Our Great Yukon Adventure...

Here we are at the beginning of our great Yukon adventure. The trip would take us from Whitehorse to Carmacks. We started with a 30-mile paddle in upper Lake LaBerge

The lake was really beautiful but BIG. It took us 1 ½ days to finally reach the Yukon River.

At the first camping spot, Cate noticed that we had camped on a bed of wild strawberries. What a nice treat for our first (of many) breakfast of hot oatmeal.

We finally made it to the Yukon River!! (For those of you unfamiliar with kayaking—we are wearing our sprayskirts—it keeps a water tight seal between you and your kayak.)

This is the 30-mile trading post. The Yukon River has been designated as an historical and scenic river. It is sprinkled with old prospector’s cabins, etc. and the government has placed wonderful descriptive markers all along the way explaining the historical remains of the gold rush.

At our fist camping spot on the Yukon—Paul taught Cate how to flyfish. If Paul’s not looking too happy, it’s because Cate caught all the fish the first night and Paul caught-----NONE!! And yes, Cate is in her jammie pants. She’s already taken her bath in the VERRRY cold Yukon River. I always knew she was a little crazy!!

Here’s our little kayaker. Hard to believe Cate never complained—HONESTLY!! She seemed to really love the experience.

Lunch consisted of peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat pita bread---EVERYDAY!! OK so—by day 6 Cate was ready to sprint to the end for a meal at the Carmacks Burger Shack—so was mom.

Paul looks on (wearing his mosquito jacket) while Cate readies for another day of paddling. Everyday started with crawling out of the tent, pulling stuff out of the kayak for breakfast (it had to be securely stored to keep away from bears), packing-up camp, repacking the kayaks and moving on to the next campsite—and doing it all over again. It was a lot of daily work but SOOOOOO worth it!!!

On an average day we paddled ~40 miles. There were about 20 hours of daylight and 4 hours of twilight. It never got completely dark—which was good with me since I was always looking for bears.

This is our tent. Paul and Cate are busy making breakfast. We purposely chose a tent with a ‘screened porch’ since the mosquitoes operated on the ‘greet and eat’ approach. I learned real fast that the most mosquito-free areas were in the middle of the Yukon River on islands.

BUT--I also mistakenly believed that islands would provide a safe haven from bears—that is until we excitedly watched as a bear very easily swam across the wide and raging river and plopped his ‘squishy butt’ on an island that we were about to claim for the night!!! Yes—we moved

on…

A gold-stampeder’s cabin. A visit to it’s interior tells you that they knew how to entertain ;) That’s my kind of camping!! Too bad they were all empty ;-)

Home sweet home. Paul takes a break in his hammock in front of another stampeder’s cabin while I pan for gold…Yes—I’m gonna keep my day job—

Paul and I relax around the campfire while Cate makes friends with a worm—does this mean she’s tired of being with us???

Here we sit on our kayaks on the last day of our great Yukon adventure. We are tired but we’ve had such a spectacular time!!! We only wished Ben had come along….We missed you!!!