|
November 30, 2003
Finding Wilderness
A dozen people take a perilous journey in Canada's vast Yukon territory, searching for the value of wild land
by Frank Clifford
Los Angeles Times
There were 12 of us on the trip, including four who had no previous experience in whitewater. Three of them were on the raft that capsized. We were a mixture of Yukoners, Canadians from Toronto, Ottawa and Newfoundland and two Americans. There were three artists and a filmmaker; an administrator of an environmental foundation; a lumberjack turned special education teacher; an outfitter's wife; a community organizer from Old Crow, an aboriginal settlement near the Alaskan border; and Liz, a Yukoner now living in Inuvik, a native community in the Northwest Territories. We had two guides, Jill Pangman and Kate Moylan.
The trip was organized by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society as part of a campaign to win protection for the Snake River and its environs-one of the largest and most vibrant examples of Canada's shrinking wild places. Better known as the Peel River Basin, it is a land of ferruginous mountains and emerald tundra that is coveted for its mineral wealth as well as its natural beauty.
|