2015-08-20 Canoeing the Yukon River - Whitehorse to Carmarcks 1442

Lake Laberge is a widening of the Yukon River north of

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is fifty kilometres long and ranges from two to five kilometres wide. Its water is always very cold, and its weather often harsh and suddenly variable.

Names

The local

Southern Tutchone The Southern Tutchone are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in the southern Yukon in Canada. The Southern Tutchone language, traditionally spoken by the Southern Tutchone people, is a variet ...

called it ''Tàa'an Män'',

Tagish The Tagish or Tagish Khwáan ( Tagish: ; tli, Taagish ḵwáan) are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group that lived around Tagish Lake and Marsh Lake, in Yukon of Canada. The Tagish intermarried heavily with ...

knew it as ''Kluk-tas-si'', and the

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

as ''Tahini-wud''. Its English name comes from 1870 commemorating Michel LaBerge (1836–1909) - born in Chateauguay, Quebec, the first French-Canadian to explore the Yukon in 1866. It was well known to prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s, as they would pass Lake Laberge on their way down the Yukon River to

Dawson City Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yuko ...

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

's ''Grit of Women'' (1900) and ''

The Call of the Wild ''The Call of the Wild'' is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named ...

'' (1903), and

Robert W. Service Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often called "the Bard of the Yukon". The middle name 'William' was in honour of a rich uncle. When that uncle neglected to provide for hi ...

's poem "

The Cremation of Sam McGee "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's (1874–1958) poems. It was published in 1907 in ''Songs of a Sourdough''. (A "sourdough", in this sense, is a resident of the Yukon.) It concerns the cremation of a ...

" (1907) mention the lake (although Service altered the spelling from Laberge to "Lebarge" to rhyme with "marge").

History and archaeology

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after-winter steamers carrying goods on Lake Laberge early on in the shipping season regarded the lake as trouble, since it was one of the last such passages to thaw its ice. At least two methods were employed to break the ice up: ;Method 1: Release a surge of water from the upstream control

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

, below

Marsh Lake Marsh Lake (Mud Lake) is a widening of the Yukon River southeast of Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. It is over 30 kilometres long and ranges from three to four kilometres wide. The co-ordinates of the lake are , and is 2,147 feet above sea level. The ...

, to suddenly raise the lake water beneath the ice, cracking the ice as its surface rises. ;Method 2: Smear an abundant quantity of expended crankcase oil along the lake's icy length, causing it to melt by increasing the sun's warming effect. In spring 2009, researchers found the '' A. J. Goddard'', a Gold Rush

sternwheeler A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were w ...

that sunk in 1901, killing three of its crew. Underwater archaeologists are examining the ship. National Geographic has named it the top archeological find of 2009. The Yukon government has designated the shipwreck a historic site. A phonograph with three records was discovered, giving insight into songs being listened to during the Gold Rush.

Toxaphene contamination

A sign posted in 1999 at Lake Laberge's camping area issued strong cautions against eating the livers of

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish. It is also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, and eelpout. The species is closel ...

, and counseled against the consumption of

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...

more than twice a month per individual. Both warnings are due to

toxaphene Toxaphene was an insecticide used primarily for cotton in the southern United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Toxaphene is a mixture of over 670 different chemicals and is produced by reacting chlorine gas with camphene. It can be mo ...

contamination, resulting from global pesticide use and overfishing in Lake Laberge which resulted in changes to its typical food chain.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Geography of Yukon Klondike Gold Rush Laberge Yukon River