I was up at 4am to pee so I pulled the fly off the tent and released all the flies!

I thought this was a genius, but they still all kept buzzing around the tent. I was starting to think we put our tent on a hornet’s nest or something with all the buzzing. But what were all these little flies?

I fell back asleep and dreamt about chain saws and had dreams of loud boats going by and then a porcupine walked by the tent. Only none of that happened, because I was dreaming.

We got out of the tent around 6:20 and started packing up and had our oatmeal for breakfast.

My hair was becoming increasingly wild and felt like greasy, yet dry, straw. I was far beyond a brush fixing this, so I just decided to rock it!

This site had an a-frame set up. We found these at many sites along this stretch of the river. Did people sleep under a tarp here? Or did they they store stuff under a tarp in the rain? I don’t know the answer.

We headed out around 7:30 that morning after loading up the boat.

I don’t know if this island had a name. We were somewhere between Selwyn and Isaac creeks.

We saw 5 canoes camping at the Isaac camp site, and another canoe was on the gravel shore in front of a small island. I saw a lady there with a black dog and child.

Glad we didn’t end up fighting for camping space. Although I felt pretty sure we were going to end up sharing a spot one of these night, it hadn’t happened yet.

A bit further down the river, we saw a black bear wandering the shore of an island. It didn’t care one bit that we were travelling by.

It was a calm morning. It looked like it was going to be another nice day!

We tried to pull onto an island mid-morning for a bathroom break, but it was too shallow and muddy to make it all the way in. So we did what feral river dwellers do. We stood in our boots in the river beside our boat and let loose.

We had an early lunch, making salami and cream cheese bagels while floating down the river with the motor off.

We were going to pass many of the well known gold mining creeks today. All the famous names I had heard and read about. Britannia. Excelsior. Ballarat. Thistle. Coffee Creek. Kirkman. Independence. Los Angeles.

There were river boats tied up at some of these creeks. Some may be mining but some of these creeks have grandfathered private land plots with cabins where people we know from Dawson spend parts of their summers.

Here’s where the Coffee Creek mine now owned by Newmont is, or will be. I don’t think it has all its final approvals yet.

It is also on the far side of the river.

Mid day we found a campsite to stop at, to stretch our legs and dig a cat hole.

Someone had generously left some fire wood here, and they left more stashed in the woods!

I imagine the paddling guides who lead adventures down the river have their favourite spots to use.

A chopper with a water bucket flew over us. I was thinking it was going to scoop water right where we were, but it kept going. I wonder what fire it was working on.

It was nice and warm out, and there was a fragrant smell in the air. I knew it wasn’t coming from either of us. Maybe wild roses? Although they have maybe finished their bloom? I don’t know, but it was lovely.

We were approaching the White River!

We knew this is where we were going to lose our lovely green water. The White River spews silt and volcanic ash into the Yukon River, which makes it cloudy and brown, like chocolate milk. Jeff said it was up ahead in the next river valley that was up on the left.

A volcano violently exploded here over a thousand years ago. Almost all of the Yukon has a layer of ash a few inches below the surface. I’m sure you can see it in most of our pictures of the banks along this expedition. It must have been devastating to all life. That is a lot of ash! And it is still flowing out of the White River, suspended in the water.

Here you can see the cloudy swirls of water start. Dad was eager to see where this river joined the Yukon, so we took a bunch of videos of the mixing water that I’ll share later when I put together our video clips.

The White River really added to the turbulence of the river. While it was pretty calm (yet still swift), the White River made it bubbly and swirly, full of little bits of debris, like bark and sticks.

This made the river a bit unpleasant. There were channels everywhere with no real way to know which thread to take. And once you picked one, you were committed, because there were shallow shoals hidden between the channels and braids.

We bopped the prop once on the bottom. Luckily Jeff had a prop saver installed. Then every time the depth gauge showed us down to just a foot or two, Jeff would pop it into idle, or even off, and lift the motor.

Thank goodness there are so many full trees knocked into this river every spring because they get hung up on the shallow spots which really nicely highlight the safe path ahead. Without them we’d have hit the prop a million more times!

We were looking for a campsite that was supposed to be somewhere over on the right braid, but we got into such shallow water, we were anxious and stressed. We couldn’t find it, and at that point didn’t care, because we wanted to get the heck out of there.

So we kept on going, eager to get to nicer waters again.

That took us to the mouth of the Stewart River, where there was once a town called Stewart on an island. Much of it has been damaged or destroyed by the changing river, but a couple people still live here. Here’s one of their homesteads.

We passed some more paddlers, who also didn’t return a wave. By this point it was becoming awkward, like you just didn’t want to make eye contact. Why weren’t people waving? Did we look crazy in our little caravan? Were they jealous of my backrest on my lawnchair and my fuzzy white blanket from Grandma? Or did they not like to see a motor. I don’t know, but I was getting reluctant to wave at all.

Then I saw a big black fuzzy blanket looking thing on the right shore.

Jeff! That’s a bear! I think? Is it dead?

Jeff whipped the boat around and throttled us back up river against the current.

It was a black bear sleeping in the heat along the river on an island!

We woke it up. It was panting, and then was chewing on something… or someone…

It was getting later now, after 6, and we were no closer to finding a place to sleep.

With over 100 km to go until we were home, I was starting to think… fear… that Jeff was just going to take us home.

But neither one of us was ready for this expedition to end!

Up ahead we saw a familiar site. The Amelia Lupine barge was charging our way! This barge operates out of Dawson and is a familiar site on the shore. It serves the gold mines along the river.

This time it had a flat bed trailer on board, with equipment and a new set of tracks for a cat or excavator at someone’s mine.

Jeff had decided the next good place to stay would be around the mouth of the Sixty Mile, so we fired up the throttle more to take us there.

Along the way, he spotted a cave in the rock wall along the river! Someone had carved out the quartz looking for gold!

On we went, looking for our next camp.

Oh my, I’m getting red!

One spot we were thinking of already had four canoes there, and 4 sets of tents, so we went for the next place that was on island.

We found it! Fortunately! There was no sign of it other than the smallest little trail disruption crossing over the edge of the bank.

It was after 7pm. Another long day of travel!

This was a nice spot. There were a couple of fire rings, fire wood, several places for a tent.

This had a decent shore, enough to pull up the boat out of the water a bit, and out of the swift current. The trail up to the campsite was steep though!

It was a bit buggy so we reapplied our bug spray so we could make dinner and lounge around.

Jeff had a meal of dehydrated biscuits and gravy, that he said really wasn’t that good. I just had a plain bagel and some snacks from our still very plentiful stockpile.

I had another “shower” with baby wipes. It’s nice to get the bug spray off before bed. Jeff was starting to get a little horrified at his own fragrance, so he joined me with a baby wipe cleanup.

We were both having regrets that this voyage was soon about to end. We were really glad to have another night out here though!

I finished my book on my Kindle while we sat around the fire pit. We didn’t have a fire again, even though there was wood. It just feels odd to start one when it is dry, warm, and not dark.

We decided not to put the fly on the tent either. It was a hot night and there was no breeze at all. Not even the leaves on the trembling aspen were moving! Maybe it would keep the flies away?

Of course Jeff fell asleep fairly quickly, and I was left staring at the tree above us. Thankfully I eventually drifted off, and no bears peeked in the mesh ceiling to check us out. At least not that I know of.