 Day
1 – Friday |
If you are travelling from any location
outside of Western Canada and the western United
States, you will need to take one full day to travel
to Vancouver. |
| Day
2 – Saturday |
You will fly into Whitehorse on the morning flight.
We will meet you at the airport, then bring you
out to the kennel. Once here you will meet our very
friendly huskies, especially your team. Then
we will load the teams into our dog boxes and
head up the highway to Eagle Plains. The trip
takes several hours, so an early start is needed.
Once there, we will unload the dogs and you can
help with the late feeding. You can spend the
rest of the evening getting to know your guides,
along with the history of our dogs, the Yukon
Quest and the use of dogs by aboriginal peoples.
We will spend the night in the lodge at Eagle
Plains. |
| Day
3 – Sunday |
Start the day by helping with the morning feed
and getting an orientation to our dogs and equipment.
Our dogs are very powerful – probably the
strongest dogs in the Quest pound for pound –
and you will get to see and feel that power in action
as you head out on your first run. We will drive
a short distance along the trail towards Old Crow
and get a chance to harness and "boot up"
your team, practice braking, balancing and steering
the sled on corners, and other basics of driving
your team. |
Day
4 – Monday
|
Today we will start down the trail to Old Crow,
crossing through spectacular wilderness in the northern
Yukon. We will follow routes long used by First
Nations people in this region. As one of the guides
is a Gwitchin musher who lives in Old Crow, you
will have a very special opportunity to learn about
the history and traditions of those peoples. |
| Days
5 to 8 – Tuesday to Friday |
We will spend four more days on this wilderness
trail before reaching the remote northern community
of Old Crow. You will have a chance to see the dogs
work with a loaded sled, and experience the joys
of traversing the wilderness with your team. When
you set up camp, you will feed and care for the
dogs much as mushers in long distance races do.
Then you will enjoy a fine meal prepared by your
guide, before you snuggle into a cozy wall tent
or Arctic Oven tent. As you drift off to sleep under
the shimmering aurora borealis, you will probably
hear the haunting howls of your K-9 companions –
and if you’re lucky, the answering song of
the wolf. |
| Day
9 – Saturday |
We will spend today in the community of Old Crow,
visiting with local people and learning about the
traditions and practices of the Gwitchin. We will
stay in a lodge and have a traditional meal. |
| Day
10 – Sunday |
After a hearty breakfast for you and your team,
you will fly back to Whitehorse. You can either
spend a night at our kennel, or in Whitehorse, before
connecting with a flight out of the Yukon. We can
arrange for you to spend some time exploring Whitehorse
before your flight home. |
On
this extreme and remote tour, you will travel along a
trail out of Eagle Plains through some of the most isolated
geography in Canada. The tour ends in Old Crow, the Yukon's
most northerly community, a village of the Gwitchin people.
One of your guides will be a Gwitchin musher who has participated
in the Quest. Special bookings are required for this tour
and you will need two weeks to complete the journey. See
below for an itinerary. 