Reel Excitement in the Yukon Territory

Float Plane, Cook House, Four Cabins and the Equipment Shed

At auction was a B.C. Canada fly-in fishing trip for four people.  The room was full of sheep hunters who had no interest in the deep.  As the opening bid fell lower and lower, my casting arm crept up higher and higher until it was finally seen by the auctioneer who, with a wink, slammed down his gavel with a resounding, “Sold! to the only bidder.”  ME

After wrangling my mom

to come with me, I set about finding my next victim.

I mentioned the trip to my fellow Airstream adventurer, Steve, who wrangled his long time fishing and hunting buddy, Ken, to join him.   (A big thank you to Ken’s wife!)  We all flew from the midwest to Vancouver B.C., up to Whitehorse in the Yukon, and then drove seven hours to meet a chopper headed to our final destination, Dease Lake.  My mom and I shared one cabin and the guys shared another.  We nicknamed ourselves “The Core Four” and our daily mission was to bag The Trifecta–at least one of three varieties of game fish:  a rainbow trout, a dolly varden, and a grayling each time we went out.

I’m afraid of grizzly bears…

and there was no shortage of those brown devils in the vast wilderness that was our fishing camp.  Sleeping with a heavy shovel next to my bedroll was a comfort.  In July the sun barely sets north of Alaska, giving us 21 hours of daylight to fill.  By 1 a.m.  we were hanging shirts and bags over the windows so even our one room cabins got some shut-eye.

One day a  joker sneaked up on us and dared to slap his big, flat tail on the water, next to the bow of the boat, which made changing my Depends a necessity.  I’m still mad at him.  The pelted plague.  A bucktoothed rascal.  An Angry Beaver.  We weren’t even throwing our lures at his lodge this time.   Collectively, we spotted a moose swimming, a lone wolf, lots of loons surfacing and calling, otters at play, ducks we can’t identify, a ruffed grouse, and a caribou skull and moose antler– the only remains of both killed by wolves.  One lucky snowshoe hare, with his brown summer jacket on, scampered past the front door of the cook house before Daniel, our First Nation guide, could skin him and put him in a pot.

Drinking water was hauled up in buckets from the lake and poured directly into pitchers and cups.  It was crystal clear and so good and cold!  Our only modern appliance was a propane range. The five second rule morphed into the five minute rule in camp.  Grub was as rough as the terrain but after a hard day of cranking and reeling, it was all good.  We played 9 rounds of “golf” and lots of cribbage when we weren’t in a boat.  Golf is  a card game that doesn’t require a nine iron or a club throw.  Without electricity, grooming was done “old school” using a table basin, a tea kettle (if we wanted hot water) and the same towel for a week.  Did I mention the outhouse?  Let’s not.

After aggravating fish for five days on Dease Lake, we stayed on a few extra nights in Whitehorse, a surprisingly upscale, wanna-be town where I scored an ivory necklace made from fossilized wooly mammoth tusks–a must have for any girl.  We were all set to venture out on a 150km cruise on the scenic Alaska Hwy to Skagway.  Along the way we saw a bear, several moose, and stumbled upon a wildlife preserve.  The best part about Skagway was getting there; the town itself is a tourist trap for cruise ships.  To be fair, there were some amazing bronze sculptures, carved caribou antlers, and Inuit artwork but one had to strike gold in order to make a purchase.  I was hoping for an authentic and historic Klondike gold mining town and seaport but discovered a micro-mini Wisconsin Dells filled with the same trash and trinkets in each store window.  On the upside, it rained a lot.

Back in Whitehorse, we found a coffee spot called “Baked” that not only serves 172 different kinds of java, juice, and jams but they excel in baking raspberry chocolate scones–voted Best in Show by the Core Four.   One morning we sipped and sat, imagining what our catch and release fish were telling their buddies.  Wide eyed, one might exclaim, “You guys aren’t going to believe this, but I was abducted by aliens!  They had a silver metal ship and I was lifted up through the water into the sky…it was so bright…I couldn’t breathe.  They were giants who probed and prodded in my mouth while sounds came out of theirs.   OMG are they ugly!”

Photo credit for some of the pics goes to Steve.  Thanks for sharing!