Yukon - Eagles, Wild Rivers & Dog Sledding

Thursday March 27th we stayed close to home, exploring Fox Lake as a potential northern lights location. As we were leaving the lake campground we saw an eagle fly by and land in a nearby tree. There was so little traffic on the road we were able to half pull off the road and get close enough to use our car as a blind and John was able to get a photo when the eagle flew away. There are a ton of lakes and rivers in the Yukon so there is a good population of eagles. 

We met the owner of our cabin that afternoon, Yvonne was wonderful to chat to and very kindly gave us a large piece of salmon she had caught in Alaska. We thoroughly enjoyed a dinner of salmon and also used it for some great lunch sandwiches!

Saturday the 29th we took a 445km roundtrip drive west to Haines Junction. It was a gorgeous day and our views for the drive were the spectacular snowcapped mountains of the Kluane National Park. Following a tip Yvonne gave us, we took a side road to Kusawa Lake about 100km from the cabin. The snow-covered road meandered through forests, past small lakes and eventually followed the Takhini river. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed amazing views of the river and mountains in complete solitude. 

We drove on to Haines junction and explored a little up the Alaska Highway and the road to Haines. John was enthralled with the views and every time Sara turned around she found him in the middle of the road with his tripod. Good thing there was hardly any traffic! We had looked into taking an aerial flight over the park and glaciers, but the pilot for the only company flying wasn't available. We did stop at the small airport though and got some great views of the mountains. 

We were pretty tired when we got home, but John's Aurora monitoring apps indicated the Bz was south which means the aurora would come down to low latitudes and our location was in the Aurora Oval. All indicating conditions were favorable for more lights to be out. Sure enough we were lucky to get one more night of great Aurora. One of John's cameras has been modified for astro photography and with the hydrogen alpha filter is able to record more red wave lengths. 

After such a busy day we took it easy on Sunday and Monday. We drove into Whitehorse and had a great dinner at the Dirty Northern Bastard with Cora & Matteo. They really had given us some great tips and it was fun to chat to them about living in Whitehorse. We rode the fat tire bikes on the lake the next day and enjoyed lunch and Smores by the outside fire. Sara always enjoys an opportunity to create a fire!  Of course we also enjoyed multiple soaks in the hot tub.

We had looked into dog sledding the previous week and couldn't find an option that would work. We were chatting to our wonderful host Yvonne and she recommended talking to Jeninne Cathers and her dad Ned who lived on the other side of the lake. They have a wilderness adventure business taking people dog sledding, canoeing, and wilderness exploring and camping. We were really excited when Jeninne said yes they could take us out on the lake and would pick us up on the side of the lake five minutes from our cabin. 

We had the most wonderful afternoon! The Cathers family have been living off grid on the lake shore for forty years. Ned has run the Yukon Quest dog sled race ten times and Jeninne has run it six times; at the age of eighteen she was the youngest person ever to complete the race. The Yukon Quest is considered the toughest dog sled race in the world. It's about the same distance as the Iditarod but runs in February which is colder, with tough trails and only six rest stops. They are great people and we loved chatting to them.

Sara drove the sled and was given great instruction from both Jeninne and Ned on techniques. It was really exciting when the dogs listened to her commands and actually changed direction. We stopped midway for hot maple beans and sausages that Jeninne cooked on a fire she made on the snow. It was an absolutely fabulous way to end our time in the Yukon!

Click here to see the photos