Sea Kayaking the Inside Passage, Portage the Chilkoot Trail, Paddle the Yukon River

The Saga

Of The

- Sea Tub -

A 100-Day Journey to the North

Through the Inside Passage,
over the Chilkoot Trail by portage,
and down the Yukon River to the Bering Sea

Copyright © 1988 - 2024 Ray Jardine

Map

Map (Open with google Earth or CalTopo)

Preparations

Synopsis

Back in the early seventies when I was making sea-kayaking tips to Baja, I rarely saw anyone. The overwhelming majority of beaches were deserted, and the fishing was nothing short of spectacular. This "golden era" appealed to me greatly; I prefer my wilderness raw, with much to discover and few distractions. Of course, Baja's golden era is long gone, and this is what led me to turn my sea-kayaking attention elsewhere. I knew that pristine wilderness was still to be found in the Arctic, and that seemed like the ultimate in wilderness travel.

The problem was, Jenny and I lacked the skills necessary for safe Arctic kayaking. And, too, we wanted to "earn" our right to be in the Arctic. So for this first trip we decided to kayak, not in the Arctic but from the "lower 48" to the Arctic.

Our route for the summer would be 3,300 miles in length, and would consist of four segments:

Part-1: British Columbia.

We planed to start at Anacortes, Washington, and ply the Inside Passage along the coasts of British Columbia, to Prince Rupert, Canada.

Part-2: Southeastern Alaska.

Continuing along the Inside Passage, we would paddle the coasts of Southeastern Alaska to the town of Skagway Alaska.

Part-3: the Chilkoot Trail.

With the Pacific Ocean behind us, we planed to portage the boat over the mountains via the Chilkoot Trail, made famous during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. This portage would put us into the headwaters of the Yukon River.

Part-4: the Yukon River.

And finally we hoped to float the Yukon River some 2,000 miles to the Bering Sea.

We figured this trip would be a great way to gain experience and hone our abilities. We expected to see a wide range of flora and fauna, and no doubt some of the finest scenery imaginable.

Trip Preparations

After hiking the PCT in 1987, and sailing around the world in the three years previously, Jenny and I moved to Longmont, Colorado and rented a small apartment for the winter. And there we began preparations for this next journey. first on the list was buying a foldable kayak. Then we began to modify it - to better suit our needs.

Modifying the boat for sailing as well as paddling. Note the rudder peddles are laying forward because the rudder lines are not attached.

"Machine shop" in our kitchen.

Making sailing hardware.

Speaking of machine shops, we flew to the UK to visit Mark Vallence, my good friend and erstwhile business associate at the Wild Country factory.

Returning to our apartment in Longmont CO, we got back to work making things for our summer's trip.

During our mulit-month preparation stage, we trained for the trip with a four mile run, three times a week - rain or shine, or snow.

We also trained for padding with our Baja kayaks on a local lake - three times a week.

This was winter and sometimes the days were extra cold.

Sometimes the lake was skimmed over with ice.

And sometimes the weather was nice. Flat Irons in the background.

Making the kayak's deck.

Working on the deck.

The deck is finished, and we're making a set of leeboards.

After sewing the panels together, we are trimming the luff, leech and foot. None of them are straight lines. They are curves and we're drawing them with a thin piece of lath. The panels are curved also, and we used the same lath to draw their edges. The curves depend on the type of boat, its usage, and the materials used. Note the stand legs, and see next photo.

Jenny plays piano, I play keyboards and guitar.

Cutting out reinforcement parts for the headsail.

We designed these sails ourselves.

The sail doesn't lay flat on the floor because it's slightly cup shaped.

Installing luff grommets. The hammer is a Forrest Mountaineering wall-climbing hammer, which I designed.

Testing the shape of the home-made headsail. The sail is cup-shaped, to provide more power. It's like an airfoil of an airplane wing. While making the sail, we shape the cup by curving the edges of the panels.

for the final month before departure, we paddled and sailed the folding kayak, again three times a week. Note in this photo I'm not paddling, but using my paddle to hold out the headsail.

The boat is ready for the summer's trip. Sill in Colorado, we are giving it one last shakedown. Note: We abandoned the leeboards before the trip, because they didn't seem to help the sailing.

Note in retrospect: The boat was a folbot super 17. It was a good boat, but we made some mistakes, and kept compounding those mistakes. We ordered the version that came with extruded gunwales, so the foredeck could be opened for easier loading and unloading. Those gunwales leaked, and in the coming years we tried many options but never solved the problem. If, instead, we had ordered the standard super, with tubing gunwales, this story would not have been named the Sea Tub, because the boat would not have leaked so badly.