After 62 days, the six-man Paddle For The North team has returned home. They traversed 1400 kilometers through three time zones and six river systems, from the Yukon to Alaska, on their journey with the hopes of creating a documentary that will encourage conservation.
The group started on Elliot Lake and the Hart River, “Which was spectacular,” says team member Gabriel Rivest. “We spent 12-13 days on the Hart paddling, but also doing quite a bit of hiking.”
From there the group paddled into the Peel River, where they were faced with Aberdeen Canyon, a five-kilometer portage through swamp and thick bush. The next leg of the journey took them 140 kilometers upstream to the Continental Divide on the Rat River. “Other then a crazy flood—a two meter rise in five hours overnight—the Rat ended up being easier then we thought it would be. It took us 14 days in total, after losing six paddles because of the flood,” says Rivest.
Once on the other side of the continental divide, the group traveled down the Bell and Porcupine Rivers. “We spent a couple days relaxing in Old Crow before heading down the most beautiful part of the Porcupine, through the ramparts which includes the old Hudson Bay Company post that has been renovated by the First Nations and the Yukon Government,” adds Rivest. Their journey ended on the Yukon River at the Dalton Highway bridge, 200 kilometers north of Fairbanks in the heart of Alaska.
Find out more about their expedition at http://paddleforthenorth.org.
