Paddler News Feed

 

•	Features
•	Hotline
•	Letter from the ACA
•	Gear
•	Skills

< July/August 2001
	Features
Canoeing the Hart of the Yukon Rex Bryngelson

Ray's nervous glances over his shoulder suggest he isn’t comfortable with my navigating. But I’m not about to surrender my position in the stern. We enter a fast, braided section of river and suddenly realize we’re being swept into a freshly cut channel. Nasty roots rise like linebackers in mid-current, a sweeper jutting from the bank just beyond. In the canoe ahead, Blaine and Masa make a move toward shore but have a change of heart and paddle back to mid-stream. I want to scout but decide it best to follow close behind. They thread the roots and head hard left, narrowly missing the sweeper. Ray and I slide between the first roots and angle left. I hold off for a moment, not wanting to clip the next root and blow our angle. Ray has other ideas. "We gotta’ get left!" he yells.

"I know!" I reply. "Just paddle!" The exchange costs us a crucial stroke and now we’re being swept broadside into the strainer. Envisioning an ugly swim, I lean into it as we slam hard. The impact nearly launches me from the boat but somehow we glance off and look downriver. Blaine and Masa have big grins on their faces. The gods of the Hart are smiling on us today.

I first met our trip leader, Blaine Walden, in Alaska during the mid-‘80s while guiding for Alaska Travel Adventures. Blaine, a pony-tailed Canadian with an Irish-like mug and unrelenting sense of humor, had been guiding for a few seasons and though only a couple of years our senior, came off like a hardened Jack London character. A missing finger on his right hand from a wilderness canoeing accident added to his aura. When he wasn't guiding under the table in Alaska, he ran sled dogs near a log cabin he built outside of Whitehorse, 20 miles from the nearest road.

An aborted first landing in Whitehorse spiced-up my arrival. Blaine greeted me grinning under a bushy, handlebar mustache. "Nice landing, eh?" he said. He was accompanied by Masaaki Ogura, a civil engineer from Japan and one of Blaine's most loyal clients. This would be Masa’s fourth canoe trip with Blaine in the Yukon. The other member of our team, Ray Cassell, a psychotherapist from California, had arrived earlier.

On the drive to his ranch, Blaine mentioned there is little known about the Hart and that it had only been canoed two times. If it proved to have commercial potential, Blaine planned to become its first outfitter. The Hart is the longest tributary of the Peel River watershed, which drains the northeastern Yukon Territory, including the Wind, Snake and Bonnet Plume rivers. These rivers meet the Peel below Aberdeen Canyon, a three-mile portage, and below several Class III-IV rapids on the Peel. This has dissuaded most paddlers from attempting the Hart, which empties into the Peel above the canyon. Our bush pilot, Ernie, however, believes he can pick us up on the Peel above Aberdeen canyon. Blaine’s never heard of anyone else who has done this. "There are some unknowns in dealing with this river," he said. "That makes it all the more appealing, eh?"

The Hart is named for Howard Hamilton Hart, a pre-Klondike gold prospector from Montana who came to the Yukon in the 1880s. The area was recently designated as the northern anchor of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, a bi-national conservation effort dedicated to protecting a 2,000-mile-long corridor of wildlands along the northern Rocky Mountains. Blaine decided he and Masa should paddle together, which meant Ray and I would comprise the other team. Ray, who had more whitewater canoeing experience than I, lobbied for the stern. I felt my 15 years of rafting experience made me better qualified. Blaine subtly agreed, not wanting to upset a paying client. When Ray mentioned he suffered from an irreparable retinal disorder, the decision was sealed.

At 6 a.m., we climbed into Blaine's F-150 pickup for the five-hour drive north to Mayo where we found Ernie Onofferchuck, a short, robust man with a Santa Claus beard, along with his 1960 DeHavilland Otter waiting for us on the edge of the Stewart River. "Black Sheep Aviation" was painted on the fuselage. Ernie immediately recognized Masa who had flown with him a number of times. "Hell," he said, "I’m gonna’ have to start giving you frequent flyer miles." Soon the Otter's 500-hp engine had us airborne and on our way toward the Hart.

I contemplated the rugged scenery of the Ogilvie and Wernecke mountains and wondered about the fate of JFK Jr., whose small plane had disappeared the day before. An hour later, Ernie circled above Elliot Lake, one of two headwater lakes that feed the Hart. He informed us it had been at least two years since he'd dropped anyone else here.

After leaving us and our gear ashore, we were greeted by a cloud of mosquitoes and we broke out the DEET. We saw from the air there was no real whitewater so we haphazardly piled the gear into the canoes and paddled towards the outlet creek. A rugged limestone peak, Cathedral Mountain, loomed in the background. The water was low and soon we were walking and dragging the canoes down the creek. I carefully tiptoed along, trying not to get water over the tops of my rubber boots but, soon realized the futility and began stomping downstream. Four hours later, we were still walking and dragging. Exhausted after covering only a few miles, we decided to make camp—heating two pans of moose lasagna over the fire for dinner.

The next day we learned to perfect the technique of dragging a heavily loaded canoe down a shallow creek. I began dreaming about designing a canoe with small rollers on the bottom for passing over rocks. Occasionally, we'd encounter a good stretch of paddling only to have it abruptly end at beaver dam. One dam was over five feet high and diverted the water off into the brush, forcing us to bushwhack back to the main creek.

I found it odd when we passed through a deeper pool and a few grayling swam by heading upstream—it being more typical for a fish to spook downstream. We continued on down to where a much-awaited tributary came in and soon the grayling's behavior made sense. The creek went completely dry, the water apparently filtering down into thick gravel deposits. It was obvious we'd be making a major portage, so we pitched camp. We knew we were close to reaching the main Hart but we’d only covered about 10 miles in two days. If we kept this pace up, the trip would take a month.

Around the fire that evening, Blaine told the story of how he lost his finger. It started in a bar in Juneau where a miner told him about this beautiful river, the Taku, that comes out of Canada into Alaska. He assured Blaine it was ideal for a canoe. Blaine persuaded a girlfriend to join him for the trip. The third day on the river, they lost their canoe in a rapid but managed to rescue their gear. They hiked for about 10 days but ran into a canyon where walking became arduous. Blaine then decided to build a log raft to navigate the river (he now admits this was a lame idea). It went well until they ran into a log jam and flipped. Blaine tried to stop the gear-laden raft by wrapping a rope around a tree, but when he let go the line wrapped around his finger, tearing it almost completely off. They tried saving it by taping it up but it eventually became infected and his girlfriend had to amputate it with a Swiss army knife. With no food, finger or gear, they continued for another week before finally flagging down some hunters in a jet boat. When they got back, Blaine weighed 98 pounds and spent a week in the hospital recovering.

After telling the story, Blaine turned to Ray and said, "So, things will have to get a lot worse before I'm gonna’ get worried, eh?"

The next morning we ferried our gear down the dry creek bed. After four hours we reached the main Hart and our spirits lifted as we came upon a serene, meandering river, perfect for canoeing. We lazily paddled down the glassy river, spotting a young cow moose and watching countless grayling rise next to our canoes. The next day, the river’s character changed, becoming braided and fast. We made camp near a small creek and the rain set in. It rained throughout the night. We awoke to gray, misty peaks covered by a dusting of snow. The water was fast, with lots of tight corners, sweepers and newly cut channels. It was this day we had our close call with the sweeper, after which Ray nearly declared mutiny. However, by the end of the day, we were again paddling a friendly, meandering river.

The following day we paddled into a dramatic canyon with distinct rock layers and cliffs. Sheep trails dotted the mountainside. We found a beautiful camp next to a gravel wash and placed our tents upon a bed of Reindeer moss. We estimated we had covered 30 miles in just five hours. Having already covered nearly half of the trip’s 170 miles, we took a layover day to hike. Greeted by clear skies, we hiked a steep mountain ridge behind camp, following sheep trails to about 2,000 feet above the river. The terrain reminded me of Glacier National Park and I was taken by its "untouched" feel. As we descended toward camp we noticed Mare’s tail clouds forming overhead, informing us a weather change was eminent.

The next morning we paddled in the rain, entering a new set of mountains with spectacular faces and steeply dipping limestone beds. We made camp at a small creek and decided to take another layover. We had traveled 120 miles over eight days and hadn’t seen a single foot print. We saw our first rapids the next day, as well as three Peregrine falcons. We counted 12 sheep on a slope near river level and realized it was a mineral lick. Just beyond, two rams lounged on a cliff high above, keeping survey on their harem below. We came to a Class III ledge drop that wasn't marked on the map and decided to scout. It was river-wide, but we were able to run along one side without trouble. Masa took the water temp and it read 44 degrees Fahrenheit, warming only 5 degrees since we first checked it 100 miles upstream. I mentioned to Blaine that with spray skirts on we could probably just run down the middle and he said: "I always take the safest route. Swimming a loaded boat to shore in 44-degree water isn't my idea of a good time." Rather than being a quest for whitewater, this was an exercise in avoiding it.

After reaching the confluence with the Peel, we made camp on a large gravel island and I went off to catch a grayling for Masa. Around the campfire we toasted with the last of our boxed wine and congratulated ourselves on a successful descent of the Hart. I asked Blaine how the Hart compared with other rivers of the Peel watershed. He said it was easier than the Bonnet Plume but harder than the Wind or Snake. Blaine asked Masa which river was his favorite and he replied, "The next one."

With just seven miles to go on the Peel, we anticipated easy going, but were surprised when we glimpsed the first set of rapids. Three long ledges extended far out into the river from each side. With rock strata dipping downstream at a 30-degree angle, the result was a set of long reversals like you’d find beneath a lowhead dam. There were runnable slots in the middle but they were nearly invisible from upstream. We opted to "por-taj" as they say in Canada. We ferried our gear over a series of rock beds loaded with fossils, and saw fresh wolf tracks in the muddy troughs in between. Masa spotted a particularly nice fossil and stopped during each haul to hammer away it.

After a braided section we came upon a large rapid that looked to be best skirted on the right. Suddenly things began moving fast and we realized we needed to catch an eddy quickly or we'd be running the rapid, like it or not. Paddling hard across a pushy eddyline just above the rapid allowed us to portage past three major ledges to a long calm channel leading out to the main river. With spray skirts on for the first time, we paddled down the long entrance ramp out to the river. Looking upriver, the water rose four feet above our heads. We were able to skirt some big standing waves in the main channel to just above another big rapid. A quick scout revealed we would again be lining, skirting and portaging. We began to curse Ernie, who, when Blaine asked him about the water on the Peel, said: "There's not much there to worry about." After ten hours and our energy reserves running low, we reached the take-out creek Ernie had marked on the map.

In the morning the weather was clear but clouds indicated it may not last. Late that afternoon, after the sky had clouded over and Ray had written off Ernie and set his tent back up, we heard the drone of the Otter. After landing, Ernie told us about a group of paddlers on the Bonnet Plume that had been evacuated, the river flooding during the same storm we experienced. As Ernie fired up the Otter, we contemplated our good fortune. With the soothing vibration of the Otter's engine and views of the vast wilderness below, my mind began to drift off to thoughts of my favorite river...the next one.

—For more information on canoeing the Hart or other Yukon rivers contact: Walden's Guiding and Outfitting, P.O. Box 4845, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada Y1A 4N6; Phone: (867) 667-7040; Fax: (867) 668-3073; e--mail: info@waldensguiding.com.