Late September Lawrie and I, along with our friends Chris and Sarah, went canoeing on the McQueston River in the Mayo area of Yukon. Ostensibly we were moose hunting, but come home with a moose we did not. I thought I would get that out of the way straight off! Lawrie has been on this river hunting moose many times, a favourite place, you could say. I’ve been on the trip twice, but not recently. We thought it would be nice to do it one last time prior to leaving Yukon.

The weather didn’t look like it was going to cooperate much so Chris arranged a very nice start to the trip by reserving cabins at the Moose Creek Lodge that was supposed to be closed for the season, but wasn’t really quite yet. We arrived there at 10 pm after the four hour drive from Whitehorse on Thursday evening. It was raining and not especially warm. Nice to know we could get up in the morning after a comfortable sleep and have a hot breakfast cooked by the proprietor. Our tents would still be dry too!

After breakfast, Chris and Lawrie took the take out vehicle to McQueston bridge about 15 minutes further north, then returned to pick up Sarah and I, the gear and the Os. Then we were off to Mayo to pick up Loralee who had kindly consented to do our shuttle for us. We arrived at the put-in about 2 in the afternoon. There had been rain on the gravel road so both canoes had a serious coat of mud. After cleaning them up we loaded in the gear and started down the river. The early part of the river is a bit narrow with lots of tight corners. Chris and Sarah were a bit nervous, but did a grand job of maneuvering and succeeded in avoiding taking a swim.

So for the best part of a week we paddled, set up and took down camp, fought cold extremities, called moose, took photos, kept the Os quiet while more moose calling went on, saw a pack of wolves, a lynx,northern lights, two cow moose and one calf, and called moose, cooked and ate a pretty substantial amount of food, and called some more moose. Here are a few of those photos!