A Long Paddle on the Yukon

Yukon 1000 Canoe and Kayak Race

A Long Paddle on the Yukon

Russ Dawkins / 07.08.2009

The Yukon 1000 mile canoe/ kayak race? Sounded fairly extreme! Was it possible to paddle that far in a kayak, at speed? The organiser, Peter Coates (eccentric professor/ irrepressible Englishman type) said no, it wasn't, but he thought he'd better let kayaks enter to prove it either way. He was half sure they'd either not make it or at very best trail the eight man 'voyager' canoes, and even the tandem canoes by some margin. 

It kicked off at 11am Monday 20th July in Whitehorse, the 22,000 people capital city of the Yukon. We'd gotten there (myself, Russ Dawkins and my 5 times only training partner Rob Colliver) 6 days earlier to 'prep the boat', 6 days of interminable tinkering with the boat, packing it/ unpacking it, strings attaching everything to every other thing in case we dropped stuff overboard etc. We had a race plan, routines, you name it committed to paper and memory. Did the race plan pan out, did the routines work? Well yes, for the first 3 days, as we fell steadily behind the first 4/5 boats. Then, having abandoned our routines, we got a lot faster! 

The river is huge. A few hours in, you hit Lake Laberge, 30 miles of non flowing water.... I'd never paddled the Yukon before (this was Rob's 4th visit). The rules allowed big, stable sea kayaks only, no skinny boats (way too much expedition/ compulsory kit to carry, including 88lbs of food per pair, tents, bearproof barrels, cooking facilities etc etc). The boat without us in it must have weighed at least 150kg, add to that us, and you've got approximately 320kg, so not exactly a Devizes Westminster K2 racer (my previous interpretation of an endurance kayak race... that now seems like a sprint). 

True to the forecast, post starters whistle, the 8 man boat sped off, but chased by 2 of the other sea kayaks, who sat on its wash, disappearing into the distance... by the lake they were gone, several miles ahead of us. Our slow, steady strategy suddenly seemed flawed. 

The lake demonstrated the need for the sea kayak rule, big waves, strong winds, boat slewing sideways, half successful wave surfing. I pretty much thought, at this point (only half a day in) that victory for us was but a dream. 

The rules stated that each team had to stop for 6 hours every night. This, and tracking of teams was monitored by compulsory SPOT transmitters. At what time you stopped however was more flexible, so you could stop and camp late, passing teams ahead of you who'd stopped earlier. See All Event Posts