shore on this day had been destroyed by fire within the past decade or so, but it was still quite beautiful. There were a couple of signs of development along the way as well. We paddled from time to time near a highway. We passed a mining operation with a big ferry that crosses the river.

Then, in the early afternoon, the highway left us and there were no more signs of life anywhere. We were truly on our own. I put out the fishing rod to see if I could get us some dinner. I had no luck then or at any point for the rest of the trip. I'd bought the rod, all the tackle, and the licence, hoping to grill up a fresh fish at some point. But I'm not much of a fisherman, so it was a good thing that we didn't have to rely upon my skills for food.

By now it had really clouded over. It was looking like it was going to rain pretty soon. My goal for the day had been to make it to Fort Selkirk, an old trading post where I had heard that there was fresh water and a fenced off camp ground. We knew we were close when it started to rain a bit.

Fort Selkirk is right after the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly Rivers. I was pretty excited when I spotted the Pelly because it meant that we were close. We knew we needed to make a certain turn in the river at that point to get the shortcut to Fort Selkirk, but the current decided that that wasn't going to happen. It grabbed us and forced us across the river. This wouldn't have been so bad, except there are sand bars all across the river at this point, which we were doing our best to avoid. You can dodge the ones that are out of the water, because the river flows around them, but the ones that are just a bit under water are much more difficult, because they can cover the width of the river, they're hard to see, and the flow of the river can take you right on top of them. We hit several, got stuck a few times, but were able to continue without ever getting out of the boat. (I know, it doesn't look too bad. But that's what makes it hard.)

Needless to say, it took as a long time to get back on track and make the final leg into Fort Selkirk. By this time the rain had turned into a downpour. We were getting drenched. We paddled hard and I dreaded setting up camp in the weather. We had proper gear, but it was going to be a very unpleasant night.

Fort Selkirk is build on a plateau above the river. We could easily spot it from 10 minutes away. We beached our canoe and I climbed the stairs that had been left for travellers like us.

I'd been told before we left that we could camp in a fenced off area near the flag poles, so I went in search of our site. The whole area around the poles had been turned into a muddy bog by the rain, so I went searching in the opposite direction, which looked more promising.

At that point I saw a woman coming towards me from the opposite direction in the rain. She welcomed us, said her name was Wendy, and that she was from the first nations group who looks after Fort Selkirk. She let us know that we were welcome to camp in another area, nowhere near the flagpoles, but that with the rain and since we were the only visitors there we could take over the warming hut if we liked and stay in there for the night. This sounded like a terrific improvement over staying in the cold downpour. The she quickly showed us around - the hut had a giant stove, there were external storage lockers for food, there was a pile of dry wood that they had cut for visitors, there were water pumps and there were outhouses. I couldn't have been happier if we'd come across a Four Seasons in the woods. Compared to the night I thought we were about to have this was luxury.

We rescued our gear from the boat. Secured our canoe. And got everything into the hut.

The hut was fantastic. We built a roaring fire. (It took a few attempts to get it to the roaring stage. Many thanks to Colleen.) We set up our gear in hopes that it would dry that night. I cooked us a bit of dinner. That night it was pad thai and biscuits. Delicious! And we got set up for the night. Here's Pig making another appearance.

It turned out to be a terrific end to a very nice day, and the best possible alternative to what was going to be a pretty miserable night. A huge thanks to the Fort Selkirk First Nations people, it was greatly appreciated.

Perhaps not your dream vacation

So, my mother and step-dad are taking a two week holiday to Israel.

Yesterday my sister forwarded me their itinerary. The second item on page one read as follows:

"Drive to Sderot. This is city has been an ongoing target of Qassam rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip located less than a mile from the city. Sderot has borne the brunt of Palestinian rocket attacks since 2001, killing 13 people, wounding dozens, causing millions of dollars in damage and disrupting daily life and ruining the economy. More than 1,000 projectiles have exploded in the town of about 20,000 people in the past year alone."

Well, of course, who wouldn't want to go to Sderot. I've dreamed of going to Sderot. And after that I might go spend some time on the Somali coast and then maybe cross the border between China and North Korea.

Mom, David - You're pushing 70. Shouldn't you be on a cruise in the Caribean?

Sweet 16

I was just sitting in bed browsing some interesting blogs and watching a video or two when it struck me that the functional internet, and by that I mean the Web, is only 16 years old. It was '93 when Mosaic, the first really usable web browser was released.

I remember the first time I saw the web. Before that I'd been online using tools like Archie and Gopher. Then I was visiting a friend of mine for the weekend while he was studying at Western. He introduced me to the web, and I was simply blown away. Who knew what a major part of my life it would become.

One of my first jobs at an agency was helping Palmer Jarvis figure out what this new web thing was back in '95. I had to give an opinion as to whether there was any business to be had there, and what sort of business model the agency should set up to take advantage of it. In hindsight, the reco I prepared for them was actually pretty spot on.

16 is remarkably young. The consumer internet is really just a pup. I can't wait to see what the next 16 years brings.

Rory Sutherland at TED

I enjoy reading Rory Sutherland's blog.

I'm a big fan of TED and wish I could afford to attend.

And I thought Diamond Shreddies was brilliant.

So here are several things I like, all together.



Thanks to AdHack for pointing this out.

Info factoids

I enjoy informational videos like this. I'm not sure if I retain much of the info, but it's always a good reminder of how fast things change. On the other hand, statistics can be misleading...



And no, I didn't know what "Rickrolling" was. Did you?

Hypocrisy at the Community Centre

I was down at the False Creek Community Centre the other day and walked past their vending machine. A little chart on the inside left of the machine with colour coding caught my attention. Headed "Healthy Choices" it had four levels ranging from the double check marked green "Choose Most" to the red unhappy face "Not recommended".



And beside each item in the machine was a corresponding colour sticker. So, for example, trail mix got the nice double check mark, whereas one of my favourites, Coffee Crisp, got the dreaded Red Sad Face.

Now, in some ways I don't mind this. It's not a bad thing to remind us that some foods aren't very good for us.

But don't you think it's a little hypocritical to sell a product and, at the same time, say it's "Not Recommended". How about this, if you don't recommend it then don't sell it. Don't sell it to me and try to lecture me at the same time. Stand up for what you believe in.

I could honestly accept if they said that one was a "Healthier Choice" and one was "Less Healthy". But instead it's "Choose Most", "Choose Sometimes", "Choose Least" and "Not Recommended".

Shouldn't a Rec Centre be a leader in healthy eating. If anyone should be expected to set an example and not sell crap, it should be the place you go to to get healthy. I guess in this case the potential for revenue from the machine outweighed their principles. And that's kind of sad.

Canoeing the Yukon River

Colleen and I set off on our trip down the Yukon River two weeks ago. We flew into Whitehorse on the Friday evening, did some last minute shopping at the local Canadian Tire, where we picked up bear spray, fuel, bear bangers, flares and other things that they don't like you to carry on the plane. We then spent the evening with our friends Jeff and Jenn.

The next morning we went grocery shopping and added to our camping food. We also picked up a couple of last minute things like a toque for me and a safety knife for paddling. Then we went down to Kanoe People, where we picked up our boat. They had answered all my trip questions for the past couple of weeks, they had set up transport to Carmacks, where we w

ere to start our trip, and they were helpful on that Saturday morning, providing us with new gear, a bear cache, maps and lots of good safety stuff.

Next we got a ride from a gentleman Harris from Whitehorse to Carmacks. On the way we stopped off at the Braeburn Lodge, home of the Yukon's giant cinnamon buns. I was shocked at the price, $8.50 for a bun, but it served as lunch, dinner and breakfast the next morning for the two of us. Sorry I didn't get a photo of the bun. They really are huge and really rather delicious.

Harris dropped us off in Carmacks, where we were able to get one last fabulous meal before our trip. Cheeseburgers, onion rings and milkshakes. Yes, we were eating terribly, but we felt we deserved it if we were going to be on the water for six to eight days.

We went down to the dock, loaded up the canoe, strapped it all in with bungies. And we were ready to go. It was after 4:00 by the time we hit the water, much later than I'd hoped for.

The first few hours on the water were pretty uneventful. The forest fires in the area at that time were pretty terrible, so there was a haze covering the water and you couldn't see that much. One canoeist who had arrived at Carmacks when we had been leaving said that he'd seen fire on both sides of the river shortly before getting there. All the same it was a nice start to our trip, regardless of the limited visibility.



Our goal for the first day was to make it to the Five Finger rapids and the Rink rapids. These are the only two rapids to speak of on the trip and, as a pretty novice paddler, I had been stressing about them. I'd watched videos on YouTube and I'd done all the research I could to learn how to tackle these rapids. I'd had sleepless nights worrying about them. All I know was that it was critical to stay river right when we went through them.

After about four hours of paddling and tracking our progress on our map we knew we were getting close. We finally rounded the bend and there they were, five basalt pillars in the middle of the river, just waiting for us. It was now or never, although we had no choice really, since the river was flowing pretty fast at this point. So Colleen and I got our nerve up and charged ahead.


We hit the first gap in the rocks at just the right spot. We paddled for the left hand side of the opening. We bounced around a bit, rode a swell or two, and that was it. No drama, no capsizing. It was fun and somewhat exciting, but for all the stress that they had caused the Five Finger rapids were quite a disappointment. More than anything, they were really pretty.


Next up were the Rink Rapids, about an hour later. Nowhere near as dramatic as the Five Finger rapids, we still didn't want to mess with them. But by staying river right again, we were able to avoid them pretty much altogether. You can see them here, just ahead of us.


Having survived the main challenges of the day, we were beat. It was time to find an island and make camp. We had to paddle some distance still to find just the right, relatively bear free, location. While we paddled the sun was beautiful as it poked through the smoky haze.


It took quite awhile for us to find a location that we liked. We ended up settling for something less perfect than we wanted, but it was getting late and we needed sleep. We set up camp, at some more of our cinnamon bun, and called it a night.

This is our friend Pig, who likes to travel with us.



The night was eventful, with lots of deeply disturbing noises. But we'd survived day one, and we'd made it through the rapids, so things were good.