Yukon River Dawson to Circle. 10 days. Class I. Yukon Territory and Alaska.

Yukon River, Dawson to Circle

After doing the Whitehorse to Dawson section of the Yukon River, we returned the next year to do the Dawson to Circle section.  This is a bit shorter.  We took 11 days, but could have easily done it in less.  Logistics were harder since getting out of Circle required a trip on the mail plane and we could not rent canoes.  We bought Ally foldable canoes and they were great.  We have since used them on another couple trips.

Full blog with pictures: https://northernwaters.shutterfly.com/yukonriverdawsontocircle

This was a beautiful mellow trip.  It was basically a float trip.  There wasn't as much history to visit as on the Whitehorse to Dawson trip, but the history we did get to see was especially nice.  We spent a day and a half at the Slaven's Roadhouse and had a great time exploring the gold dredge there.  The geology is very interesting in this section also, as the pictures show.  We stayed in the public use cabins along the way for 4 nights, which made things rather posh.

Logistics
Getting there  We used AirNorth for Vancouver to Dawson, then mail plane from Circle to Fairbanks, and AirNorth for Fairbanks to Dawson and Dawson to Vancouver.  This was about the most expensive way we could have done it.  Much cheaper would have been to do a round-trip Seattle to Fairbanks and then AirNorth for Fairbanks to Dawson and mail plane Circle to Fairbanks.   Do a google search to find the current mail plane company out of Circle.

Baggage and small planes.  You pay for your luggage by pound and it'll be expensive.  Go light.  The mail planes don't have a lot of room and might be limited by weight.  You can mail stuff home out of Circle.  Ask someone in town where the post office is.  They have boxes you can buy.  It's about a 15 min walk from the river.

The Circle mail plane:  When you get into Circle, head to the post office and ask them when the plane is coming and where to meet it.  You can camp at the landing strip and that'll be quieter than in town.

Canoes  You'll need foldable canoes unless someone is renting Dawson to Circle.  I highly doubt that since there is no way to get the boats back to Dawson.  There is a place in Fairbanks that rents Ally foldable canoes.  Do a google search.  We bought our Ally canoes from KanoePeople in Whitehorse.  The place in Fairbanks sells them too.

Camping  Along the river and in the free use cabins in the Yukon-Charley National Preserve.  In Eagle, there is a campground.  In Circle you can camp out the take-out but it's a party zone.  We camped there but I wished we'd hiked to the landing strip and camped there.

Public Use cabins:  They are free and in the Yukon-Charley National Preserve.  Just do a google search.  These were really fun to stay in.  We stayed at the Nation Bluff cabin, the Kandik River cabin and the Slavin Road House.  The last one is not to be missed.  You can get showers at Slavin's by hiking into the Coal Camp.  Some of the cabins have propane stoves.

Water The Yukon was so silty on this section that even letting the water sit didn't make it very appealing.  We resorted to finding side streams.  Most of these were brown in this section of river and also not very tasty.  We knew good water was a problem on this section and took some water bags.  We'd fill up at the clear water sources and that would last 1-2 days.  Most of the time we did not treat the water, and if we did treat, we used iodine tablets.

Dogs Allowed, but see next comment.

Bears Definitely. I've never seen so many black bear tracks along the river, but we didn't actually see any live bears, just tracks.  We saw grizzly tracks on one place (we were going to camp there but moved on).  We took bear spray (1), but mainly kept a clean camp and steered clear of fish camps.

Maps There is a guide book and I downloaded google maps and printed those off.  I also downloaded the geology map from the Yukon-Charley National Preserve website.  The guide book you want is Yukon River (Dawson-Circle) by Mike Rourke.  You can get it from http://www.yukonbooks.com.  It takes awhile to get so don't delay.

Difficulty Easy.  This is a class I float, but it is a big river so you really do not want to flip in it.  It would be a long, long swim.

Dawson: There are good grocery stores in Dawson and you can get all the food you need there (if so inclined). There is only a small outdoors shop, the Trading Post on main street, but they are surprisingly well supplied. The have white gas (Coleman fuel). There are ATMs in town. 

One of the big headaches is getting from the Dawson airport into to Dawson. If you are staying at the Dawson hostel, they might give you a shuttle or there might be someone running a shuttle. Try calling the Dawson Visitor Center to find out who runs the shuttle. Another option is to stay in a hotel that runs a shuttle. In my photos, I have some fliers from hotels that have shuttles. If you have a foldable canoe, you might just hike over to the Klondike River and start from there. Beware of sweepers (fallen over trees) on the Klondike.

There is lots of interesting tourist stuff to do in Dawson. Plan at least a few days there to explore. Head to the Visitor Center to learn about everything there is to see and do. If you have time, make sure to check out the nice hike to a top of the Moosehide with great views.

Lots of places to stay in Dawson: camping, hotels and hostel. The first year we camped and the 2nd year we stayed at the hostel. It was very nice to have a cabin to pack up in. The bathhouses at the hostel are great. There is an RV camp in town, but quieter is the campground across the river. Head to the canoe camp spot which are on the right as you enter the camp.

Eagle You have to check in at customs here.  There is a shack but it was defunct when we were there.  Instead we checked in at the National Preserve Visitor Center.  There is a store and post office.  I didn't go in the store.  There is a plaque/statue for Roald Amundsen who came here in 1905 to telegraph the news of the NW Passage.

Circle There is a general store (well stocked given the size of Circle and they had white gas), burger joint, post office, and laundry/showers.  It's dry (no alcohol).  People had commented that things were a little 'tense' in Circle (heard from 4 different people in Dawson, Slavens,Fairbanks and Circle), but we talked with a number of Circle locals (both First Nations and not) and everyone was friendly enough---given we were smelly, disheveled, and walking around in pajamas (long underwear).  We did get a talking to for wasting their water to clean our Ally canoes before packing them---which was deserved since they have to truck the water in.  We should have packed up the boats dirty and cleaned in Seattle.  I could have done without the night at boat take-out; party central with a big fight, some domestic violence and lots of drunk-driving.

Bowron Lakes. 5-8 days. FW + Class I river. Portaging. Central BC.

Bowron Lakes Canoe Circuit

We made this trip in late August, 23-30. It is a 116km circuit to the west of Jasper National Park in British Columbia. The circuit is world-famous among canoers. The circuit is generally done in 5-8 days, and we took 8. It features mostly lake paddling with a few easy portages between lakes; however, it does have one river section on the Cariboo River. It has one class II rapid, but that can be portaged around (in fact you have to go out of your way to run the rapid). This is classified as a wilderness route, but I would put wilderness in quotes. Unless you go in late-fall or early-spring, you will see people every day. All the campsites are designated and are developed with fire rings, tent platforms and pit toilets. Some sites have cooking structures and on each big lake there is at least one public cabin for drying out and such.

In a nutshell: Very beautiful and classic canoe route. Don't expect solitude in high season (June-August).

Getting there:
It is a 10 hr drive from Seattle to Quesnel (south of Prince George). From Quesnel, it is another 2 hrs east to the Bowron Lakes Provencial Park.

Canoe rental:
There are a couple big lodges that do most of the rentals. They have good canoes and canoe carts (wheels). The two lodges are Becker Lodge and Bowron Lake Lodge. We rented with Bowron Lake Lodge. The canoes from this lodge were fine but their wheels were very heavy (like 25+ lbs) -- albeit indestructable. Next time, I'd try Becker Lodge which has lighter wheels and the same types of canoes. If you canoe much at all, I strongly suggest buying your own good paddle. Rental paddles are always heavy and not very nice. My light wooden bent-shaft paddle was highly coveted by all paddlers in my boat.

Reservations:
If your are a group of 6 or fewer, you can try the drop-in spots. Each day, there are 4 spots for drop-ins. These are lottery distributed, I think. Otherwise, you can get a reservation and if you are a group of 7+, you must have a reservation. Search for Bowron Lakes online and you'll quickly find the reservation info. It is very easy to do over the phone. You need to get reservations well in advance. I made reservations in March and there was only 1 group spot available in the 2-week window we had for doing the trip. Being a group had its pluses and minuses. The minus was that we were assigned a schedule (7 nights) and were required to stay at our designated group site each night. The pluses were that a) we had a big reserved site all to ourselves and didn't have to compete for sites, b) we were forced to slow down a bit and take 8 days instead of 6 that we might have otherwise, c) the groups sites were generally away from others and quite nicely situated.

Maps and books:
No need for detailed maps for this trip. You can use the one given to you when you make your reservations. There is a good guide book for the route: THE BOWRON LAKES A Guide to Paddling British Columbia's Wilderness Canoe Circuit  Link to website for guide book
Camps:
Get the guide book. It describes all the camps. Also in our photo album you'll see pictures of some of the camps.

What skill level is required:
Although most of the paddling is lakes, you need some decent paddling skills and a healthy dose of common sense. 1) Flipping in many of the lakes would be bad since they are cold (like the temp of the ocean here in WA). 2) You must paddle the Cariboo River. The river has a handful of class 1+ spots although it is mostly gentle. Although the river is not hard, it is wicked cold (MUCH colder than the ocean in WA) and there are snags all over and a few tight bends to negotiate. Flipping would be bad news -- however that said, the river is not wide and you would quickly make it to shore but sans gear and hypothermic. This route sees a lot of beginners and we saw 2 recent flips; 1 was from the night before and we helped collect their gear. There is a radio at the end of the river and a ranger boat that does rescues. We saw both boat and helicopter rescues during our week on the circuit.

Weather and bugs:
This route gets a lot of rain and wind. Every trip report I saw described paddling in the rain with wind. However, we really lucked out as we often had glassy water even in the afternoon. But normally the wind kicks up every day at around 2-3pm, so if you can manage to get an early start, you will avoid most of the choppy water. It rained about every day on our trip, but we rarely paddled in the rain and had plenty of blue sky. This area is known for bugs, but by late-August when we did the route, they were all gone and we rarely saw mosquitoes. If you come earlier in the summer, be prepared.

Portage:
There are lots of portages, but they are all maintained for canoe carts.

Bears:
BC Parks is rather paranoid about bears in this area, so I suspect that they do have some (black) bear problems. We saw no bears but other parties did see some. We saw tracks near one camp which was on a creek. All camps have bear bins.

Dogs:
Not allowed.

My thoughts:
Bowron Lakes is a "must-do" trip because of its stunning setting, variety, and circular loop.  However it is not a trip that I will repeat unless I'm taking friends from overseas (who I want to make sure have "wow" experience) or am going in the shoulder season (September).  For me, there were just too many people, too much regulation (needed due to too many people), and too many rangers.  Even when there was no one around, it was clear from the campsites that this area gets a lot of use.  The camps were in great shape, but just clearly lots of people go through them.  I prefer trips where we are more "out there", where the portages are rough, the camps rough, and no cabins or fire grates.  However, those precise features of the Bowron are what attract others and don't get me wrong, the trip is stunning, really stunning.

Athabasca River. 4 days. Class I+. Alberta

Athabasca River, Berland Bridge to Whitecourt (Class I+)

Go here to the main blog: https://northernwaters.shutterfly.com/athabascariver

In late August 2010, we did the 100km Berland Bridge to Whitecourt section of the Athabasca River.  This section has one optional Class I+ rapid (you actually have to go out of your way to run it) and a number of riffles.  The current is quite strong, especially in the first 30km after that the current mellows out.  The river was still quite cold but not frigid like it was near Jasper.  We did it in three fairly leisurely days. 

During our trip, the river level was less than 300 m3/s (Windfall station) and all the log jams (piles of logs) were stranded up on land.  This was nice because there are log jams at the head of every island and there are about 2 islands per kilometer on this section.  So there are log jams everywhere.  There were some trees fallen by the side of the river, but at the water levels during our trip, you would have to be skilled to maneuver your canoe into them (like back ferry on purpose into them).

We did this section as a training run while working our way up river progression from easy moving water up to Novice moving water on stronger currents.  We wanted a section (and water level) where we could work on skills with current skills that help us improve but not challenge us too much.  Though we have a lot of flat water experience and my husband and I have whitewater experience, this was the first time my daughter (12) would be paddling in the bow on a river and the the first I would be paddling stern.   This section was perfect for our objectives.  We did a lot back ferrying, forward ferrying, turning the boats in the current, and some eddy turns (there weren't many opportunities for that).  We practiced our side-slipping in the riffles and then got a chance to practice that in the one Class I rapid, which was at such low water that all the boulders were exposed.  The water was cold enough that we didn't want to flip and never felt in danger of that.  Keep in mind that we have extensive flatwater and rough water experience though limited moving water experience with the paddling configuration used on this trip (my husband and I have WW up to IV experience but on this we had our kids paddling bow).

Overall comments.  Though we did not have the warmest weather, this was a great trip.  We just loved being on the river, the sound of it, the look, the bigness....  No views per se (unlike more upstream in Jasper), but the river itself was a great view.

Logistics
Canoe rental  We had our own canoes.  But if you need to rent, note that there is no place in Jasper and rental places in BC were not keen on us taking their canoes on a river.  Instead rent in Edmonton.  MEC and Totem Outfitters rent canoes for river trips.  Book well ahead as they do get full-up.  Edmonton Canoe (http://www.edmontoncanoe.com/) does canoe rental plus shuttling.

Shuttle We arranged for a car rental from National Car Rental in Whitecourt.  The rental office is just a 15 min walk from the take-out at Riverboat Park.  Cost was $100 (Aug 2010) + gas.  Round-trip was 3.5 hrs.

Put-in About 1.5 hrs from Whitecourt.  We put-in at the Berland bridge.  Drive 43 towards Fox Creek and take the 947 road (there's a sign and it's just past losegun Creek).  The 947 road takes you 27km to the power plant on pavement, after that it is 14km on dirt to the Y in the road.  Take the right at the Y, and it's 7km to the bridge.  There are no signs whatsoever, except an unhelpful one near the power plant that says "Edson".  After the power plant (which has a huge fire-spewing tower), you stay on the main road.  You'll just have to take your best guess on what's "main".  When you make the right at the Y in the road, you'll see signs warning that a weight-limited bridge is coming up.  When we did it, the road was bumpy but fine.  After a big rain, it could definitely be tough.  Also it is a working road and there's a lot of logging.  Stay alert and be ready to pull to the side.  I printed off the Canadian topo maps for the area and that was helpful, but we still flagged down a truck to make sure we were on the right track.  The roads shown on the Paddle Alberta map were not helpful---I was glad I had the topo map.  I wished I had printed off the satellite photos from Google maps.  That would have been the best.

Camping We camped the first night by our van at Berland bridge.  There is good camping there.  Our last night, we camped at the take-out at the Riverboat Assoc. Park.  There is a sign that says they lock it at 11pm, but locals told us that wasn't the case and that it was fine to stay.  There is an RV camp nearby (10min walk) but they don't allow tents.   On the river, we just camped on islands.  It was not easy to find suitable spots; we had to check out multiple islands.  There were bear prints everywhere but they seemed less on islands with fast currents on both sides.

Map The Paddle Alberta map is great and all you need.  Definitely get that.  You can order it online (http://www.paddlealberta.org/  search a bit on their site because the page to buy is a bit hard to find).  It takes a week or two to come by mail, so order early.  We picked up our copy from the Friends of Jasper store in the Visitor Center in Jasper.  The map shows log jams, but that info was not useful as there are 10x more jams than shown.  Just expect them at every island.  But at low water (<300 m3/s at Windfall), all jams were stranded during our trip.  Riffle and rapid (one) info was accurate as was the island info.

Bears We saw prints everywhere but had no encounters.  Our first camp we hung our food and the second camp was on a island without trees so we used our bear canister.

Water temperature  The water was cold, but not like near Jasper.  Near Jasper, the water is wicked cold (seriously).  On our section, it was cold but I felt manageable wearing 3mm wetsuits.  The kids and I wore shorty wetsuits.  My husband and our friend are less sensitive to cold water and did not.  We had no problem overheating wearing shorty wetsuits since the air temp was so cold during our trip. 

Difficulty These comment only apply to the 200-300 m3/s (Windfall) water level (low water) we experienced.  During our trip, Kuba and I could overpower the current in most places, though we avoided that since we were using this as a training run.  However, the river was definitely not a "moving lake".  The current moves at a good clip except after Windfall bridge where it really slows down.  We took all riffles where the waves were biggest (on purpose) and they were easy.  We were never faced with a curve where we need to back ferry into the inside of the curve (to avoid a sweeper), instead we tried to always head to the outside of the curve to find the section of faster and deepest water.  Landing in the current posed our biggest challenge (aka learning experience), except for the challenges we created for ourselves while practicing our ferries and turns in the current.