This 3-part series of articles was originally intended as a somewhat academic look at the historic sites along the Yukon River between Lake Laberge and
Dawson City. However, I've just returned from what will surely remain one of the most memorable journeys of my life, so I hope that you won't mind the much more
personal and wide-ranging account that is being posted (August 22, 1997).
I've always been amazed that so many people are writing about places that they've never visited, or have just passed through quickly -
without absorbing the "sense of place," the
aura, they can't possibly do their subject justice, regardless of the quality of their wordsmithing. Although I only have to walk a block from my front door to get a great view of the Yukon River,
the initial justification to canoe the 407 miles to Dawson was to immerse myself (figuratively and literally) in this river that's become so important in my life, and to record the
historic sites that remain scattered through the wilderness.
The decision to make the trip was only made about 6 weeks ago, spurred by the interest that my 13-year-old son Steven has recently shown in the history of the North -
when a teenager takes an interest in anything, it's worth an extra effort to encourage it! And, more importantly, the opportunity to spend almost 2 weeks alone with Steven while
helping him to accomplish something that he can really be proud of, may never come again.
A wilderness canoe trip is not for everyone - it requires some canoeing and bush survival skills, and a reasonable level of
physical fitness to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone. Obviously, this is particularly important when traveling with your kids. We planned to spend 11 days on the river,
and the only re-supply point (or changed-my-mind point!) is at Carmacks, at about the half-way point.
Steven and I packed all of our gear into a new 17-foot Coleman canoe, which can carry 695 pounds. We packed for an adventure, not an ordeal, and
food wasn't scrimped on - no dried stuff, some fresh meat and milk packed in a steel (bearproof) cooler, lots of snacks and desserts.
We chose to start at the campground at Lake Laberge to cut down the still-water distance that we'd have to paddle. It was the right decision -
while the lake is
beautiful, even the 23 miles of it that we saw became monotonous.
We wanted a river with old stuff along the banks, and the thought of getting our canoe taken across the lake by a power boat crossed both our minds!
We had no schedule to adhere to other than to
be in Dawson City on the 9th, so the mileage paddled on the first days wasn't impressive. We set up camp the first night on a gravel point only 15 miles from the campground, and had a
marvelous view of massive
thunderstorms bearing down on us - it was one of the most violent storms that I've seen in the Yukon, and Steven spent nearly an hour peeking out the door
watching it.
The next
morning we resumed our adventure under spectacularly clear skies, and by noon had reached the end of Lake Laberge.
As the lake empties into the section of the Yukon River known as the Thirty Mile, the remains of the community of Lower Laberge provide an excellent
introduction to life on the river. The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) provided the first permanent presence here when they opened a detachment in 1899. The location had, however, been a
common camping spot through the gold rush, and it's virtually certain to have been the site of seasonal camps for the Southern Tutchone Indians. The community was connected to the
winter road between Whitehorse and Dawson, had a telegraph office, and at least 5 roadhouses had been in business by 1905. Now, only the telegraph office and Mounted Police
cabin remain, but there are signs of early camps throughout the area.
Lower Laberge was a popular spot to winter sternwheelers, as the ice goes out of the river below that point much earlier than it does on the lake itself.
Boats located there in the spring could therefore be loaded with freight brought overland from Whitehorse, and get to Dawson up to a month before their competitors who had to wait for the
lake ice to clear. The Dominion Steamboat Line Company, Captain Wallace Langley and the British Yukon Navigation Company (BYN) all had ways at Lower Laberge to pull their steamers out of
the water for the winters, and Charles Boutillier applied for land to build ways which would be available for rent to anyone.
The hull wreckage of the 140-foot sternwheeler
Casca lies on the bank just above the police cabin. Built in 1898 at Victoria for the Casca Trading &
Transportation Company, she operated on the Stikine and Skeena Rivers in northern British Columbia before being sold to a Dawson company in 1902. She was an extremely popular boat,
both for passenger comfort and her power when towing barges on upstream runs. In 1905 she was bought by the BYN, a division of the White Pass & Yukon Route.
By 1911, the hull was "practically worn out and useless..." so she was totally rebuilt to the point where the resulting vessel is considered to be the Casca (No.2). The old hull
was used as a landing barge on the lake for several years, then was probably used as a dock at the point where it sits today.
The Thirty Mile River is generally considered to be among the finest canoeing rivers on the continent. Thirty miles (48 kilometers) long, it varies from
50-100 yards (or meters) wide, with a current of crystal-clear water running at about 5 miles per hour (8 kmh). There is no road access anywhere along it's length, the closest access being
the campground where we put in (or by floatplane at Lower Laberge or Hootalinqua). The Thirty Mile was designated in 1991 as a
Canadian Heritage River, and is now protected by both Territorial and federal legislation.
I've heard many stories about the river trip, but I really wasn't prepared for the incredible thrill of floating down this beautiful and historic piece of river.
Although I knew that the rivers were the highway for most of the pioneers, and could tell Steven lots of stories about life then, it wasn't until we had
gone a few miles down the river that we were able to start to feel what life was like then. This section of the Yukon River was the most dangerous for the sternwheelers, due to the
speed of the current and the narrow, ever-shifting channel. Many of the gravel bars, rocks and bends are named for the boats that were grounded and/or wrecked at those locations, despite an
enormous amount of work blasting out rocks and dredging sandbars in the early years. Domville Creek,
Tanana Reef, Casca Reef, LaFrance Creek and many others all have stories to tell, sometimes rather humorous, but more often tragic.
On July 20, 1900, the iron-hulled Florence S rolled over while rounding a sharp bend too quickly, and the purser, a woman passenger and her baby were all drowned.
From the vantage point of the canoe, having just inspected
the Casca wreckage, it was easy to envisage piloting a boat up to 200 feet long along this liquid go-cart track! I had brought along Art Knutson's excellent book (Sternwheels on the Yukon)
of his days working on the boats, and his explanations of how some of the tight corners were made, and how they would get off gravel bars, added a great deal to this part of the trip for
both Steven and I.
Halfway down the Thirty Mile is the
17 Mile Woodyard, the first of many along our route. The ruins of two cabins, several sections of wagons and sleds, and lots of
smaller artifacts remain at the site, and give a glimpse into what life would have been like for the men who lived here. In the days when the steamers were running, there were dozens of camps
along the river which existed solely to supply the boats with the huge quantities of wood which they consumed. Usually about 20-30 miles part, they stripped large areas of trees to feed the
boilers of the steamers, which could use over 2 cords of wood per hour on an upstream run (a cord is a pile 8 feet long, 4 feet high and 4 feet wide). And remember, there were no chains saws
when this was being done! Even on a downstream run, the steamers' fuel consumption was impressive - I brought along a photocopy of a trip log from the Yukon Archives, and it shows that the
Aksala, on a typical trip, used 61 cords in the 39 hours that it took to run from Whitehorse to Dawson (Ref.: White Pass Records, COR 724).
The Thirty Mile ends abruptly when the Teslin River joins from the north, doubling the size of the Yukon River. Just past the junction is the ghost village of
Hootalinqua. An important seasonal fishing camp for the native people, it became the supply centre for the low-grade gold mining being carried on along the lower Teslin River in the mid 1890s.
Due to its important position at the junction of the main stampede route to the Klondike and the secondary "All-Canadian Route" which went up the Stikine River then overland to Teslin Lake, the NWMP built a post here in 1898.
Although the permanent population was never more than about a dozen, a telegraph station was built in 1900, and Taylor & Drury had a store in 1901-1902. In 1899, the Keystone View Company
published a stereo-view card with photos of "Dan's Cabin", a small but very popular roadhouse at Hootalinqua owned by Dan Snure, a well-liked fellow who remained in the Yukon until his death in 1940.
Four buildings remain here, all reasonably intact, and excellent campsites have been provided for river travelers.
As with all of the other historic structures along the river, however, the buildings at Hootalinqua are all being desecrated by vandals who have a need to record their
presence by carving their names into the logs. Significantly, while older autographs are primarily from Yukoners and Alaskans, the more recent ones are almost all Germans and Japanese. The
Tourism people have done a great job of instilling the idea that leaving garbage in the wilderness is unacceptable (garbage along the river is virtually non-existent), but now we obviously have to
inform visitors that despite the fact that these
structures are less than 100 years old (which in terms of European and Asian history is nothing), they are significant to us, and carving pieces out of them is no different than stealing
artifacts, or breaking up tombstones in a cemetery. Take only photos and memories, leave no trace of your passing! OK, I'm off my soap-box now.
The legendary Yukon mosquitoes deserve a mention at this point (no, they didn't carry Steven off!!). Bugs of all kinds can be almost completely avoided by staying on
the river. While you will of course want to spend lots of time
exploring and
hiking, it's best to camp on one of the open gravel bars in the middle of the river - there are lots of them, except
at extreme high water. This also lessens the danger of having a bear check out your camp, an important consideration, particularly this year (it's been an extremely bad year for bear encounters).
In damp areas, however, the mosquitoes can be very bad, so bring lots of powerful repellent.
The Thirty Mile River was far too short, but Hootalinqua provided a beautiful transition point to a new section of the river. Tomorrow we start the day exploring
the most complete sternwheeler wreck along the Yukon.
The John C. Barr at Hootalinqua, 1899
Mounted Police post to the left, Dan Snure's roadhouse in the centre
Part 2 - Hootalinqua to Fort Selkirk
Part 3 - Fort Selkirk to Dawson City
Photo Album
Books About the Yukon River
