Big Salmon River

This year Phillip and I went to a canoe trip to Yukon Territory, Canada. We were a group of 10 people (Christian Auer, Georg Fernsebner, Günther Zlanabitnig, Wolfgang Huber, Christof Huber, Walter Hauser, Andreas Kostner, Klaus Wallnöfer, Phillip and me).

All of us were trained whitewater guards, who wanted to make a whitewater holiday. Although the Big Salmon River and the Yukon River are anything but whitewater, each of us had its fun. None of us was used to collect fire wood for every day, build up our tents every day, bake our own bread and so on.

All in all the trip took 16 days and we´ve been for 11 days on the river. The daily routine stayed throughout the same. We got up around 8:00 to be latest about 9:30 in our canoes to make the distance for the day. At the slowly flowing Big Salmon River the daily distance we made was between 30 and 40 kilometers like the river runs. At the faster Yukon River up to 60 kilometer per day, because we had to make all in all about 360 kilometers in 11 days. After about 1,5 to 2 hours, we made a short break and then we went further again. After 3,5 to 4 hours we reached the camp for that day. While Georg Fernsebner made our dinner, the others were building up the camp, collecting and chipping the firewood, etc.

(Kopie 4)

[Translate to english:]

After that we baked bread, walked a little bit in the woods or just relaxed.

In the evenings, Georg indulged us with his art of cooking and showed us that you can enjoy the life in the woods, if you know how. Georg knew how and surprised us from day to day with fisch in a lot of varieties, mousse au chocolat, chili con carne, etc. After dinner, we were sitting at the campfire for a beer or a glass of wine. A special highlight was the sauna, Georg built. First we were thinking he was making a joke, but as he started to dig a hole, put Christians tent above it and sealed it with our lifewests, we knew that he wasn´t joking. After Georg built the sauna, we put boulders in the campfire and brewed a sauna infusion. While five of us sat in the sauna, the others brought the hot boulders and threw them in the hole in the ground. After that we shut the tent and startet with the infusion.

At the last day we were enjoying Whitehorse and do some shopping. All in all it was a pleasant trip, which should be done again.