Yukon Voyageurs complete 1,000-mile course in six days
By MIKE LYNCH, Enterprise Outdoors WriterArticle Photos
A strong flatwater paddler might shoot for 1,000 miles in a season. The Yukon Voyageurs, a seven-team boat that included six Adirondack Canoe Classic veterans, finished that distance in less than a week when they crossed the finish line in the Yukon 1,000 on July 26.
To be exact, the Yukon Voyageurs finished in six days, six hours, 52 minutes and 29 seconds, making them the fourth of 15 boats to cross the finish line in the inaugural run of the longest canoe and kayak race in the world. The top two finishers, a pair of solo kayakers from Britain, finished in six days, two hours, 11 minutes and seven seconds.
The Voyageurs beat the top tandem canoe team, Georgia resident Ardie Olson and Florida resident Rod Price - a competitor in the Adirondack Canoe Classic, or "90-Miler" - which finished in six days, eight hours and 54 minutes.
The Yukon 1,000 started at Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon Territory, and continued north down the Yukon River to the Alaska Pipeline Bridge on the Dalton Highway. Paddlers averaged about 18 hours a day on the course, sleeping an average of three-and-a-half to five hours per night.
"We did everything but sleep in the boat," Lake Clear resident and Adirondack Canoe Classic Race Director Brian McDonnell said. "We cooked our meals in the boat. We ate our meals in the boat, and we would take occasional pit stops. But for the most part we were in the boat all the time. Our intention was to maximize our travel time for the 18 hours we had each day."
For the race, McDonnell teamed up with Heuvelton resident Kerry Newell, who has completed the 90-Miler 18 times, and Vermont resident Holly Crouch, who has competed in the 90-Miler all 26 years of the event. Other teammates included Boonville resident Paul Repak, Pennsylvania residents and brothers Matt and Mike Trump, and Teresa Stout, also of Pennsylvania. Mike Trump is a graduate of Paul Smith's College.
McDonnell had planned to do the race in a tandem canoe with Andrew Jillings, an outdoor recreation instructor from Hamilton College in Clinton, but Jillings had to withdraw two days before the race because of a medical condition. Upon hearing about the situation, the Voyageurs invited McDonnell to join them. To accommodate him, they traded in their boat for a 32-foot, carbon-fiber canoe nearly four feet wide in the middle and capable of carrying up to 10 people.
Often cruising on a current that moved roughly four to six miles per hour, the Yukon Voyageurs averaged about 10 miles per hour and 160 miles per day.
"Sometimes we were measuring the race in terms of 90-Milers," Newell said. "We had less than a 90-Miler to go on the last day."
Unlike many other canoe and kayak races, these competitors were forced to be totally self-sufficient and received no support from the organizers. Individual paddlers were required to carry at least 44 pounds of food each and bring their own backcountry gear for camping, filtering water and navigating. McDonnell said one of the keys to his team's success was preparation work done by Repak.
"Paul Repak has done an incredible amount of research on the river," McDonnell said. "With his GPS, he had a great route set up."
At night, paddlers slept on sandbars and islands, wherever they could find a good site. They only rule they had to obey was that they check in with race officials before 11:15 p.m. each night and once again six hours later from the same location, using a Spot device that uses satellite and GPS technology to track their coordinates. The rule was put in place to ensure that competitors stopped each day for six hours of rest - not that there was much darkness.
"The first three days we actually had night, but after that we had only civil twilight," Newell said. "The sun was only six or seven degrees below the horizon as we got up."
On a trip of this distance, the highlights are countless. McDonnell said one of the best was a visit from some military planes past Fort Yukon.
"We were paddling down the river and these three F-16s came out of nowhere, and they were almost down at lake level," McDonnell said. "We were waving our paddles at them, and they waved their wings. As soon as they got over us, they shot straight up in the air. It was really great to feel that power and that contact in the middle of nowhere. We literally had seen no one or nothing but trees and water for miles and miles."
Another exciting part came when their voyageur canoe passed through Lake Laberge, a 40-mile lake on the Yukon River.
"Because we had the big boat, we could go right down the middle of the lake," McDonnell said. "There was some pretty big waves, but the big boat just handled it incredibly well. We literally just screamed down the middle of the lake and had absolutely no problem handling the water and the waves. The waves were rolling with us. We literally surfed our way down the lake."
The group also had the opportunity to see some great scenery and wildlife, including grizzly bear cubs, a black wolf and plenty of eagles. Newell said the landscape was also worth remembering.
"There was one mountain that looked like an incredible tapestry, the Calico Bluff on the Yukon River," Newell said. "As you came to the mountain, to me it looked like ribbon candy that was just stretched out across the whole cliff face. We took pictures, but the mental images that we get to carry from this are incredible."
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Contact Mike Lynch at 891-2600 ext. 28 or mlynch@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
