Saturday night hockey

Saturday night hockey
Saturday night hockey

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

A day filled with boats

Today was definitely a boat day and I didn`t  even get to go in one!  In Whitehorse there is a yearly boating race - the Yukon River Quest - 444 miles on the Yukon River.  I haven`t ever done the race and probably never will.

But my hubby did the precursor to this race.  It was called Dyea to Dawson, and involved following the route of the Klondike gold rush from Skagway, Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon.  The first part involved climbing over the mountains, the second part boating through the lake system, past Carcross to the Yukon River then on to Dawson.  They only ran the Dyea to Dawson race for two years.  I think logistics were pretty intense, crossing the border between the U.S. and Canada and getting boats to the place where the water part of the trip started - Bennett Station.  But the River Quest has been going on since 1999.

The start of the race was today and I went down to watch it on my lunch hour.  I know a couple of people who are racing - my God son, Wesley, and an old neighbour, Noreen.  They are both in voyageur canoes.  But with 95 teams in a mass start I didn`t see either of them but I did see Wes`canoe go by.  Here are a couple of photos.

Running to get the boats in the water when the gun goes off.

And they are off!


There were people lining both sides of the river watching the boats take off.  Lots of fun.  There is a tracker on the website too, so I can keep track of how my friends are doing. :)

After this excitement I wandered over to an exhibition that is happening a little further down the riverbank.  There, people are building boats.

This will be a caribou skin kayak.

Sewing the skins together.

This is a river boat.  It will be covered with moose skin.

And a birch bark canoe.

This one will be a dugout canoe.

I have been going by this exhibit every few days watching the progress.  Very fascinating!

That`s all for today.  The only sewing happening was on that caribou skin.  :)

Janet 

9 comments:

  1. How amazing to watch those boats being built. Lovely to see that there are still some traditional things being made by hand. We went to a barrel making factory last week and although the staves are all precision cut by machine all the assembly is still hand done. It was fascinating. xx

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  2. How interesting. It would be fascinating to watch those boats being built. Hugs, xx

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  3. Watching the canoes being built would be wonderful.Many years ago a friend and Hugh built a frame, and covered it with paper mache, many.many layers, then sealed it all.They called it " Kiko" after their surnames, (Mc) Ki(nstry) and Ko(ch), and did lots of river trips.I think for you all up North, this would be a summertime event.

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  4. It's sew nice that folk are still building these boats..

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  5. What a wonderful exhibit and so interesting to watch in progress. I loved your post about the leaf dying...very interesting.

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  6. That sounds like a grueling race! It must have been interesting seeing all of those boats being created.

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  7. How interesting to see the boats being built! Looks like you had a great day x

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  8. So interesting, thanks for sharing with us .

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