What was it like
One of the worst fire seasons in history hung over the Yukon like a pall. The Top of the World Highway was closed due to smoke. But up here roads are new things, new-fangled things, and long before any road reached the North the rivers were the roads. We wondered then whether perhaps it may be possible for us to canoe down the river to Dawson and get back on the bikes again there. Neither of us knew anything about canoeing so we began asking the locals. Like locals throughout the world, they were never short of opinions:
“The river’s too high”
“The river’s too cold”
“You don’t have a map”
“You’ll sink if you load your bikes onto a canoe”
“The smoke is too dangerous”
“Five Finger rapids will get you”
“The bears will get you”
“The fires will get you.”
The monicker for a long-term resident of the Yukon is a ’sourdough’, a term used with great respect. We, clearly, were not sourdoughs- we were a pair of naive Englishmen and we therefore had no chance. Red rag to a bull? We immediately began the search for a canoe. If my philosophy on life is ‘pragmatic idealism’, my philosophy on adventure is becoming ‘pragmatic recklessness’. As Mallory said, “The greatest danger in life is not to take the adventure.”
Fortified by bison burgers, moose tacos and bear sausages and be-grizzled with several weeks of beard we piled up our canoe ridiculously high (it looked ominously like a pyre) with bikes, bags and two weeks supply of food, strapped a moose skull on top as totem and mascot, bade farewell to the road and pushed off towards Dawson, 500 miles away.
We were accompanied for the first couple of days by friends in another canoe, who were clearly worried about our ineptitude. Sara, a South American Explorer and a sourdough, and Peter, another sourdough, set about sharing their wisdom with us and we were grateful for it. On the first day Peter fell out of his canoe into the river. The canoe was up on the riverbank at the time. With teachers like these, what could possibly go wrong? We waved them goodbye and continued alone, eager to start building up our pecs and biceps to impress the ladies of Dawson.
We soon realised that canoeing is considerably more fun than cycling: you cannot get lost, you can effortlessly transport mountains of gear and so can eat much nicer food than on the bike. You can wash up your pans with water rather than with bread or sand. Best of all is that even when you are resting, or eating, or peeing, or generally being idle, you are still being carried effortlessly towards your destination.
Lake Lebarge was the first hurdle- 50km of lake with no current to help ease the miles along. The lake was made famous, at least up here, by Robert Service’s poem ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ (“There are strange things done in the midnight sun… but the queerest they ever did see, was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee”). Strong headwinds and choppy waves turned the lake into an extra long battle, and we had to abandon one afternoon for fear of swamping and sinking. To lose one’s entire worldly possessions several days walk from the nearest road would not be a good thing.
By evening all would be peaceful once more and we skimmed stones on the calm lake down the royally golden road of late sunlight, throwing up silver crowns with each splash.
After the lake we enjoyed the changing faces of the river all the more. At times, jade green and steady with strange boils of water rising and slowly swirling. At times, a sliding mirror. At times-my favourite- shallow and jolly and you could look down and watch the pebbles rush past, colourful time capsules, colossally yet casually old.