Carrie’s Ramblings

National Arts Centre Orchestra0
Carrie posted in Recreation on October 30th, 2008

Currently, the NAC orchestra is on a tour of western Canada. The entire orchestra. All 109 members. And since the Yukon is in the west, they came up here to do a concert. They actually have their own plane because they have to fly all their instruments around the country!

So the conductors of the All City Concert Band, with whom I’m playing the trombone, organised some instrument workshops with various musicians from the orchestra. Yesterday we had an hour long brass workshop with the bass trombone player from the orchestra who instructed us on all kinds of techniques and practicing and things we should consider. We didn’t get to do much playing (but that’s to be expected in such a workshop) but it was really interesting to get some tips from a professional musician.

But it was also a media circus!! There were reporters there from all kinds of newspapers (not just local…I heard someone was interviewed for the Globe and Mail) and television and radio! There were cameras all over the place, snapping pictures, wrestling for a good position, and even, I couldn’t believe it, interrupting the workshop to ask if we were going to play something soon because they needed to get a clip of it! The workshop leader was kind of taken aback but reluctantly agreed to whip something out for the cameras. Just before it began I was running around trying to get ready and got stopped by a radio person asking to do an interview. Caught off guard, I came up with some lame answers to her lame questions (”What do you hope to learn today?” Uhh well if I knew that, I would be learning it today…) and then did my best to ignore the cameras in our faces and the people moving in and out of the room all the time.

But the reporter did have one interesting question “Moving to a small town like Whitehorse, did you ever expect to have such an opportunity to work with professional musicians?” Of course I answered “Oh no this is just so wonderful!” right on cue, but had I had my wits about me a bit more I would have given it some thought and pointed out that while I never would have expected to play with the orchestra, I certainly wasn’t surprised. Because it seems that living in a community such as Whitehorse, these amazingly intimate opportunities do arise every once in a while, and when they do, you have a greater chance to participate. I don’t think I would EVER have had the chance to play with the NAC orchestra if I lived in Toronto or even Ottawa! Because coming up here was so special, they agreed to speak with the high school music teachers and run some one-hour clinics. There are plenty of professional musicians in Toronto though so no need to go out of their way there. In Whitehorse, it feels almost like the poor children of Africa who get to meet all these movie stars coming through on charity. “I may live in a grass hut but I’ve sat on Angelina’s lap!” That feeling was only augmented by the all the media there taking pictures of the beautifully sophisticated NAC orchestra taking the time to work with the poor people who have to live in the North, way up here with all the polar bears and igloos. How nice of them…

Okay that makes me sound super bitter but I’m definitely not! I’m super grateful that they would take some time out their strictly regimented unionised schedule to do that. After all, they did come all this way…But the point is I disagree with the radio host: when big stuff happens in Whitehorse, it happens to you. It just doesn’t often happen in Whitehorse. I’ll reinforce this with the example of the White Stripes who did a concert last summer. I didn’t get tickets because it was in the Arts Centre which is pretty small and there just weren’t enough. Well Meg and Jack White heard that most people couldn’t get tickets so they decided to do a little jam session in LePage Park for anyone who was around. We only had about an hour’s notice and you had to hear about it through word of mouth, but word got around and there I stood along with 200 of my closest friends half expecting the whole thing to be a big prank, when Meg and Jack White hopped out of a minivan and walked up on the stage with a guitar and tambourine and played a few songs for us! Can’t say that would ever have happened in Toronto, or that I would have even cared. So cool things happen to little people in Whitehorse.

Today, though, I chaperoned the students as they attended a special morning concert put on by the orchestra all about Beethoven. They sold out of tickets for the full concert last night but I was fortunate to have the right connections and get a “chaperone” job at the student concert. It was super well organised and thought out. They had a dude dressed up as Beethoven who comes walking down the aisle during the first piece and gets up on stage and tells the students a bit about himself. He has this funny banter with the conductor about what to play next and they do some clips of some of his pieces and he’ll interrupt them pointing out certain things to remember etc etc so actually we learned a lot more about the music than what’s just in the programme notes. Then the conductor introduces him to the modern hearing aid so that he can hear the music and he’s so happy etc etc. It was really well written and extremely well delivered by this actor and the conductor. The kids also had a chance to play along with the orchestra on recorders which they brought from school. The music was projected up on to a screen above the stage and the kids in the audience hammered through Ode To Joy along with the orchestra and the rest of us got to sing along. So it was a really great experience for the kids and as the conductor said, “Now you can tell people that you’ve played with the National Arts Centre Orchestra.” Certainly couldn’t tell people that if I had been in Toronto.

Bouldering wall0
Carrie posted in Recreation on October 29th, 2008

The boys were always threatening to do it and I think there frustrations with the City of Whitehorse not letting them set up indoor climbing programmes this winter finally pushed them into action.  They all got together and went to Home Hardware and purchased the lumber (and since no one owns a truck they had to get it delivered) and carted it through the kitchen and downstairs where Ryan had cleaned out a corner and they built a bouldering wall.  Where to start? Well the company, Metolius, from whom Ryan had ordered the climbing holds actually sends an instruction manual for building your own bouldering cave in your basement.  It’s quite a good explanation actually.  So for 3 days straight the boys (and Brianne who wanted to expand her construction knowledge) played down there happier than pigs in mud!  Linner and I made moose stew and bannock and played cards with Tim and Denise and helped out when we were needed to hold plywood to the ceiling while it got screwed on.

The amount of beer that was consumed in the construction phase of this thing makes me slightly doubt its structural integrity and this thought is only supported by the gap between the 2 by 4 and the ceiling “because cutting on an angle is hard”.  I love these boys but the computer geek, electrician, climbing instructor, and health services worker certainly didn’t excel in high school physics.  I think their motto was measure twice, cut many times until you can hammer it in.  They tried their darndest but there are some funny pieces.  Nevertheless, the wall is up and looking fantastic.  We’ve already set some fun routes and eventually it’d be cool to have it go across the ceiling of the basement and up the stairs.  Ryan was less enthused about that idea because the climbing wall is at least removable and won’t seriously affect any resale value of the house.  Drilling into the concrete foundation however, a little more permanent.

I have some pictures of the building process to include but they’re on Ryan’s camera and I can’t figure out how to get them off, but I’ll post them as soon as I do.  Until then, happy winter climbing!

Hunting for the rare and elusive Job0
Carrie posted in Rants on October 21st, 2008

Job hunting has become annoying at best. Frustrating and annoying. Frustration because of complicating systems that are incredibly difficult to break into, and annoying because of the number of people who say to me “How can you be unemployed in this city?” To the latter comment I reply, “Because I don’t want to be a check-out girl, a coffee barista, or sales person at Shopper’s Drugmart.” As Ryan put it, there’s lots of work just not a lot of jobs.
The other problem is that many of the job postings right now are for senior level positions. Managers, supervisors, directors etc, all of whom want applicants to have at least X number of years of experience in that field. Without many junior level positions, internships, assistant-whatever position it’s hard to break into a field with just an education and no field experience. And so I’ve resorted to applying for administrative assistant positions and student works possibilities just to get a foot in the door. Then I’m faced with a similar problem as the managerial positions, “You have a Master’s degree and you’re applying to be a secretary?”
It’s like I’m stuck in the no man’s land of eligibility. Over-qualified for helper positions and yet with inadequate experience to step into management jobs. They sure don’t cover this stage in those stupid high school “Careers” courses.
The final and most unpenetrable blockage on my road to successful career building is the bizarre systems set up by the governments to provide equitable employment opportunities yet still be able to narrow down the field. For example, I had an interview with YTG last week in which I had one hour to prepare a written response on the computer to an essay questions regarding “What I would do if…” then 15 minutes to read over 7 standard questions that they ask all candidates. I figured they would use the questions as a base and then spread out from there asking me a bit more about my experience and qualifications etc. Nope. Two women came in and read the questions word-for-word then put their heads down and copied out everything I said. They could have saved a lot of time if I had just continued to answer these questions when I was at the computer writing my essay. They didn’t look at me, ask further questions, or even nod disagreement or encouragement. It was like an oral exam!
The federal government is not much better though I haven’t even gotten as far as an interview. You have to fill out all these online forms regarding your background, education, transcripts, etc and then click match and the system tries to line you up with different available positions. I could tell that this worked really well when nursing jobs continued to come up as matching my qualifications. That was sarcasm in case you couldn’t pick it out against the whining tone of this entry. If and when you are matched to a job that is remotely related to your interests/qualifications then you still have to go through these online forms “Do you have experience working with data processing systems? If yes, describe using concrete examples.” Followed by the next question “Do you have experience working systems such as Excel? If yes, describe using concrete examples.” And there are half a dozen more questions just like that nearly asking the same thing, only not. If you have the patience and resolution to actually fill out these questions and make it to the next stage you have to register for these random intelligence tests at the nearest major city centre. I don’t know what’s after that because I’m so annoyed and tired of the whole process I’ve given up. To effort required to break into the government jobs is just one more reason that you don’t want to work for the government.
My job hunt has turned from a carefree wander, casually looking here and there for different possibilities and turning my nose up at retail and waitressing jobs, to a silent resolution and defeatist approach to whatever possibilities are remotely close to my interests.
I’m not saying I’m prepared to do anything at this point but this housewife thing is getting old. The question is, how desperate am I? Is it time to put my 3 university degrees to good use in a seriously awesome moccachino? Or do I exercise some more patience and wait for something golden. The only question then is, how long?

ACES river trip0
Carrie posted in Recreation on October 15th, 2008

It was interesting to get back on the river again. The same one I had loved, the same one I had cursed. I thought I would feel the need to push hard and get around the next bend but it seems that the lack of a running start, hype, and intense competition surrounding you decreases the stress of the paddle. In fact I found myself looking forward to the end of the paddling day as much as the students, though I never confessed this. The paddling wasn’t strenuous at all and I actually had to hold back to prevent my boat from going ahead of the rest, but I enjoyed getting out and stretching my legs, drying out the tent and sitting down in the setting sun with my mug of tea.

This trip down the Yukon was with the ACES class of the Wood Street School. Wood Street is host to variety of specialised programmes made available to high school students from around the Yukon. In grade 9 there is PASE (Plein Air Sciences Experientiales) which is an outdoor ed course offered in French. ACES (Adventure, Challenge, Environment, and Service) is done in either semester of grade 10 and ES (Experiential Science) is offered in grade 11. Also at the school is the MAD (Music, Art, and Drama) programme which is attended by students with much different interests. In fact, the dichotomy of the students at the school is quite interesting. As we returned from 8-days on the river all smelly and dirty and not looking too pretty, the MAD students had to share the same sidewalk with us in their skinny jeans, short skirts and leggings, make-up laden faces, carefully styled hair, and, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen myself, pink high-heeled shoes. I even heard one MAD student comment, “Why would anybody want to paddle to Carmacks? I’d much rather be dancing” as he squeezed by being careful not to touch our grimy clothes. I can’t really blame him though; I didn’t want to touch our clothes either.

The ACES trip took us from Whitehorse to Carmacks, a journey of around 350 km over 8 days in the last week of September. It’s really unfortunate that we didn’t go a week earlier because the poplar trees would have been in colour and hills would have been covered in glowing gold. At the same time, I’m thankful that the trip was moved up from the first week of October (its original date) since there is a blizzard warning for the Dempster Highway this week and this morning’s freezing rain was less than pleasant. As it was we were fortunate to have some beautiful Indian summer weather until about Day 6 when it turned foul and I was thankful to be near the end of the trip.

The lake was brilliantly calm and sunny once again (I think I might be a good luck charm) except for one morning when we had a small headwind that died down by noon and left the lake calm. The calm sunny days though, meant the clear nights were quite cold and in the mornings our tents were covered in heavy frost. Still, we couldn’t have asked for better weather as we crossed the 50 km long lake and visited historical areas such as barge wrecks, First Nations villages, and telegraph stations. These buildings were in remarkable shape given the harsh conditions of Yukon weather and it was fascinating to travel with an instructor who knew so much about the river. I think the other TAs and I were more fascinated by the lessons than the students. But they took notes diligently and had a number of questions to fill out and answer in their daily journals. Along the 30 Mile River (this particular section of the Yukon River) there were even more abandoned bits of history including old wood camps used to stock the stern wheelers who travelled the river at the turn of the century, telegraph cabins, trapper cabins, barge and sternwheeler wrecks, and shipyards. Hootalinqua was one of my favourite spots because you’d pull up on this beach and walk through some brush only to come out into a clearing with a giant boat in the forest! It was like an episode of Lost or something! There were historical plaques all along the river and it was just so neat to be paddling through seemingly endless wilderness and then come across a wagon wheel, a wooden wheelbarrow, or an interpretation sign. It was also amazing to think that Hayley and I paddled past all this stuff and had no idea it was even there…

We were also fortunate to see some wildlife. We caught glimpses of 2 otters on the lake and a flock of at least 3-dozen Trumpter swans. The trip started off with an immense Golden eagle circling the launch area right in downtown Whitehorse. We lost count of the Bald eagles by about 2 hours into the trip, and some of the students even saw the tail end of a moose. Unfortunately we heard two loud bangs soon thereafter and a couple of hours later saw pieces of a moose being hauled up river in a powerboat, but, we all have to eat! The most amazing wildlife sighting was 2 days straight of flocks of hundreds of Sandhill cranes flying overhead on their migration southward. All through the howling wind and wet snowy day and night we could hear these enormous flocks go past. We must have seen more than 4,000 birds pass over in those 2 days. I couldn’t help but remark how the birds were flying south and we seemed to be the only idiots going north into this crappy weather!

There were so many opportunities for learning on this trip that there is no doubt in my mind about the value of such a programme. The lessons learned by the students on this trip will stick with them for some time. It has been shown year after year that when they administer the BC provincial science exams the ACES student all score far above the average grades. They carry a library of identification and information books in a giant Pelican case and are constantly bombarded with lessons in plant and wildlife biology, history, geography, climatology, geology, and obviously, geomorphology. There were no free answers on the trip and we helped the students use a variety of resources to solve their questions. It was such a great experience for a class of 15-year-olds and I can’t think of a better way to learn all these lessons.

On Sunday, however, the weather turned foul. We woke to cloudy skies that were trying to clear in the south but a strong north headwind picked up and later blew wet snow and rain in our faces all afternoon. It was just determined to be miserable. We found a great site at Twin Creeks and set up group tarps to help dry out some hats and mittens and watch the huge snowflakes fall on our tents as we gulped down pasta and hot drinks. Monday was better only because it wasn’t raining but there was still a cold north wind and I was thankful to get close to the fire that night. As we snuggled down in our tents that night I heard a strange noise and said “That sounds like snow.” Sure enough, the next morning had us shaking off about 4 cm of snow from our tents and scooping it out of our boats. No matter, we stuffed all of our gear away and sprinted off to Carmacks to meet our bus and warm ride home.

We pushed the season to its end and managed to sneak in a nice trip after a short, wet, and disappointing summer. The kids enjoyed it and I can’t believe they paid me to do a trip like that!

Pictures

Yukon River Quest0
Carrie posted in Recreation, Fan favourites on October 10th, 2008

The Race to the Midnight Sun

Pictures of the River Quest
Yesterday I lifted a big heavy aluminum paddle and pulled it back to move the big fiberglass camp canoe through the water. In fact, I think the boat was made out of concrete it was so heavy. Probably not, I’m just spoiled by all the super-light racing gear we used. It was hard to believe that it’s been one week since Hayley and I got off the river. There was a time when I thought that river would never get to Dawson, and if it did, I would take up mountain biking, hiking, tap dancing, anything that didn’t involved moving my arms. But at camp this weekend, I picked up the paddle and dug in without hesitation. Time heals all wounds… maybe even my rotator cuff.
I became interested in the Yukon River Quest when I volunteered for the race last summer. I was looking to become involved in community activities and this event was happening so I helped out in Whitehorse with the boat checks and registration, I drove a racer’s car to Carmacks with his gear and then helped haul boats and organise people, then blew the siren in Dawson when racers crossed the finish line. I think it was the siren that did me in. Hearing that loud blast must have come as such as relief for those paddlers and I thought, “I’m going to do this race next year…with Hayley. She doesn’t know it yet but it’ll be awesome, she’ll see.”
So when Hayley said, “I’m coming to Whitehorse this summer!” I said, “Great! I’ll get the forms for the race in!” I don’t recall actually discussing it. It just sort of happened. I think our friends and family had bets going on whether we’d both cross the finish line: one us was sure to strangle the other somewhere between kilometre 1 and 746. By the end of the first of the month of training they were starting to wonder whether both of us would even cross the start line. I don’t know if it was my resistance to swallowing a cup of whey protein or the screaming match on the dock at 9 am before we set off for a practice paddle around Bigwin Island, but there were definitely some moments of tension. That seemed to dissolve once we were both in Whitehorse. As we set off for a practice paddle down the river we realised that this was it, we were actually here, doing this. Huge.
The race started with an agonising wait on Main Street. The mayor had to speak and then the MP did a speech where they said essentially the same thing. Then they introduced all 89 teams, where they were from, and who they were sponsored by. Half an hour! Seriously? Seriously. We’re wearing our lifejackets and spray skirts, sunscreen and paddling gloves. We’ve moved our boats to the beach, we’ve stretched, given pep talks, and mapped out our route down to the river. We’re wound tight and ready to go! And yet they keep talking! 2 minutes left. A silence falls on the crowd that has gathered on Main Street to watch 240 paddlers race 500 metres down the Trans-Canada Trail to the river.
I didn’t even hear the gun, I just started running. We were right behind the Texan Voyageur team (with one guy who actually looked liked a Voyageur, like, let’s do the time warp again). In the chaos I lost Hayley though at one point saw this purple streak fly by me on the tracks as she found an opening in the crowd. Spectators lined the trail and were clapping and cheering and shouting encouragement. I heard a crash beside me and saw Louise, an aerospace engineer from LA paddling in women’s K2 class, go flying head-over-heals as she crashed into a pillar of some sort that had been concealed by the runners in front of her until the last minute. I cringed but she got up and kept running. The crowd thinned as we got on the gravel bar and people spread out to get in their boats. Hayley and I grabbed our boat parked at the very end of the line (Team 98 was the last team accepted into the race) and headed out. People cheered from the bank and groups of our friends had taken their lunch hour to gather there and shout encouragement.
At first it was like a regatta only longer. Boats were everywhere of all shapes and sizes and we spent more time maneuvering around them than moving forward. I never even saw the Texans or Kisseynew hit the water. They were around the bend before I even made it to the beach and I never saw them again. They were finished the race before Hayley and I made it to the last rest stop. I can’t imagine paddling at such a pace. The pace Hayley and I chose was 30 minutes of sprint then 1 hour of easy pace, repeat, then 10 minute break. It was designed to mirror the pace we found during our practice run, when we realised we were going to miss our pick up and would be stranded in the middle of nowhere. Must go faster. So that pattern lasted about 2 cycles. By the time we hit Lake Lebarge 4 hours later we’d ditched the pattern and had settled into a comfortable rhythm of around 60 stokes/minute, switching sides when needed to go around a bend in the river, and peeing in a bucket. The peeing part was tricky as we were still very close to other paddlers. It had to be timed carefully.
The dreaded lake was smooth and calm. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky. It was hot!! That’s right, I said it: HOT in the Yukon. We paused only briefly to administer sunscreen to the necessary areas but that didn’t prevent my left side from crisping up. I burned my left ear so badly it was blistering. It was definitely odd to be putting on sunscreen at 11:30 at night! But with our flatwater experience and Hayley’s kick-ass pace we flew across the lake… in 7 and a half hours. We just picked the furthest point we could see and paddled to it, knowing that when we got there we would pick the furthest point we could see and paddle to it again, and again, and again. It actually wasn’t nearly as bad as we had anticipated. We stopped twice to do our business but quickly put the lake behind us and as the sun set around midnight we hit the third checkpoint and started down the river.
It was with great relief that we found a good many boats parked at the checkpoint for a break. We were closer together than we thought. We sat in the current and pulled out some dinner, changed from our quick-dry shorts and sunhats to fleece pants, wool socks, neoprene gloves, and toques. As the sun set the temperature fell to the single digits and it was chilly in the eerie darkness of the river. With our headlamps lit, the current picked up pace and we found ourselves neck and neck with the Ladybums, our primary competition for 3rd place. The 1st and 2nd place women’s C2 teams were long gone, so it was really a race between our 2 boats for 3rd. Hayley and I were definitely the stronger paddlers so with shear grit and determination we kept up and then took the lead over the Ladybums. But their experience and knowledge reading the river won out and it wasn’t long before we fell behind. Well, I feel asleep and then we fell behind, but no amount of chocolate covered espresso beans could keep my eyes open! Plus, I’m pretty sure the Ladybums were mutants: they never peed! Seriously, they never hesitated or slowed down; did they not eat or pee? I felt like we were peeing every 10 kilometres but they just kept trucking. Freaks.
When the sun rose around 3:30 am it brought welcomed warmth to the river. The night had been creepy and everyone was trying to get ahead in the darkness but having trouble staying awake after paddling for 15 hours straight. Hayley and I never hallucinated exactly but we did get confused by some inanimate objects. For example, we both saw a tandem kayak ahead of us and decided to follow their short cut across the bend in the river instead of riding the current around the outside. As our boat ground across the stony bottom we both realised that the kayak was in fact a log with branches sticking out and it was stuck on the same shoal we were about to get hung up on. The only comfort we received from this error was that the Ladybums followed us and got more stuck that we did. It was a small defeat from which they soon recovered. I also had an issue with some seagulls. They were all lined up in perfect intervals along the riverbank silently watching our progress, as though they were guarding something or preparing an ambush. The course veered slightly to the left and Hayley says, “What’s going on back there? Where are we going?” To which I respond, “We have to get away from those seagulls because they’re really freaking me out!!”
Our greatest weakness was not conflict or miscommunication, paddling technique, or equipment but rather our lack of big river experience. We have plenty of experience around whitewater and flatwater but the big river current tricked us and we were fighting it more than using it. It seemed like we were constantly paddling against the current or finding the one place where it slowed, eddied back, or turned the wrong way. It always looked as though it was faster where we weren’t and we wasted a lot of time and energy moving across the river to find the faster water. Our problems were reinforced by the hairpin turns and headwind that blew us back upstream. By the time we’d reached the Little Salmon river and the fourth checkpoint we had been paddling for more than 24 hours and were more than a little frustrated.
Unfortunately I had gotten into my head that the Carmacks layover and mandatory 7-hour stop was only an hour or so down river. We rejoiced when the checkpoint volunteers told us we were not the last boat through and in fact sat in 70th place, but then our hearts sank when they told us Carmacks was another 40 miles away. I almost cried. It was so hot, and I was so tired, all I could think about was stopping. I wanted to scratch, I couldn’t take it, I was ready to let us just drift forever down to Carmacks, anything put paddle another stroke. It was actually Hayley that kept us going then. She just sighed and said, “Well, I guess we’d better keep paddling.” She took the map because I couldn’t bear to look at all the river we had left and picked our course and dug in for the long haul. Sluggishly I follow her rhythm and I’m pretty sure I passed in and out of consciousness as we struggled around one bend then another to make it to Carmacks.
We arrived at Carmacks just before 5 pm and Ryan (our support crew) directed us towards a tent he had set up with Thermarests inside. We took a 3 minute shower and then collapsed into our hot tent with the sounds of other teams coming and going all around us. It was so awesome having a support person there who was able to clean out the garbage from our boat, restock our food, hang clothes to dry, and get everything ready for us to set out again. When he woke us up 6 hours later we just had to hop into our boat and paddle away. Without a support person we would have had to spend precious sleep-time getting cleaned up and ready to go. There are many teams who travel from all over the world to participate in this race and they often can’t afford to have a support person there for them.
We hit Five Finger Rapids at 2:30 am in about the darkest part of the night. No matter: Hayley and I are pro-stars and we cruised through without picking up a drop of water. After the rapids we started gaining on some of the solo boats. The lack of opportunity to rest while your partner paddles meant that they needed to take more breaks where they weren’t moving. There was a group of about 7 of us who kept leapfrogging over each other: 2 solo kayaks, 2 men’s C2 boats, a tandem kayak, and a Voyageur boat. (We couldn’t figure out how we stayed so close to the Voyageur boat with 10 of them paddling but we think it must be because they were a mixed-gender boat and therefore stopped a lot to let people go pee… or they just stopped a lot… I don’t know.)
Having Hayley hold on to the map really forced strong communication in our boat. Instead of the stern paddler having the map and always deciding where to go, the bow paddler had to tell the stern paddler where to go and therefore forced that discussion between the pair. I found looking at the map too discouraging so Hayley kept our distance a secret except for the ever-important page turn that implied advancement in our progress. This system worked well for us until Hayley fell asleep just before Hell’s Gate and I lost track of the teams I was following through the confusing system of river islands and shoals. When she woke up she couldn’t figure out where we were on the map and we lost an hour paddling out of our way and towards the Pelly River. When we discovered we were actually at the Fort Selkirk checkpoint it was the best day of our lives since we were suddenly 2 pages ahead of where we thought we were! Such a treat!
The weather was unbelievably cooperative until just before Kirkman Creek when a HUGE thunderstorm snuck up on us from behind and clobbered us. Crazy winds, thunder, lightening, and a whole lot of rain! I haven’t paddled in rain like that in a long time. And those spray decks for canoes are such a joke! The water simply pools in low spots then runs down your skirt, through the Velcro and into the boat. Since the storm caught us off guard we had a bunch of stuff lazily sitting out that we should have taken the time to put away. We arrived at Kirkman Creek soaking wet and very cold. The longest 10 miles of my life. AND it turns out that miles are a lot longer than kilometers. Stupid miles. We found that the storm had caught people sleeping outside during their mandatory 3-hour break with their boats totally exposed. Now the layover checkpoint looked more like a refugee camp than a race station. People were wrapped in emergency blankets and bivvy sacks, eating soup with shaking hands, and wringing water out of their clothes. We hung up some clothes, wolfed down some soup and collapsed into one of the shelters that had been set up. Apparently, someone came and woke up Hayley and she acknowledged this, but we didn’t get up and she has no recollection of this happening. The volunteer then took 3 minutes waking me up who then shook Hayley awake as well. I gave her instructions on what to pack up and she looked at me like I had a turnip for a head and then proceeded to lie back down again. More forcefully I kicked her and said, “No, for real, we’re going!” and so she very slowly got out of her sleeping bag and packed up. We set out for Dawson knowing that we had another 12 hours of paddling ahead of us, but that was nothing compared to the 20-hour and the 28-hour stretches we had already paddled.
Hayley was really a trooper through all this. While my muscles were sore, she had a particularly bad pinch in her back that had steadily gotten worse along the river. Plus, by the time we had reached Carmacks, she had diaper rash so bad I thought it was Poison Ivy. After devouring a burger at Carmacks she slept great for a few hours and then proceeded to puke it all back up again before we left. The diaper rash improved slightly from Carmacks to Dawson but in Kirkman Creek Hayley’s lease on the soup and sandwich was up and that meal went into the outhouse as well. With an aching back and hardly any food in her she kept paddling strong and never doubted that we would make it. While my muscles were sore, my biggest issues were staying awake (I didn’t know it was possible to fall asleep in mid-paddling stroke) and satisfying my thirst. I was always thirsty and therefore always peeing but I had to force myself to eat to help me stay awake. I usually only took 3 minute naps leaning back on the stern deck until this one time when Hayley let me sleep for half an hour! I couldn’t believe I hadn’t fallen out of the boat! Last year someone had to scratch when he fell asleep in his boat and fell out!
The sun seemed to take forever to rise on Saturday morning. In fact, I’m pretty sure it came up and then shifted over a bit to be behind the ONE cloud in the sky. We were wet and so cold we could see our breath and a heavy fog settled on the river. I never needed to see that sun so much and it was the longest, most drawn out sunrise of my life. When it finally showed its face, the sun brought very little warmth and I didn’t take off my toque before reaching Dawson. My feet were so cold and I finally caved and took the time to change my socks and pants into the last dry pair we had. Now we had to make it to Dawson fast.
It was hard to grasp the idea the end was near and that we would actually get to stop paddling soon. We could see the Moosehide Slide above Dawson City from way down the river and the Top of the World highway taunted us as we maneuvered around the last few bends. We were definitely slacking by this point so we picked a pattern of 30 minutes of hard paddling followed by a break to keep us going. We even managed to pass another paddler and would have finished in front of him but for a navigational error in judgment on our part at the last minute. We gambled on a short cut and lost, but you win some and you lose some. Though we did seem to lose a lot more than win… When the Klondike River met the muddy Yukon we looked down through the clear Klondike water to bottom of the river. People cheered on the bank and the siren wailed as we crossed the finish line. At 11:34 am on Saturday we landed in Dawson barely able to walk, with sore backs, raw bums, and bloodied fingers. Actually the blood on my hands was so dramatic that the volunteers called the race doctor over, but it was only a series of small cuts on my fingers from…well, I don’t really know how they got there. Again, our support person had a hotel room ready for us with dry changes of clothes. We walked away from our boat, showered painfully, and collapsed into bed. We didn’t know our time and didn’t care about our placement, just that we had finished and that some of our newfound paddling friends were okay as well.
When we were out on the river we had a lot of time to talk about things, anything that came to mind. We talked about jobs, dreams, boys, politics, weather, family, news, and children’s cartoons. We solved the problems of the world: the solutions seem rather obvious when you’re on the river. Our own problems became much more simple as well. Hayley was quoted in the Whitehorse Star newspaper saying “When you’re on the river, everything is so real.” We cursed the water and praised the weather, and cursed at each other and thanked each other all in the same breath. We muttered words of encouragement and screamed complaints. We played I Spy, recited entire Broadway musicals, sang Down by the Riverside in 4-part harmony with only 2 people, and spent hours paddling in silence with the company of our own thoughts. We listened to our iPods until the batteries died, had conversations with the paddlers around us, and kept our eyes on the river ahead looking for one more boat to pass, consistently checking behind us for the sneak attack (“I can’t shake ‘em!”). There were times when we thought we were leagues behind everyone else only to come around a bend and see half a dozen boats ahead of us! It was a rollercoaster of emotions going from joy and laughter to tears and despair and back again within the same hour.
It was funny because on the last leg of the race Hayley and I found ourselves saying things like, “Next year we could do this instead…” or “Wow that should totally be our team name next year!” Then we’d catch ourselves and say “NEXT TIME!??!?” We agreed that the race was a life changing experience and incredibly powerful, and we were really glad to be doing it. Once. But we couldn’t understand who would do this again! There were some people receiving their 10-year participant pins! Our bodies were in agony and while our thoughts wandered around they always came back to the idea of finishing. Being done. Not having to paddle again. But as time passes since crossing the finish line I catch myself looking at the river and thinking, “Next year…” We learned so much from doing this race that we could totally improve our time in another year. We know how to better read the river, we would pack differently, bring different food, we would have more practice peeing, a better stroke pattern, and would train differently. I’m still having dreams about being on the river and getting a second shot at the race. The further I get from the race, the more I consider the possibility of doing it again.
But we learned more than how to read the river and paddle really fast during the Quest. We discovered just how far we could push our bodies and how well our minds could handle it. We communicated without using 4-letter words and learned about where our strengths and weakness lay. Hayley, who despairs at the slightest setback in everyday life, never seemed daunted by the number of kilometres we had left to paddle. We’d calculate how much further until X place and she would sigh and say, “Well, I guess we’d better keep paddling then.” Whereas I would shake my head and just sit there, practically in tears, conjuring up ways to get off the river sooner. I think the idea of scratching was particularly depressing because I knew that we never would. I had all these ideas on how to get out of the race but knew that we would never use them. No matter what, we were going to finish this. We had to prove to ourselves we could do it and we wanted to show all of our doubters the same. I don’t know if it was actually so, or if it was simply a projection of our own insecurities about being in this huge event, but during registration, practice, and start up it felt as though an unusual amount of people were doing a double-take when we said we were paddling. One racer even came up to us at gear inspection and said, “Oh it’s the 2 girls; so, did your equipment pass?” As though we showed up to the race with a Coleman boat and solar shower! It also felt like a suspiciously high number of media came to talk to the team with purple hair. The 2 sisters. As though there was no way that two girls in the same family could both be capable of paddling a canoe. But we showed them. We showed us. We laughed until we cried and cried until we laughed but no matter what mistakes we made, what ground we covered, or how tired we were, we always came back the only solution that was possible at that time: just keep paddling. Some teams sprinted, then rested. Others took breaks or caffeine pills. They would pass us and we would catch up, they passed us again, and would catch them around the bend. We just kept paddling.
In the end we accomplished everything we set out to do and more. We finished the race. We didn’t come last. We didn’t come last in our category either; we came in fourth, one spot away from the podium. We wanted to finish the race in 60 hours; we finished in 61 hours and 4 minutes, which is good enough for jazz. (And, as hypothesized, the siren did come as a relief after being on the river for 4 days straight). We landed in Dawson 1 hour earlier than we had planned after leaving Kirkman Creek taking only 11 and a half hours to finish the last leg of the race. Also, we wanted to move up at least one place in the standings on the second half of the race between Carmacks and Dawson. Instead we moved up 13 places, finishing 57th out of 89 teams. And after all that, we didn’t kill each other, so we consider the race a success!
To anyone who’s thinking about doing the River Quest I say, “Go for it!” But more importantly, to anyone who’s thinking about doing something different, adventurous, or difficult, I say, “Go for it!” It’s true that some people were in this race to win it. The guy who thought our equipment might be questionable does 30 races a year. But some people win marathons and other people cross the finish line. We just wanted to do something amazing. One person said to me before the race “Oh your in C2? My girlfriend’s gonna kick your butt!” I looked at him questionably and thought: There are a lot of different ways to win this race, the least of which involves crossing the finish line. Hayley and I accomplished everything we set out to do, and more. We decided we wanted to do something and we did it. It was amazing, it was torture, it was inspirational, and it was unbelievable and none of it had anything to do with who crossed the finish line before us, or after us. So if you’re sitting there wishing you could do something as cool as the Yukon River Quest stop wishing and start doing. If you want something, you can do it, you just need to go and do it. Everyone has the same number of hours in a day and the only difference is how we spend it.

Just around the river bend!
Carrie & Hayley (Like a Fox)

P.S. Though we say it wouldn’t have mattered if we had come in dead last, there was a certain satisfaction in crossing the line before these 2, somewhat sexist guys, who were more than a little ticked off they were beat by 2 girls:) Don’t worry, we only smirked in private.