August 13, 2026

Saturday 13 August - day 46

We have decided to start our split up today so Chris and I will be alone in our canoe with all our stuff and Suzi, Lars, Tiuri and Liva will be in their canoe with all their stuff.

There isn’t that much difference in weight, actually Chris and I might still have the heavier canoe.

Paddled from 10.20 to 12.00 and 17,6 km where we had lunch on the gravel below a fishcamp, it was a very messy fishcamp. Not with animal leftovers but just stuff.

N 65-51.796 W 149-16.288

According to the guide book we are using we were not supposed to have any current at all through this stretch but it was running quite fast at 7-8 km/h

Start again at 12.38 and after a lot of stopping to find a camp spot we arrived at Yukon Crossing at 15.03 and 21,5 km

N 65-52.733 W 149-43.243

As we didn’t want to leave the canoes Chris and I stayed with them while L, S, T, L went to eat at the diner. I came along and got goodies for Chris and me.

When they had finished eating Christian and Corina had turned up and we took our canoes up stream to where they were.

While we went to dinner Lars and Suzi set up camp and Suzi divided all the food so Chris and I could continue later (thanks Suzi)

After a group photo and a lot of hugs Chris and I left at 21.20. We only paddled for 15 minutes and 2,1 km around to an island where we set up camp

Total ca. 3 hours 37 minutes and 39,1 km

(Total ca. 3 hours 52 minutes and 41,2 km)

N 65-52.555 W 149-45.817 camp 37 (CJ)

So, this is it. The big day, albeit the big day back in 2016. If you’ve been following the daily posts from the Yukon River, you’ll know we were building up to splitting up. As you will also know, any plans we might once have had about reaching Emmonak at the end of the Yukon River and paddling into the sea, had long since been shelved. But this was to be an emotional moment, and writing this post, exactly 10 years later, I can still feel it, a little twist in the stomach. Was it the right thing to do?

We had a test drive first, loading up our individual canoes and paddling together, but with Tiuri and Liva with their mom and dad. We wanted to see if it could be done, and if it was safe to do it. As Jane writes in her notes, we still had the heavier canoe.

We pulled into a fishing camp, and again, looking at Jane’s notes, I find it funny that she makes the distinction between ‘a mess’ and a mess with ‘animal leftovers’. I know she’s thinking of Greenland, and how fishing spots on the ice are usually littered with fish remains, much to the despair of a young and very green musher - that would be me - who struggled to keep his dogs away from the ‘mess’ when sledging. ;-)

Back on the water, paddling to Yukon Crossing, everything was working as we had hoped. Lars and Suzi had no problems handling their canoe with both kids, and Jane and I were relieved and more than a little excited about going it alone.

You might be wondering what the final trigger might have been. Why did we choose to split? I think ‘trigger’ might be the wrong word, especially as it has a ring of conflict about it.

There was no conflict, but it was clear we sometimes had a conflict of interests and priorities. Life had slowed down a bit after meeting the German family. It was good for the kids of both families to play together, even though Tiuri and Liva were a few years older. But I know that Jane and I felt a little apart. We don’t have kids. We didn’t have to think like a family, even though we had been doing just that for 46 days. We did not, on this day, know that Suzi and Lars would choose to travel with Christian and Corina. But it made sense for them to do so.

At this point in the journey, after so many days on the river, I think we were all quite confident that we could cope with whatever the Yukon might throw at us. We were wrong, of course, and Jane and I would be tested within hours of us splitting up, but it felt right to go our separate ways. There were no hard feelings. Our friendship had been tested. It had survived, but we were aware of certain cracks in the foundations; the strengths and the weaknesses.

Jane and I said then, and continue to say now, that paddling the Yukon River in 2016 was the first and the last time we would ever do a group trip again, and to this day, 10 years later, we haven’t. It’s not to say we regret paddling in a group, not at all. But we know what we like and how we like to do things. We are comfortable in the wilds, and even more comfortable when it is just the two of us. We want to enjoy the river the way we want to enjoy it. And then, the clincher, I’ve always measured ‘a good trip’ by the number of people one sees on the water. I’ll be brutally honest and say the fewer the better. And I think that need to be ‘alone in the wilderness’ has rubbed off on Jane, and we enjoy being alone together.

So, after some tearful goodbyes and heartfelt hugs and a slightly awkward cloud of something hanging over our parting, Jane and I pushed our canoe into the water, and moved on, planning to camp just beyond the bridge, less than a river mile or so from where everyone else was camping. The thinking was, if you’re going to split up, you may as well make the split straight away, and we did.

Of course, within a few hours of saying farewell, we were in trouble, perhaps the most significant trouble we had yet to encounter on the Yukon River.