In the morning of our first day in Whitehorse, we prepared our packs, went to do some much needed grocery shopping and got our booked canoe at UpNorth. It all didn’t go as fast as we planned: Much needed sleep after our late arrival and long journey the day before as well as the fact, that without car moving from A to B to C just takes time. In the end it was 3 pm in the afternoon when we were ready.
Some of the most important things we packed:
- Tent with ground cover
- Sleeping bag and isolation matts
- Tarp for rainy days
- Clothes, toilet bag
- Cooking stuff including a gas burner, the Biolite burner, a Gamelle and a set of camping pan and dishes
- Food, 8 ltr of water, water disinfection pills
- Sound (UE Wonderboom!)
- Camera
- Mosquito head net and sprays
- Bear spray
- First aid kit and medication
- An axe (the one to split wood, not to cover body odor) including a saw
- Solar charger and powerbanks
- Garmin Inreach GPS / Satellite messenger
- A river map of the Yukon down to Carmacks
From UpNorth we rented:
- A canoe including 3 paddles (1 reserve)
- 2 camping chairs
- 2 dry bags for our large trekking backpacks
- 2 life jackets
We hoped that this was all we would need and launched our canoe into the Yukon river at Whitehorse. We didn’t receive too much inputs – it takes about 6-8 days, there are no dangerous rapids along the way and we have to leave the boat at the only camping in Carmacks. We were allowed to camp wherever we want and could gather dead wood for campfires – something we haven’t been allowed in any of the National and Provincial Parks. Of course there were more suitable camp spots along the way- most of them indicated in our river map.
So there we went down the first couple of kilometers – as it was already late afternoon, we really weren’t sure on how far we would get today. After a couple of hundred meters, we left the last manmade structures behind us and found ourselves in wild nature.
After 4.5h and 33 km we decided to look for a campsite. We made it to just before lake Laberge and were satisfied with our half day trip distance. As the last indicated camp spot was taken by someone else, we decided to just open a new spot on a nice, sandy shore. We set up the tent and started a fire to prepare our first meal! Time ran and as the sun set at 23:30, it was still very bright. We had one task left to do: Storing the food in a bear safe location. Unlike Bowron Lakes and all other campgrounds, there were no bear canisters in camps along the Yukon. Hence we had to find a tree to pull up the food enclosed in one of the drybags using our rope.
Time for bed! Fortunately we were tired enough to just fall asleep despite the bright skies (why did we actually take our headlamps with us?). What a day!
