Yukon Bingo

Bull caribou walking across local glacier

The tributary rivers in this part of the Yukon were named by an eccentric mathematician. We have the Fifteen Mile River, which we have just discovered is 21 miles from Dawson. Also, the Twelve Mile and Forty Mile Rivers, 18 and 55 miles from town, respectively and just over the border in Alaska, there is the Seventy Mile River, which is 70 miles from absolutely bloody nowhere at all.

Fifteen Mile River

I believe the numerals were plucked from a bingo machine, one drunken night in Dawson City, and randomly distributed down the Yukon (See footnote).

End of the road- overflow water on the Fifteen Mile.

The Twelve Mile River is also called the Chanandu. Mishearing the local accent we thought it was the Xanadu. But the film with rollerskating Olivia Newton-John, that anyone of my age might remember, was apparently not named after a tributary of the mighty Yukon River. What a shame.

View from Forty Mile

It is all very confusing for us incomers but why is it important?

Made it at last!

Neil and I have finally finished our trail along the Yukon to Dawson. We only had to get as far as the Fifteen Mile River, as a local trapper had travelled there from town and told us the route was great. But how far away was the Fifteen Mile River? No idea. Could have been “Legs, 11” or “Two Fat Ladies, 88”.

Looking for an easy route. Didn't find one

Turns out, it’s 19 miles. 19 miles of ice-boulders, pressure-ridges, open leads and side-hills.

Side-hilling

I had a scare when I chopped away at the ice to test its thickness before driving the snowmachine across, and my axe went right through into flowing water. I was standing on ice about half an inch thick, but only briefly as I turned tail pretty fucking fast. Neil happened to take a photo of the incident. He had no idea what was happening and whilst snapping the pretty view below, might have captured my last moments.

Between Dawson City and Eagle Alaska, as far as we have heard, the river has frozen flat as a mill pond for over 100 miles, all except the bit between here and Fifteen Mile. We have the bumpiest, slantiest section of river that we know of for the third year running, so my letter of complaint to the Yukon Government is getting longer and more vociferous.

"Dear Yukon Dept. of Highways and Public Works,"

I shall be sending it along with our application to change the name of the creek on our property from Cassiar Creek to “Ninety Two Mile Creek” to be more in-keeping with local tradition.

Knocking out pressure ridge with a maul, before and after.

For all its muscle-pulling, and bone-splintering roughness, and despite the frequent marital rows trying to select the best route, it was a lot of fun to work on, and it was nowhere near as bad as the last 2 years. We now have a shorter way to town, half the distance of our route downriver to Forty Mile (which is how many miles away? -Just testing), across several glaciers and over the mountains. It’s not much quicker yet, but it will be as it fills in with snow and gets packed down.

Spin out. Negotiating a glacier on our longer route to town

At least we froze up. Outside Dawson the river hasn’t frozen over and below Eagle it is still wide open. We rode into town this week to buy 19 sheets of 2x8’ Styrofoam insulation, a torque wrench and 13mm deep socket. (Yes, what a sexy shopping trip that was, I bought a bottle of gin to cheer myself up.)

Styrofoam and rucksack full of gin

Dawson City straddles two sides of the Yukon River and, usually, once the river is frozen a government certified icebridge connects the residential area of West Dawson to the main town on the east. But not for the past two years. Temperatures are rising each winter and no icebridge may be the new normal for Dawson.

Open water in front of town

The government brought in a machine to pump ice flakes onto the open water to try to form the bridge. We thought the ice flakes would get washed away and couldn’t see how it would work, but $100k was spent on it before it seems- oops, the ice flakes got washed away.

Below town

I’m sure it was actually much more complicated than that and $100k of tax dollars wasn’t just pumped into the Yukon. Travelling upriver on our snowmachines, the ice bridge’s presence doesn’t affect us, but I’m not feeling smug.

Bubbling black water

The planet is getting terrifyingy warmer each year but there’ll be some long and lonely winters until we get warm enough to come in by boat all year round. And we’ll have to make a lot of trips if we’re to bring all those bloody caribou.

Passing the yard

Caribou on a frosty day

The migrating Forty Mile herd are still plodding upriver, back to their summer feeding grounds in Alaska. We counted over 50 in just one day from the window. We’re knee and elbow deep in them just now as we cut the wolf-killed carcass we found a couple of weeks ago into sections with an electric saw.

It looks like giant caribou-sushi rolls, and I’m thawing them on the workbench to harvest the meat for our dog. The cabin has an intense aroma of rotten stomach contents and caribou poo which is a bit embarrassing as we’ve had two whole sets of visitors. It’s been a social whirl here, though no-one stops long. Can’t imagine why.

Cheeky gray jay helping us clear up

The Rangers are travelling through to stake the route for the Yukon Quest dogsled race in February and we’ve had two groups in for a cuppa. They put in any section of trail that hasn’t already been done by locals, or do a better job when it’s been done by locals like us who seem to find every pressure ridge and rock to bump into, and they mark it with stakes.

Jack-knifed on the trail, ski in a crack

On a windy, snowy day like the day we drove back from town, you can easily lose the trail so the brightly coloured markers are a blessed relief.

Where's the fucking trail? Neil, here, has lost the trail and nearly got us the wrong side of the river. 

We took advantage of local trails being in to travel downriver to visit Old Man and Old Woman rock, two huge rock outcrops that sit either side of the Yukon.

Very helpful stakes marking a blown in trail. 

Local Tr'ondek Hwech'in legend has it that the two old dears were married and used to be next to each other but after a row, the Old Man got so annoyed he redirected the Yukon to flow between them and keep them forever apart. What a grumpy old twat. He regretted it as soon as he realised he’d have to do his own cooking and laundry and I hear she’s never looked back. At least I hope that’s what happened. They look rather marvellous, scowling at each other across the ice.

Old man

Old woman

Neil and I had a lovely day out and managed not to argue about anything at all, for once. I feel the old stony couple are a salutary reminder to us to squabble less. Otherwise we will end up either side of Ninety Two Mile Creek, me having to do all my own cooking, which I hate and Neil having to do his own welding, which he doesn’t know how.

Footnote: For river nerds. The Twelve Mile (Chanandu by its Tr'ondek Hwech'in name), Fifteen Mile and Forty Mile Rivers are measured from Fort Reliance which was 6 miles below Dawson City. Fort Reliance no longer exists so there was a flaw in that plan. The Seventy Mile is named for its distance from the Forty Mile for no reason I can fathom. 
(From Mike Rourke's Yukon River, Rivers North Publications, 1983)