august 11. 606m, N 65˚21, W 138˚16.

left camp late due to aforementioned night excitement, and just generally reveled in the beauty of these parts. at the arctic circle we met a pair of brothers in their late 60’s from kingston, ontario. they were on a road-trip of the dempster and alaska highways together. fun! both one of the brothers and i still used film cameras and it came out that i had gone the whole trip without a battery to read my light meter. well, just so happened he had extra batteries, and they matched my camera! i only needed one and he graciously offered it to me. [to clarify, only one of my camera’s is film, i did also bring digital ones. three of them. ahem. i have a bit of an addiction.]

when we arrived at our camp for the night – engineer creek – we met another fellow, named david. he was probably in his mid-fifties (just a guess), and had been coming to the yukon for 13 years to paddle rivers. i can’t actually remember where he’s from, but i think ontario. he loves it up here. he’s paddled the wind, dease, teslin, big salmon, yukon and upper liard, and gave us some good tips and ideas.

gratitude: the kindness of strangers; a picnic table and fire and good food tonight!; stopping along the way; clear water, water in general; accessible mountains that you can see because there’s no vegetation taller than a bush!; tundra.

header and photo 3 by emma.