For the first time since 2004, a tandem canoe team won the Yukon River Quest, the longest annual canoe and kayak race in the world. Team Round Side Down, consisting of paddlers Tim Lynch and Dave Lewis, passed the finish line after 45 hours and two minutes of paddling a Clipper WW2. The midnight-sun-fuelled race takes place each year on the Yukon River, along the 715 kilometers (444 miles) between Whitehorse and Dawson City in the Yukon.
Out of the 62 teams that started the race, 49 finished. There were 13 scratches—one at the end of Lake Laberge, 11 at Carmacks and one at Minto. Race officials noted that 50-kilometer long Lake Laberge was very calm for second straight year and that the river was high, but also say that these conditions did not result in faster times. No records were broken for the first time in many years. The uncharacteristically warm temperatures likely slowed teams, as well as thunder and lightning and smoke from forest fires, they added.
Though there were no major incidents, two teams overturned in the infamous Fiver Finger Rapids.