Spell of the Wild

6/7/03 - Bill

It is 4AM, the pool won’t open until 1PM, so I wasted time coming. This does give me the opportunity to complete a brief update. Back on 6/6/03 Chuck and I did go to Skagway. The ride was beautiful. He had some problem leaving his rental car, but at last succeeded. We went through town, which was replicating the Gold Rush era, and, is frankly, a tourist town. It still was beautiful, but it was loaded with ship and ferry vacationers and tour bus vacationers, as well, filling the narrow “antiquated” streets. We went to Chilkoot trailhead and back to Whitehorse, found a campsite and here I am in front of the Aquatic Center, which won’t open till 1PM. We are departing today on the first leg of our journey from Marsh Lake to Whitehorse. We are only taking my canoe as I said, so we can “hopefully” sail rapidly down to the dams and portage where we need to. Tomorrow 6/8 we will probably start our fully packed journey.

At about 9AM we will be carted to Marsh Lake which we have both been misinformed it is in BC, but it is in the YT. We will be dropped off at McClintock Creek and paddle/sail, my canoe only, down the lake to the Yukon River. There are two dams, one has a lock and the other just south of Whitehorse, with a wooden fish ladder, must be portaged. That is the reason we decided to take one unloaded canoe and do the entire paddle/sail from the lake to Whitehorse and Kanoe People landing. We will stay the night in Whitehorse.