During stage 1 we will kayak 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. The Pacific Northwest is home to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial animals. We will be studying whales and other marine mammals, kelp forests, salmon, and many other species.
The Pacific Northwest is home to a variety of large land mammals including Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. Above and below the surface we are sure to find plenty of things to learn about. Many of these large mammals need large undeveloped spaces to thrive and the roadless sections of British Columbia and Alaska provide the perfect habitat.
From Skagway, Alaska we will hike over the Chilkoot Pass in the footsteps of thousands of gold seekers who struggled across the pass to reach the Klondike. Many of artifacts remain from those early days, and we will follow their path all the way to Dawson City along the mighty Yukon River.
From Bennet Lake on the eastern side of the Chilkoot Pass we will canoe through a chain of lakes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River past White Horse and down the swift flowing Yukon River to Dawson City. 
From Dawson we will hike 100 miles through the mountains to the headwaters of the Blackstone River. The Blackstone flows into the Peel River, which flows in the McKenzie River, which will lead us to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers flowing through these rugged mountains as some of the most pristine wild rivers in North America, with hundreds of miles of flowing waterways between towns or roads.
After over 2,600 miles of paddling and hiking we hope to reach the Arctic Ocean before freeze up. We will spend the month of October,2010 training our dogs, and learning about native life in the Arctic. In November we will head south along the McKenzie River by dog team, crossing 1,800 miles of frozen wilderness. There are many remote native communities along our way and we are sure to learn a lot from the people we encounter.
When the ice melts in the Spring of 2011 we will transition from dogsled to canoe and paddle 2,300 miles along the historic travel and trade route pioneered by Alexander McKenzie, Samuel Hearne, and other Canadian Explorers in the 1700's. We will finish this stage of our journey in the fall of 2011 by completing the 8 1/2 mile Grand Portage which will lead us to the rock shore of Lake Superior.
After spending the winter giving presentations and making final preparations we will begin 4,800 mile kayak journey from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Key West, Florida. The first 2,200 miles will take us through the Great Lakes and out the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 
During the final stage of our journey we will kayak the length of the Atlantic Coast from the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Key West, Florida. We will be following the seasonal whale migration from the Bay of Fundy in Maine to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way we will visit cities large and small, and study a variety of ecosystems and environmental topics. We also plan to take side trips into the cyprus swamps and Everglades National Park looking for Alligators, birds, and other critters.
Expedition Blog Listening to the River
Listening to the River
Wednesday, 17 November 2010 14:25
by Kevin Boltz
The other night we set up camp at an abandoned village at upper Laberge. We were greeted by some fellow canoeists as well as a gentleman named Ben Learmont. Mr. Learmont has traveled the Yukon River every year since 1966 and had many fascinating stories and tips for our journey ahead, but the one thing that he emphasized the most was to take time to listen to the river. This morning I took some time to do just that. I sat at the edge of the bank where we set camp and just listened. I heard the constant hum of the bugs, the water sloshing around rocks, and the birds singing a morning song. It was quite relaxing way to start the morning, but I believe the sights and sounds of the river would have been must different during the peak of the Klondike Gold Rush.
Prior to the completion of the Klondike Highway the Yukon River was used as the industrial highway used to transport cargo from Whitehorse to Dawson City. Steam powered stern-wheelers were the main mode of transportation on the river from the 1860's to the creation of the Klondike Highway. A stern-wheeler is a paddle boat in which the paddles are located on the stern, back end, of the ship. The first stern-wheeler, Yukon, was built in 1869 and was 47 feet long. The last stern-wheeler, Klondike #2, was built in 1952 and was 210 feet long. Hundreds of stern-wheelers and barges were built by many different shipping companies to accommodate the variety of needs for trappers, miners, and traders found along the river. 
Navigating their large boats on the 3 day journey from Whitehorse to Dawson City and then the 5 day journey back to Whitehorse was a very daunting and stressful task for each of the ship's captains. The captains had to maneuver through the river's sharp turns, and shallow river bottoms. The Yukon River proved to be too much for some captains and the evidence can be seen while canoeing the river. The remnants of the Casca #1 lay aground at upper Laberge, the S.S Evelyn is still deteriorating on Shipyard Island, and the hull of Klondike #1 protruding the shallow water at Klondike Bend.
The use of stern-wheelers has had a negative effect on various parts of the wilderness along the shores of the Yukon River. Rusted barrels have washed up along the shores of various points along the route. I do not know there exact reason for there existence, but I do know that a method of thawing the ice on Lake Laberge more quickly involved pouring crankcase oil was directly onto the ice. This allowed the smaller boats to navigate the lake earlier to get supplies to the northern region of the river.
There are also signs and place markers on our map that indicate a presence of a past wood yard. Stern-wheelers burned 2 to 3 cords of lumber an hour to create steam to power the tremendously large paddles. The wood camps would be contracted by the shipping companies to extract and pile thousands of cords of wood a year. This has definitely changed the balance of nature.
The creation of the Klondike Highway diminished the need of the stern-wheelers and the Yukon River. Today the river is mainly used by recreational canoeists, kayakers, and by the local First Nation communities.
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