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Tour Overview
On this 14-day wilderness adventure you will retrace the route of the historic Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, and experience the spell of the Yukon in much the same way as the original stampeders did on “the trail of 98”. This tour is for people who want to challenge themselves physically and be rewarded in a way that only human-powered wilderness travel can.
First on foot you will hike the historic Chilkoot Trail, and then by canoe you will paddle on the mighty Yukon River, arriving by water to Dawson City. There you will get a chance to discover the charms of this once bustling gold rush city of 30,000 people, now home to just 1000 hearty residents. You will hike and paddle your way into the fascinating history that was the Klondike Gold Rush. Your historic journey unfolds against the backdrop of a majestic beauty spanning from costal Alaska to the Yukon’s interior. From the barren and haunting beauty of the mountain pass on the Chilkoot Trail, to the noble majesty of the broad and swift-flowing Yukon River, your adventure will carry you through a great northern wilderness that remains almost unchanged in appearance since the gold seekers packed their loads of provisions through this land, more than a century ago!
What's Included:
•Transportation from Whitehorse to the Chilkoot Trail on Day 1 •Transportation to Whitehorse from Carcross on Day 6 •Transportation to Carmacks from Whitehorse on Day 7 •Transportation to Whitehorse from Dawson City on Day 14 •Meals starting lunch Day 1 and ending lunch Day 14, Dinner Day 6 in Whitehorse is not included •Tickets aboard the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway Train from Bennett Lake to Carcross, Yukon •Eating utensils, bowls, and mug, and group kitchen equipment •Tents, canoes, paddles, personal flotation device •Services of a CFA guide •All necessary safety equipment
The Chilkoot Trail is part of the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site of Canada and the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in the United States. These parks commemorate the stampeders of 1898 in their struggles and journey to Dawson's gold fields. The world was captured by gold fever as the first ships returned to Seattle filled with gold from the Klondike. Stampeders from all over the world and all walks-of-life rushed to get “grub staked” and begin their travels on one of the many routes to Dawson City, Yukon.
The Chilkoot was the shortest and most popular route to the Klondike. It was one of only three glacier-free corridors through the Costal Mountains between Juneau and Yakutat. It consisted of a ship passage to the port of Dyea. From Dyea, stampeders had to carry, push, pull, drag or pay for their grub stake of one tone of provisions to be taken up and over the Chilkoot Pass and into Canada, either to Lindeman or Bennett Lake. From there they cut trees, built boats, and then traveled by the Yukon River into Dawson.
By far the Chilkoot Trail was the most physically demanding part of the journey and was as far as many stampeders made it. During winter, when many of the stampeders crossed the trail, it held many dangers and hardships including starvation, sickness, hypothermia, frostbite, avalanches, and even death. Today during summer, the trail is a pleasant backpacking route, when only burdened by a single load of 60lbs.
The Chilkoot Trail takes you through diverse environments. The trail goes from the tidal waters of Dyea, located on the famous Inside Passage of Alaska, through the Alaskan coastal rain forests, up and over the alpine tundra of the summit and down again into the boreal sub-alpine forest of interior Yukon.
The Yukon River is full of history, beauty and wilderness. It is the Yukon’s most popular river to paddle and explore. The river’s consistently swift current, yet lack of technical water make it accessible to paddlers of any age and skill level.
The word “Yukon” came from HBC trader John Bell. He named the river “Youcon” a derivation from local First Nation languages, meaning “the Greatest River” or “Big River”. The river is 3166 km (1979 miles) long from Marsh Lake to the Bering Sea according to the geological Society of Canada. This fact is contested by others stating that the river’s total distance is as much as 3680 km (2300 miles) using the Pelly or Teslin River branches as its headwaters. The Yukon is the 4th longest and 5th largest river by volume in North America.
The Yukon River watershed flows through many First Nation traditional territories. This large river valley provided plentiful plant, animal and aquatic life for aboriginal peoples long before it provided a transportation route to the Klondike gold fields.
In the 1800’s the Yukon Territory saw the arrival of many different non-First Nation peoples to trap, trade, explore and mine its land. But it was the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 and its hordes of gold seekers who created the transportations routes that permanently opened up this land of stunning beauty. The Yukon River was the principle transportation route for these stampeders because they could travel by water all the way from Bennett Lake to Dawson City. The river, at that time, posed only two challenging areas. The first was Miles Canyon along with the close-by Whitehorse Rapids. In 1898 over 30,000 stampeders and 7000 boats floated towards Dawson City from Bennett Lake. At Miles Canyon 150 boats were wrecked and 5 men lost their life. The Whitehorse Rapids were shortly after Miles Canyon and many of the Stampeders also faced grave danger trying to navigate the rapids with their un-seaworthy boats and inexperienced captains. Quickly The North West Mounted Police stepped in to ensure safety prevailed.
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Tour Highlights
Itinerary
Day 0: Whitehorse, Yukon
Hopefully you enjoyed your travels and have arrived safely in Whitehorse, the capital city, nestled among Yukon wilderness. Please arrive in Whitehorse in time for an orientation meeting at 8:30 pm the night before our departure. Guests are responsible for accommodation and meals while in Whitehorse. Whitehorse is a splendid little city and we recommend booking some additional time at either the beginning or the end of your trip to see Whitehorse. If you wish to fish on your trip but, have not had a chance to purchase a Yukon fishing license, you should do so this evening. Your guides will let you know where they can be purchased.
Please Note: Often our guests choose to come to the Yukon several days early, or to depart several days after their wilderness vacation. Therefore we don't include accommodation in Whitehorse in order to provide flexibility for our guests. If you prefer, we can easily arrange your hotel accommodations in Whitehorse and add these details to your itinerary.
Day 1: Chilkoot Trail Begins! (L, D)
Your guide will pick you up at your accommodations in Whitehorse between 6:30-7:00am. Please finish eating your breakfast (not included) by this time. Any unnecessary gear or luggage can be left with our staff for lock up in our secure storage facility. Our drive will take us south from Whitehorse on the Klondike Highway. This is a spectacular drive with views of Tagish and Tutshi Lakes, before climbing through the Skagway Pass. At the summit of the pass we will cross into Alaska. You must have your passport for the border crossings. From there we will descend more than 1000m (3000 ft) to the town of Skagway, situated at the northern terminus of the Lynn Canal, the world's largest fiord and the northern-most destination of many who travel Alaska’s famous Inside Passage. We will take a short trip into Skagway to go to the trail office and pick-up our permits. Next it’s back into the vehicle for a short trip to the town site of Dyea and the Chilkoot Trailhead. Our first day of hiking is shorter short one to accommodate the travel from Whitehorse. Tonight we camp at Finnegan’s Point after 7.7 km (4.8 miles).
Day 2: Alaskan Rain Forest (B, L, D)
On your way to Sheep Camp today look up into the surrounding mountains. Many of the valleys have spectacular hanging glaciers. We will travel 11.2 km (7 miles) and gain around 225 m (750 ft). Canyon City campsite, the Canyon City Ruins and Pleasant Camp are today’s places to rest, snack and explore. Once at Sheep Camp we will have a chance to set camp enjoy dinner then listen to an entertaining ranger talk on the trail conditions, history, ecology, wildlife and safety concerns of the area.
Day 3: Over the summit, into Canada (B, L, D)
This will be an early morning and a big day. Right out of camp you will begin to climb towards the pass. You will cover approximately 14.1 km (8.7 miles) and climb around 840 m (2750 ft). Pay close attention to the rapidly changing environment. Today you will hike from the Pacific Northwest Coastal Forest, through the tree-line and into the alpine tundra. The scales, the golden staircase, and the international border are today’s highlights. Depending on the time of year you may experience walking on snow pack that has not melted from the winter’s heavy snow-load in various places near the summit of the pass. From the summit you can look behind you to see the lush costal forest of Alaska and forward to the alpine tundra of Canada. Take a breath and enjoy your accomplishments. Feel the relief of not having to pack one tone of gear up and over the pass like the stampeders had to. Once you arrive in tonight’s camp you will understand and appreciate its name “Happy Camp”.
Day 4: Out of the High Country (B, L, D)
Today is an easier day. Relax and enjoy your hike through the treeless alpine tundra down to the sub-alpine boreal forest. The views are spectacular as you follow Long Lake high up on a ridge and drop down into Deep Lake. Take a moment to rest and soak your feet in the crystal clear water of Deep Lake. For the brave souls this is also a spot for a quick dip in the cold mountain water while others may opt to sit and enjoy the beautiful rapids while having a snack. Our destination tonight is Linderman City. There is an interpretative wall-tent here maintained by Parks Canada. You can spend some of your leisure time here reading and viewing pictures of the trail’s colourful history. You can also get your official “Chilkoot Trail” hiking certificate. Today you will hike 8.8 km (5.5 miles) and make an overall descent of 244m (800ft).
Day 5: To Bennett Lake (B, L, D)
Today is your last full day of hiking day. Leaving Linderman City you will climb onto a high boreal ridge. As the trail continues north you will get glimpses of both Linderman Lake and Bennett Lake. Bennett was the gathering place of over 20,000 stampeders as they built boats from the surrounding forest and waited for the lake ice to go out. Bennett was a large and busy town with streets, hotels, stores, warehouses, and offices. The only remaining building at Bennett is St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. The demise of this town was triggered by the completion of the White Pass Yukon Railway to Whitehorse. Today you will travel 11.3 km (7 miles)
Day 6: White Rass and Yukon Route Railway Train Ride (B, L)
Rest and enjoy a leisurely morning. Chat with your guide or sip a freshly-brewed coffee and read the interpretive info while waiting for a truly unique Trail of 98 experience. In the early afternoon we will catch the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway to the town of Carcross. The train will travel along the eastern shore of Bennett Lake to Carcross. . “Carcross” is a short form for “caribou crossing”. This was the historic place that the Carcross/Tagish Caribou Herd crossed the Nares River. Your group will be met in Carcross by the staff of Cabin Fever Adventures. However, before leaving we’ll take a visit to the Matheson General Store and enjoy an ice cream cone for the ride home. After a short one-hour drive to Whitehorse we will check into our hotel room and the remainder of the evening will be set aside to explore downtown Whitehorse. Dinner this evening is not included in your package. There are numerous high-quality restaurants in the downtown area, and your guide will be sure to make some recommendations. Rest and enjoy a leisurely morning. Chat with your guide or sip a freshly-brewed coffee and read the interpretive info while waiting for a truly unique Trail of 98 experience. In the early afternoon we will catch the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway to the town of Carcross. The train will travel along the eastern shore of Bennett Lake to Carcross. . “Carcross” is a short form for “caribou crossing”. This was the historic place that the Carcross/Tagish Caribou Herd crossed the Nares River. Your group will be met in Carcross by the staff of Cabin Fever Adventures. However, before leaving we’ll take a visit to the Matheson General Store and enjoy an ice cream cone for the ride home. After a short one-hour drive to Whitehorse we will check into our hotel room and the remainder of the evening will be set aside to explore downtown Whitehorse. Dinner this evening is not included in your package. There are numerous high-quality restaurants in the downtown area, and your guide will be sure to make some recommendations.
Day 7: By River to the Gold Fields! (B, L, D)
After breakfast at our hotel in Whitehorse we will drive north on the Klondike Highway for two hours and launch our 18-foot cedar river canoes at Carmacks. Over the next seven days we will travel the Yukon River en route to Dawson City and the Klondike Gold Fields.
Day 8 - 13: Yukon River Canoe Trip (B, L, D)
Yukon River Trip (travel and rest schedules will be determined by your guide based on the needs of the group and weather) - During these seven days on the river we will see The Five Finger Rapids, Fort Selkirk, and numerous other historical locations along the river.
Day 14: Arrive in historic Dawson City by canoe (B, L)
This final day of canoeing is short. We plan on arriving in Dawson around 10:00am. You will have 2 hours to tour this historic town. At noon we will be met by CFA staff, and after a picnic lunch will begin our 6-hour journey back to Whitehorse. We will stop in Carmacks to allow time for a dinner break (not included). We will return to Whitehorse by between 8 and 9 pm and drop you off at your chosen accommodations.
Our Trusted Partner's Responsible and Sustainable Travel Policy
At Cabin Fever Adventures we don’t believe we can protect the planet by simply saying that we love wilderness and that we strive to protect wild places. Of course we love the wilderness, but the bigger question is does the day-to-day operation of our company demonstrate this commitment? At Cabin Fever Adventures we strive to be the Yukon’s industry leader in promoting a earth-friendly business model. We actively engage our company in the preservation of not only the wilderness here in the Yukon, but consider our company an economic vehicle to affect positive change around the planet.
Our Earth-Friendly initiatives are based on the following simple beliefs:
•One person’s happiness can not be build at the cost of another's •One person can change the world by doing things differently, daily •The needs of the earth’s natural systems are the basis for all sound economic decisions when judged over the long-term.
Based on the above stated beliefs, we have instituted the following business practices into the operations of Cabin Fever Adventures.
We Provide an Organic and Fair Trade Food Menu
•Our food menu is as close to 100% organic as possible and we support several Fair Trade organizations through our food purchases as well. To learn more about organic food products please visit our food distributors website www.horizondistributors.com •To learn more about Fair Trade products and benefits please visit www.transfairusa.org
We are a Member of One Percent for the Planet
•One Percent for the Planet is an organization of member companies who donate at least 1 % of their gross revenues to non-profit environmental protection agencies. We are proud to have made this commitment and hope you will check out their site. We Support-Best Practice Local and or Canadian Businesses Partnerships •We support businesses in the following order of priority when it comes to sourcing gear for our company. First we support companies that we feel are conducting best practices for eco-justice and earth-friendly business practices. Next, we support companies that are local to the Yukon, and thirdly we support Canadian manufactured products because as a voter we can at least work towards changes in our own country.
We Challenge the Status Quo Consumer Attitudes Through our Purchasing Decisions
•We maintain our gear very well and believe in using the entire life-span of a product through proper maintenance and repairs. CFA does not get rid of perfectly good gear to satiate the consumer demand to be outfttted in gear that appears to be brand-new. We can not pretend to be true environmental advocates if our concern for the environment is Yukon-specific rather that global in perspective. Unnecessary consumerism is the fundamental lifestyle problem which has placed human existence out of balance with the planet. We need to start operating within our needs, rather than our wants. When a piece of gear no longer does its job properly or will create a significant consequence if it fails in the backcountry than it is first repaired, and if it can not be properly repaired than it is replaced, but not before. We have become skilled in gear repair, and even make some one-of-a-kind items ourselves. We attempt to source gear for our company from like-minded companies who are making significant steps to reduce their global environmental impact.
We Support Agencies Dedicated to Protecting Wild Places and to Improving Transportation Technologies Vital to Tourism
•We donate to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and green technologies NGO’S. For more information on the work of CPAWS please visit www.cpaws.org •We donate to the Pembina Foundation. www.pembinafoundation.org The Pembina Foundation for Environmental Research and Education supports innovative environmental research and education initiatives that help people reduce their energy footprint.
We Practice Leave No Trace Camping Practices
•The owner of Cabin Fever Adventures is a certified Master Trainer for The Leave No Trace Centre for Outdoor Ethics. We travel as lightly upon the land as we can so as to leave for the enjoyment of future generations the landscape we hold dear today. To learn more about the principles of LNT backcountry travel please visit www.lnt.org
Day-to-Day Operation of our Physical Plant
We operate Cabin Fever Adventures from our wilderness base-camp and are pursuing numerous efforts to minimize our environmental footprint.
•We personally live a lower-than-average impact lifestyle at our cabin in the wilderness. We live with our family of three in a 480 square foot home (44.6 m2 ) that is also our office for CFA. We function on an average of 15 gallons (56.78 L) of water per day for our entire family, including laundry, cleaning, drinking etc. Our water consumption at home is about one-twentieth the national average for Canada. •We operate an almost paper-less office and we conduct near-paperless interactions with our clients. You will notice that we offer all our information digitally and encourage our customers to embrace communication that avoids the need for paper. •We will soon be investing in a solar energy system for our base camp. •We believe in making our equipment last as long as possible and invest in skills and equipment which allow us to utilize local building materials and waste materials, to operate and or repair our equipment. •We remove our solid human waste from the environment on our busier river routes and dispose of it in sanitation dumps •Our largest environmental impact is our use of fossil fuels for transportation. This is why we actively donate to foundations supporting advances in renewable energy, such as the Pembina Foundation and have chosen to carbon offset all of our tourism products. •We utilize green cleaning dish soaps, cleaning products, and laundry detergents.
About our Trusted Partner
Cabin Fever Adventures offers a variety of wilderness vacations in the Yukon, Southeast Alaska and Northern British Columbia. We operate by the doctrines of ecotourism and are industry leaders in decreasing our environmental impact, not just in the wilderness areas we travel through, but globally through our ethical business decisions. We offer an organic food menu, purchase carbon offsets for our transportation emissions and donate to grassroots environmental protection agencies. If you would like to see the stunning beauty of the Northwest while treading lightly on the planet, then Cabin Fever Adventures is for you. There is only one future and it is shared!
Hiking : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Hiking
In the Alaskan Coastal Rain Forest : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
In the Alaskan Coastal Rain Forest
Hanging Glaciers Near the Trail : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Hanging Glaciers Near the Trail
Scenery : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Scenery
Heading down to the Canadian Wilderness : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Heading down to the Canadian Wilderness
Finish Your Hike By Catching a Scenic Railway Line Ride : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Finish Your Hike By Catching a Scenic Railway Line Ride
Travel in Elegant Hand-Made Cedar Canoes : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Travel in Elegant Hand-Made Cedar Canoes
Wildlife Encounters on the River : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Wildlife Encounters on the River
Yukon River - Rich in Frontier History to be Discovered : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Yukon River - Rich in Frontier History to be Discovered
Fort Selkirk : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Fort Selkirk
Sun still high in the sky as midnight approaches : Footsteps of the Klondike at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
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