Hootalinqua and night time paddle

In the winter the ice on Lake Laberge was the last ice to melt and hence this was a blockage. An additional problem was until water levels rose with the spring melt the Thirty Mile river between Hootalinqua and the lake meant that most sternwheelers couldn't navigate any further up river. Hence this became a port for boats awaiting the thaw.

There had always been a small First Nation community here as it was the junction where the Teslin river joins the Yukon. Hootalinqua got a big boost when gold was discovered up the Teslin. There was a shipyard here and ships would be dragged out of the river for the winter.

There is a sternwheeler still here hauled up above the water where it has rested since it was abandoned. It was the SS Evelyn later renamed the SS Norcros.

We had a little free time so needless to say some fished whilst others panned for gold.

The river changed after the Teslin joins the Yukon. Lake Laberge captures a lot of the silt but the Teslin is heavily laden with silt and the waters are very different until they have mixed. There is an area that suffered a large fire and is taking its time to recover and is over ten years since the fire. We rafted up and drifted effortless down the river carried by the current for more than an hour past the burned out area and travelling at between 8 -10kpmh meant that quite an area had been burnt.

We stopped on an island opposite Fyfe Creek for a long rest and a meal. We weren't going to camp here as that evening we were going for a night time trip on the river with the hope of seeing some wildlife as we drifted past. But there is also wildlife on the island but luckily nothing more dangerous than a squirrel.

Late in the evening we cast off and rafted up to drift slowly down the river. This was the quietest we had been all trip as we had promised to be quiet. Despite being during the night it was still light this far north. There were several excited pointing of hands in various directions until those with binoculars said that it was just another tree stump or floating log.

We did some difficult paddling around islands and gravel bars with Benny standing up in the canoe several times to get a better view of the correct route to take. We stopped of at Cyr's dredge, my photos of this at night weren't very good so I have substituted some from an earlier trip.

We passed a sunken gold dredge, invisible in the high silt laden waters below the surface and landed at erickson's Woodyard at 3am to unload the boats, set up tents and crash out. We had seen no bears of moose but had heard a beaver splash the water as an alarm but the night time tip had been fun even if we hadn't seen any big wild life.