For the second year in a row, Yukon Wide Adventures finished first overall at the Yukon River Quest.
The six-person canoe team made up of paddlers from three Canadian provinces (Yukon, British Columbia and Northwest Territories) completed the 444-mile race down the Yukon River in 44 hours, 21 minutes, 53 seconds. They pulled in to Dawson City at 5:21 p.m. (6:21 p.m. Yukon Standard Time) on Friday night. Another six-person canoe team, Paddlesports Mongrels, of the United Kingdom, was close behind Yukon Wide Adventures with a time of 44:44:31.
The race began Wednesday afternoon in Whitehorse. It went uninterrupted save for two required rest stops, one for three hours and the other for seven hours. By 9 a.m. Saturday, approximately 30 of the 77 teams were still on the water. Only 13 finished on Friday night.
This was the 20th Yukon River Quest, the world’s longest annual paddling race which attracted teams from fifteen different countries.
