The Alsek River meanders through the glacier-carved valley. Hundreds of kilometres away, the tributary finally reaches the Pacific.
Sharon Matthews-Stevens/for the Toronto StarStevens Special to the Star
HAINES JUNCTION, YUKON TERRITORY — Our guide slams the hatchback of the mud-splattered SUV. With his hiking boot he nudges the backpack lying on the gravel.
“First-aid kit. Emergency flares. Mace. In case of grizzlies.” He hoists the pack onto his back.
For a walk in the park this promises to be no walk in the park. We are about to hike the Alsek Trail.
The landscape is devoid of humanity other than our guide, my wife and I, the battered SUV, and an overgrown logging road.
The Alsek, a designated Canadian Heritage River, meanders from Canada’s tallest mountains northwest of us, slicing through a U-shaped glacial valley, roaring through canyons kilometres downstream until it empties into the Pacific somewhere on the Alaska coast.
No walk in the park, but this is no ordinary park.
Kluane National Park and Reserve boasts Canada’s biggest mountains and the world’s biggest concentration of non-polar ice fields. It is home to moose, caribou, mountain goats, wolves and black bears.
And grizzlies.
By outdoorsmen standards this three-hour hike is admittedly small potatoes. The full trail can take four days. And the park’s other trails take even longer. But I am no big outdoorsman.
So I’m grateful for our guide. Nicknamed “Pokie,” he used to be a park warden, he knows grizzlies inside out, and for eight years he’s guided tenderfoots into a land that’s splendour is equalled only by its unforgiving nature,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
