Wind River Yukon Canoe Trip July 2015

Wind River Yukon
July 19th to 29th 2015-10-28

There is lots of information available on line...videos and blogs..pertaining to the Wind River. My hope is that this information will be helpful for potential paddlers.
We spent 12 days on the Wind. We flew into McCustry Lake and got picked up at Taco Bar on the Peel River.


But first the river... Like I said, a whole lot has been written. Your trip will be dependent on water levels. Some of the material I read ahead of time indicated larger sets of white water at specific location and warned of troubling water through the Peel River Canyon. The 3 biggest sets we hit...at Deception Mountain, where the Wind dumps into the Peel and prior to the Peel Canyon were not been identified and any material I had read. The Peel River Canyon, while a bit of a challenge, was basically a float. I think the water levels were comparably lower than most of the blogs I had read. The Peel River canyon was at least 10 feet lower than when I went through in June of ’82 after paddling the Bonnet Plume.

We rented our canoes and some gear from Up North Adventures in Whitehorse. We rented 2 ABS boats...one 16 footer and one 17 footer. The canoes need to be nested together so the seats and thwarts on the 17 had to be removed and the 16 foot canoes stuffed inside to ride on the pontoons of the plane. We also rented a couple of barrels for food and some cooking equipment.

We flew in with Black Sheep Aviation out of Mayo. They have a number of planes available but a group of 4 people with gear for a couple of weeks would likely need to use the Cessna Caravan. The Otter is also an option. We originally booked the Beaver but it would have been too small for us four and 2 canoes. Actually, the size would have been fine but the weight restriction is 1200 lbs. The two canoes are “nested” on one pontoon. Transport Canada regulations state that the measurable weight of the canoes needs to be doubled when carried on a pontoon...so 2 canoes at 70 lbs each actually represent 280 lbs. Therefore it was impossible to include 4 people and all our gear into the 920 lbs remaining. The Caravan has a 2300 lb payload so that plane was appropriate. Total cost for canoe rentals, some gear and flight into and back from the Wind was around $7000.00. You can save some money by paddling all the way to Fort MacPherson but you will need someone to meet you there for the long drive back.

Because we had our own vehicle, we drove to Black Sheep and camped at that site the night before we flew in....Up North Adventures does have a shuttle if required. We flew into McClusty at seven the next morning.

From McClusty Lake, there is a short 300 m portage to an unnamed creek. There is an old trappers cabin at McClusty Lake and good hiking opportunities if you wanted to delay a day before you paddle.

This creek connects to the Wind about 3 km downstream. We chose to line this creek...a wise choice. It is narrow and fast and as it gets closer to the Wind, full of sweepers. It may be tempting to shoot it but the risk is high...and you have full canoes and it’s the first day. Better to be safe than sorry. We know of two other groups who were on the River around the same time and both ran into trouble trying to shoot this stuff. We picked up a paddle and other debris from other groups in this section. Be prepared...as the water is freezing!

The river is fast...averaging around 12 km an hour most of the way. The river is also very channeled. This creates some challenges dealing with side channels pushing into the main river...very bouncy. The upper sections are narrow, fast with lots of sweepers. The river widens north of Bond Creek but there still are numerous side channels.  Camping spots are plentiful...lots of gravel bars at river entrance. We camped at a side channel the first day on the river, we stayed at Bond Creek for a couple of days as well as Deception Mountain. Like I said, the river is fast.

There is little time for putting your feet up and relaxing. Constant attention is required to keep in the main channel or find the channel with the most water. There were many times when the main channel would split into 4 or 5 smaller channels...the trick was to find the side channel with the most water.



The water is clear, clean and a beautiful blue. It is also cold so proper neoprene footwear is a must. There is nothing worse than sitting in a canoe with cold wet feet all day. Further downstream, the water picks up some silt. We drank from the river the whole way without issue.

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 This is what happens when you take the shallow channel.

 Some books talk about leaving the mountains past Royal Mtn. I paddled the Bonnet Plume in ’82 so when you leave the mountains there..they are gone. Downstream from Royal Mtn, the topography is still very interesting with lots of small mountains. We stayed at Deception for a day and enjoy hiking up for views up and downstream.

You will see red cliffs as you approach the Peel. The water was much lower on the Peel than expected...if fact it was quite a drop at the confluences of the rivers.

Just before the Wind dumps into the Peel...beautiful cliffs.

Great rock formations in the canyon

I paddled the Bonnet Plume in '82. It meets the Peel just above the canyon so I have done this part before but at much much higher water levels.

High water in June '82

Lower water in July 15

Little dot of red canoe below cliffs

 We paddles out of the lower canyon and had a nice campsite on the south shore.

Our campsite on the Peel below the canyon.

As indicated before, the Peel River was much lower so the canyon was more of a float than anything else. There were two long stretches of white water as we headed into the canyon but the water beyond that was calmer. It still is pretty cool. I went through this section during very high water in June of ’82 and we swamped. There still is a powerful back eddie so you need to be careful. This is a good campsite in the canyon itself.

Pick up at Taco Bar

From there to Taco Bar, the river is fast and wide with high banked cliffs on either side. There are still some tricky swells but his is on water level dependent. Once past the mouth of the Snake River, keep a lookout for the pick up spot...there is a sign posted. Good camping at this site while you breakdown your canoes, drink the last of your Scotch and wait for your pick up.

Really a trip of a life time...what would I do differently? Neoprene boots for sure...maybe hip waders for the first section. We had lots of food, took lots of pictures and had two days to hike and hang around camp. For the most part, it was windy all the time....it was also cloudy for the better part of the days. We didn’t do any alpine hiking as most of the high stuff was in the clouds. We saw foxes, grizzly, moose but no caribou...they must be in the high country this time of year.

It is not a float river. It is fast and exciting and you need to pay attention all day. Consequently, it was early to bed every night. Would I do it again...in a heartbeat.