We were up at 5am. It was a hot night when we crawled into the tent the night before, but we both woke up under our sleeping bags so it eventually cooled down. Of course I had a terrible time falling asleep. I just get so bearanoid. We had two cans of bear spray and Jeff had his rifle. But I get all freaked out when we are so vulnerable in our tent sleeping.

There was a beautiful sunrise. I can’t remember the last sunrise I’ve seen! Maybe it is because they happen while I’m asleep here in the Yukon summer, but still. It was nice to be a part of the wakening of a new day!

Everything was exactly where we left it. I don’t know why I expected anything different?

Man the buzzing of the bugs between our tent and tent fly were annoying last night! Maybe we should haven’t put the tent beside flowers and wild roses.

Jeff got his Jetboil lit and boiled some water for his coffee and our oatmeal.

It was damp and dewy, probably around 10°C, and we could smell smoke in the air.

We loaded everything back into the boat. It was really easy to do so with the shallow shore and while wearing rubber boots. We could stand beside the boat and load it up. We had no idea how spoiled we were by this, but we were going to find out in the following days!

We headed out along the Thirty Mile section of the Yukon River. This is a Canadian historic section of river. It is full of history and known to be one of the best, most beautiful sections to paddle.

Jeff set the motor just past idle so he could steer and we putted along slowly, soaking it all up.

There were mergansers swimming in this stretch, lots of beavers and beaver huts.

We saw some canoers at another site and they all waved to us.

I may have hung my wet underwear on the boat to dry.

The sun was so strong and warm!

The sandy cliffs along the river were full of swallows – birds that nest in little holes and then fly in and out, grabbing insects above the water.

There is no road access to this stretch of the river. So it’s pretty neat to spot a campsite with a picnic table. Who brought the table out here?

The campsites on this first stretch were nicely marked with signs on the shore making them easy to fine. Jeff also had guidebooks of the river that had some sites marked, along with other notable things to see.

Jeff was able to figure out how to get his fish finder to audibly note when a fish is spotted. He was pretty pleased with himself! And there were fish all over!

As the sun got stronger, I kept adding more articles of damp clothes to my front clothes lines for the bimini canopy to dry in the sun and breeze. But the horseflies started to get really annoying. Jeff was starting a body count as he smacked them. He really wished he had brought our electric, tennis racket size, bug whacker/killer.

We started seeing little plumes of smoke. There was a forest fire along this stretch. It was burning now just in little bits, here and there. Nothing too aggressive.

These fires are just a natural part of a summer landscape. It rejuvenates our forests, burns off some of the duff layer, and allows new trees to grow.

This is the life!

This is the one place where we saw actual flames!

We were looking for an area that was a wood camp, where they would load up the steam ships with firewood for the ship boiler back in the day, but we couldn’t find it. Jeff’s GPS was off at times from the map and we weren’t sure if we had the right place. There was supposed to be some machinery and maybe a cabin or two left behind, but did they all just get burned?

Maybe not! We finally found a sign! And there was a sprinkler set up with a water pump!

We really wanted to stop and see, but since it was an active fire, we decided not to, although the sprinkler wasn’t on at this time.

You don’t get much of a chance to decide if you are going to stop somewhere. This river flows from 12 – 15 km/hr. While you are floating along with the current, it doesn’t feel like that much. But if you have to go back up stream, you need to crank the throttle up to fight against the current. It is so swift!

That meant planning ahead. We knew we were definitely going to stop at Hootalinqua. I’ve heard this name for years and really didn’t have a sense what or where it was.

Hootalinqua was a community, established in 1897 by the North West Mounted Police who wanted to have a presence in the area. There was gold mining in the area and this became a well used centre for service and administration. It is located where the Teslin River joins the Yukon River.

We landed at Hootalinqua and Jeff tied the boat to a tree and we pulled the nose on shore a bit.

There were old cabins here, outhouses, campsites, and some picnic tables. It was just about noon, so we had a shore lunch! Bagels with cream cheese, salami, and cold pops!

A kid’s shoe and a muffin tray!

I just loved this old cabin.

Why are old cabins and their artifacts so appealing to me? A glimpse into another life? I’d love to read the life story of the person who lived here. Why didn’t they blog!?

Out back, behind it, was the old Telegraph office. Miners would come here to “call” in to the government mining recorder with the details of the new claims they staked.

On the left side, the floor was really unstable. I backed out and joined Jeff in the right side.

Look at those steep stairs in the back corner!

There were two platforms in here – maybe to bunk down to sleep if it was raining?

Jeff noted a sprinkler was placed on the roof here too.

Behind the Telegraph office was a storage shed. It has flattened fuel cans for a roof.

And behind that was an outhouse.

A two holer!

This is really a lovely spot on the river. Unless you were travelling by boat, you’d never see this place. Well I guess that can be said for just about everything we saw on this entire expedition!

Right after Hootalinqua is an island that was used as a ship yard! Steam ships overwintered here, were repaired here, and one still remains! The Evelyn (also called the Norcom).

We knew it was somewhere beside or on the island ahead. Right side? Left side? We weren’t sure we’d find it.

We picked the main stream on the right, and there it was! Between the trees!

Jeff gunned the motor and we fought our way back up the stream to land on the shore.

By the way, what do we call this crowded floating caravan!? I wonder what we looked like to the paddlers!

This big ship was so far away from shore, you couldn’t even see the far shore. How did it get up here? This thing is massive!

Well, what we learned from the displays, there were 4 capstans there and horses were used to haul it up! Here’s one:

The Evelyn was built in 1908. It was considered relatively small for a steam ship and even hauled a large barge with it all the way to Dawson City! Eventually, it is said to have been damaged, and it was hauled up here to be repaired but never was. It was stripped for parts, and its machinery were put into the Keno steamer, which rests here on Dawson’s shore and is available to be toured in the summer season!

Here’s the far side of it.

This wooden ship has been sitting here for over a hundred years. I fantasized a lot on this trip about what life was like when these girls steamed up and down the river, moving goods and people, sounding their steam whistles as they neared a community. Those days ended in the 1950’s.

Nowadays, this is how the river is travelled:

We spotted a blue sign but the current was way too fast to read it. Now I can zoom in on my picture and see that it is telling us there were outhouses there, and likely a campsite!

This stretch of the river was just more and more beautiful, to match our weather!

Next up on my clothesline were Jeff’s shorts and a sock!

We saw a moose along the shore here, and then it waded into the river and started swimming!

We wondered if she was just going a bit further to eat more grass along the shore, but no! She got into the current and swam for a long way! We thought that maybe she was trying to cross? But she just kept going and going. We watched her for several minutes before we lost sight of her!

I doubt you’ll be able to spot it in this photo, but we found a stretch where the old telegraph wire was still intact, stretched from trees to trees on top of this hill, despite there being a wildfire since it was put in place!

My little keychain thermometer said it was 27°C now. We kept piling on the sunscreen.

A helicopter flew over once but not much other sign of actual live beings were around. We saw some canoers earlier in the day before Hootalinqua and they didn’t even return our wave!? They caught up with us at Hootalinqua and kept to themselves so .. shrug? Imagine being somewhere so remote and not waving when you saw another person?

Another smoke plume:

There were so many sand cliffs with swallows. And bald eagles here and there, perched above the river watching us. This one we caught in action!

When it got closer to 5pm, we started looking for a campsite. Jeff’s map said there was one at the end of the 30 Mile section, in an area called Big Salmon.

It was already pretty busy when we got there!

So we carried on.

We eventually found a spot, high up on the right side, where a river met the Yukon.

The current was crazy fast and there wasn’t a great place to land and tie up the boat. I imagine these spots are much easier for canoers who can just carry their boats up and out of the water? The shore was muddy and cut off sharply. So we couldn’t stand beside the boat, everything had to come through the front, and we had no path. We managed to turn it sideways briefly, to offload some of the stuff, but only took what we’d need overnight.

After getting over the stress of landing the boat, tying it up, off-loading, and carrying our stuff up the steep bank, the site itself was really nice! Clear of grass, lots of places for tents, several make-shift fire pits. There were no amenities though – no outhouses, no tables. This was just wilderness now!

We were hot and sweaty and super keen on a bath in the river!

We stripped down, grabbed the camping soap and towels, and headed down to the water.

Which started, what at the time I considered, the most miserable 3 minutes of my life.

We were suddenly attacked by horseflies. They were biting and stinging me all over my nearly naked body. I couldn’t get to the water. It was so steep and I was sinking in the mud up to my ankles and slipped in the mud.

I almost lost my mind and reversed course back up to camp, in my most grumpiest of grumpy moods.

Jeff washed himsefl up in the river, and then started his naked phase of our expedition.

I don’t know how the horseflies weren’t bothering him more.

But the hero he is, he filled a tote of water from the river and brought it up to camp so I could dunk and wash my hair at least. What a prince!

The boat was out of view, which made us a bit uncomfortable, so we kept checking on it.

Here’s the view back towards the Big Salmon area:

There were some darkening clouds, so we wondered if it would rain again.

And then we spotted a new flume of smoke across the river from us!

That was a bit worrisome! We couldn’t smell any smoke though, and figured it was over the next ridge, so that wasn’t really that close to us? Or was it? Hard to know?

Jeff used our In Reach satellite communicator to check in with our safety contacts each night so someone would know where we were. I imagine there is a way to remotely report a new fire? Or was this just an old first stirred up? No idea.

We ignored it for, cooked each of us a dehydrated meal and lounged a bit. I brought my Kindle and read some of a novel I had started into before leaving home.

We set our tent back into the trees so we could sleep without the sun shining on us. It was a bit damp from the dew of the morning after last night’s rain but it dried up pretty quickly.

I had a hard time making it to 9pm. I was so tired! I conked out very briefly, but then I was wide awake for hours.

Jeff, of course, fell asleep right after taking this picture of me. Out cold.

I watched a horsefly caught between the tent and the rain fly, banging around, trying to find its way out.

Suddenly I realized it was getting smokey.

I’m already nervous enough, in my vulnerable space, in a tent, in the Yukon wilderness. There was no sign of bear here, but there was a lot of old wolf poop (full of hair) around the site. And now its getting smokey. Is the fire coming towards us?

Now I’m even more wide awake. Worrying.

I finally fell asleep around midnight, maybe 1am. I was asleep for maybe 20 minutes and then I woke up to a massive wind storm.

Why aren’t you awake Jeff?

I’m freaking out over here!

Please stop. I’m scared.

— me

Was I praying? Trying to negotiate with mother nature? I just kept saying “Please stop. Please stop. I’m scared.” in my head.

Here we are, camping under massive spruce trees, there are incredibly powerful gusts of wind happening, it is getting smokier with every gust, and I’m sure the boat must be gone.

Finally Jeff wakes up. I decided to go out to pee and I pick up all of our stuff that has blown around. The boat is still there.

Jeff gets up a bit later to take down the bimini top on the boat, worried about it in the wind. He used the boat anchor and the long line attached to it to tie a second security line to the boat around another tree.

It started to rain a bit, but a thunderstorm didn’t arrive. No thunder. No lightning. Just these big wind gusts.

I am hot, sweaty, and scared.

Eventually the gusts calm, with each gust just a bit calmer than the previous one, and I fall asleep.