Yukon Territory - North/Black/Liard River
Canoe Trip, Trip Report

Chapter One -- An Introduction (To a 56kb Text-Only version, no pictures)

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Part One -- Getting There

Fri/Sat/Sun, 27-29 June, 1997

The car is loaded enlarge me (??kb) no pic yet

The four of us met and started driving from John's house early the morning of Friday, 27 June, 1997. (Map of Western Canada) Camped that night with a healthy mosquito population at Lac La Hache Provincial Park Campground (British Columbia), on Route 97. Camped the next night at Kinaskan Lake Provincial Park Campground (also BC) on Route 37, the Cassiar Highway. Mosquitoes worse there. Arrived at the Northern Lights Air float plane base in Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada just after 2:00 PM Sunday, 29 June, and mosquitoes were bad there, too. 1605 miles on the odometer (2583 km) since leaving Hank's and Laurie's house, which included only one or two miles (1½-3 km) of excess driving for gas, campsites, food, etc.. Good weather the whole drive up, it started raining shortly after we arrived in Watson Lake.

Loading the plane enlarge me(30kb)

Day 1. Sunday, 29 June, 1997

At the float plane base we sorted and repacked some gear, then loaded half the packs and equipment into the Cessna 185 float plane. John's canoe got strapped tightly

Liard River from plane enlarge me (22kb)

to the pontoon struts. Dennis and John took off from Watson Lake at 3:15 pm, during a lull in the rain, and landed on North Lake at 4:10 pm. (Map of our trip) It rained at both ends of their flight, but there was reasonably clear air between. The plane returned, and Hank and Laurie took off with their boat and the rest of the gear at about 6:15 pm. This second trip the pilot had to modify his route to avoid a dark thunderstorm we could see smothering the mouth of the Black River. He followed the Liard upstream, but turned north up the creek to the east of the Black system until he found a hole we could sneak through to the west over a pass in the mountains into the North River drainage. We landed on North Lake at 7:30 pm.

Black River from plane enlarge me (34kb)

John and Dennis were the "checkout flight" and got to fly the whole river route pretty low, looking for impediments to navigation. Among us we decided that they got to pick the put-in lake -- "Go as high up the river system as you dare!" They noted two major potential trouble spots; what looked like a big drop of some kind after the island below Waters Creek, and the rapids marked on the topo maps below Fire Lake, both on the North River. Hank and Laurie only got to see most of the Liard and then the North River from the top of the Braids up, and were usually high enough that much river detail was

Landing on North Lake enlarge me (21kb)

lost. The rapids/falls below Fire Lake looked very white: Ominous to everyone. Chilly, windy, and some rain after landing. The storms made it a very bumpy trip. Neither Laurie or Hank felt very good during the flight, or for a while after landing. John and Dennis had a campsite picked out with their tents up already. Hank and Laurie joined the tent row. Spaghetti for dinner, but Hank wasn't feeling well enough to care what it was....

We were on one of several small lakes, collectively called North Lakes, about 110 air miles (177 km) north and east of Watson Lake, Yukon. (North Lake Map) This one we landed on is the largest, at three miles long (5 km) and farthest downstream in the group. Water levels would have dictated some walking if we wanted to go any higher. The only way in here is flying -- no roads, no trails. We were at 4,167 feet elevation (1,270 m) and about 350 miles (560 km) from the Arctic Circle. Mountains are close to the water and some go over 7,000 feet (2,130 m), but probably average about 6,000 feet (1,830 m). This is a pretty place with lots of wildlife and good fishing.

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