1996, The Fourth Descent of Turnback Canyon
Paddlers: Bob Daffe, Theresa Landman, Pat Doyle, Dallas Eng and Graham Baird
“In my head I was thinking this is it Theresa, you have to roll!”
It’s said that if you swim in Turnback you won’t survive...
When I came to the Yukon in 1989 I began paddling, first canoeing and then kayaking shortly after.
I had seen a photo of a kayaker going over a waterfall and thought “I want to do that!!!
I was surrounded by a whole culture of paddling and began doing harder stuff sooner than I thought I would, before I even knew how to roll. I did lots of day trips and just as many expedition trips.
I've now been doing this for 30+ years and still Love it!!
The Alsek River is a large volume river that flows through southwestern Yukon to the Pacific Ocean and passes some of the most magnificent scenery in the world.
Turnback Canyon, is located near the midway point, it has a real mystique about it and a reputation as a wild and dangerous place that not many paddlers would dare venture into.
The Alsek is fed by numerous glaciers and year round has a bitterly frigid temperature that even on the hottest of days can give you hypothermia within minutes if you are not properly prepared.
Turnback Canyon is an extremely remote hard to access canyon section on the Alsek that consists of class IV-V rapids for 6 km. Depending on the water level there may be the occasional break between rapids or none at all. At high water it simply becomes impassible.
After the first rapid, you have to choose to get out or commit, it is your last chance to change your mind.
There have been few successful attempts at paddling the canyon. Dr. Walt Blackadar was the first, paddling solo in 1971.
After surviving his run he warned other paddlers looking to challenge it
“Don’t even think of attempting this River”
Since then there have been only three successful runs through the canyon by kayak groups and one trip by raft. One known unsuccessful run ended after the first rapid with a single death, resulting in the group abandoning further attempt at the canyon.
To our knowledge we were the fourth kayak group to run it.
I heard of a possible Turnback Canyon trip and was called by Bob shortly after. He said a group of people were doing the Alsek River and heli- portaging Turnback canyon. This meant an empty helicopter for us back to Haines Junction and a relatively cheap trip.
I wondered if I was good enough I had only been kayaking for 6 years, and tackling class V for 4 of those years.
Bob said, “Well sometimes you’re good and sometimes not; you’re not consistent ”.
I assumed I wasn’t going after hearing that, swimming was not an option in Turnback Canyon.
Then I heard from others that I was going, so I phoned Bob back. I wanted to be sure I didn’t have to run the canyon if I felt the river was too high.
He assured me that he might not even run it.
I was almost hoping I wouldn’t get the time off work as I had the jitters. I reasoned that I didn’t have to paddle the canyon to stay with the group, the helicopter was nearby and offered a safe out- so I went for it.
at 32, I would be the first female to paddle turnback
Pat Doyle, Graham Baird and Dallas Eng had gone a couple of days ahead of us to scout what they could of the canyon. Helicopter pilot Doug Makkonen told them they were crazy to run Turnback canyon.
When they ignored his warnings, he said, “Okay I’ll be bringing the body bags then!”
Bob and I paddled down the Alsek fast to catch up with the group that the helicopter would be portaging around the canyon. We ran into them at Lowell lake and helped pull their boats across the windy flat lake stretch. We spent that night with them and had delicious kosher stew. They made tea and asked, “Are you sure you want sugar?” I said yes and then they dumped a load of sugar into the teapot. It was the sweetest tea of my life.
That night it went down to -12 Celsius and one of the Israelis was laughing, holding up his frozen long johns in the air. They were told to bring extra clothes, as it was cold, so they brought extra t-shirts!
The cold temperatures meant that it was also highly unlikely the River would come up, since it is primarily dependent on glacial run-off.
The next morning Bob and I paddled ahead, running the only two class IV rapids before Turnback Bill and Sam rapids, currently known as Bill and Lava North. We finally arrived above Turnback, where the others in our kayak group were camping.
Graham told me that they scouted the first rapid the S bends and it didn’t look that bad.
Pat was freaking out because of all the feeder streams with water in them and thought the river would be too high. In addition, he was really scared of grizzly bears and was packing a homemade stone axe.
River Classifications
Class I: Moving water, with a few riffles and small waves, few to no obstructions
Class II: Easy rapids, with smaller waves, clear obvious channels, some maneuvering might be required
Class III: Rapids with high or irregular waves, narrow passages often requiring precise maneuvering
Class IV: Long, difficult rapids that have constricted passages, often require complex maneuvering in turbulent water. Scouting is often necessary as it may be hard to determine the route
Class V: Extremely difficult, long and violent rapids that often have congested routes. Should be scouted from shore, rescue conditions are difficult, and there is a significant hazard to life in the event of a mishap. Also upper limit of what is possible in a commercial raft
Class VI: The difficulties of Class V carried to the extreme. Nearly impossible and very dangerous, involving risks of life.
The next day we decided to also check out the the S bends. I tried a practice roll in the freezing cold water and came up to see everything in double. The mountain range in front of me was blurred and turned into two.
I felt a bit nauseous and thought I was getting sick but Bob said it was just nerves.
I had never felt like this before while paddling and actually felt better after knowing that.
Turnback Canyon consists of 3 big class V rapids with the rest being simply class IV.
The entry rapid is the first class V, The S-bends. When scouting it it looks to be a pushy, boilie rapid with large but not massive waves, it has extremely strong eddy fences and is overall a very chaotic looking rapid.
The next class V rapid is Dynaflow which consist of a large entry hole, and more large, pushy, boily, squirrelly water. However, this one can be portaged.
The last class V rapid is Hair, it too begins with a massive hole, one that is nearly as wide as the river, maybe 30+ ft wide. Thankfully there is a sneak line skirting it on the left. At the bottom of this rapid is a section known as the hourglass, it is here where the whole river is pushed into approximately a 15ft channel and then proceeds to head straight for an undercut wall. However, after this section the river goes completely calm for a bit before continuing as a unrelenting and enjoyable class IV river.
After scouting the S bends Bob took the lead going down the rapid and appeared to be a little wobbly going in.
We all followed, staying in the middle and everyone managed to run it well.
Next we scouted Dynaflow. Dallas decided to portage it but the rest of us ran it. When he saw we all made it through successfully and without issue, he went back up and ran it as well.
Somewhere in the next rapids I ended up doing an unintentional old-fashioned ender and Pat Doyle was laughing.
I had to pace myself and hang out in eddies a little longer than the guys so I could keep up enough energy for the challenging paddling.
We were all surprisingly feeling great and pretty confident, there had been no mishaps so far.
We were so relaxed that we even ate lunch after Dynaflow.
The next class V rapid, the hardest in the Canyon, was Hair Rapid. We were taking a break when the helicopter pilot Doug Makkonen came down, landed on a rock on the side of the river deciding to pick up Bob to scout it.
Bob came back wide eyed,
“There is some real Class V coming up.”
I was thinking, well I have done Class V before, so wasn’t overly concerned.
We followed Bob toward the rapid.
Pogie: An over-mitt for your paddle, to keep hands warm in frigid waters
I saw him paddling hard, wind milling down a drop, there was no time to stop and scout as we were already too far down.
We had entered Hair.
An intense section of confused whitewater, Giant holes appearing and disappearing in front of you, typical of a large volume river being squeezed through a narrow passage.
I thought “I can skirt this first massive hole”
It was just like BAM and I was flipped violently over.
It was extremely powerful; I was almost sucked right out of my boat.
I lost grip of my paddle as it was ripped from my hands in the turbulent underwater hydraulics but I managed to grab a piece of my pogie just in time.
I got my paddle back and rolled up in a mass of confusing water only to be immediately flipped again.
It was said if you swim in the canyon you probably won’t survive
I was thinking this is it Theresa, you have to roll!
I pushed my paddle to the surface; it felt like I was moving in cement. Thankfully, I managed to roll up just before the hourglass.
.I squirted through the 15ft slot and then the river was completely flat!
It was then that I saw Pat Doyle and Graham Baird swimming along a wall on river right.
As is the tendency when you look at something, that seems to be the direction you go and with current surprisingly fast I was driven towards the exact same wall. A wall that happened to be slightly undercut, not so undercut that your whole body disappeared into it but enough that your legs were pulled underneath the wall.
Bob was yelling at me to get away from there but I couldn’t hear him and soon it was too late.
I was shoved against the wall and flipped.
It was impossible to roll on either side.
The wall blocking me on one side and the strong current shoving against me on the other.
I was forced to pull my skirt and dump my gear so that I could swim like mad to shore. I managed to catch an eddie on river right just before the next class IV rapid.
At this point none of us knew what was coming down river but all you can think is that if I swim this rapid I will die.
Graham saw me swimming and realized he could get out of the river there too.
He lost his boat but managed to hold onto his paddle. While on the other hand, Pat Doyle lost his paddle but managed to keep his boat and even got out where we did. Graham decided to give his paddle to Pat so at least one of them could finish the canyon. He was upset by this because he initially went to rescue Pat and in turn ended up swimming, and was not able to finish the paddle.
I was actually thrilled to be out of the river. I had rolled 10 times and was on my game that day.
We ran the hardest rapids in Turnback and we were alive!
I was totally ok with finishing where I was.
Graham and I went up a draw and found a place where the helicopter could land to pick us up while Dallas and Pat continued down the canyon, mainly fun Class IV.
Bob was already paddling down on his own chasing gear.
At one point he heard a clunk as my paddle surfaced below his boat. He collapsed the breakdown paddle and continued down the canyon. He soon found Graham’s boat and my boat and hooked them on to his. When he came to a rapid he simply unclipped the boats and picked them up at the bottom. We couldn’t believe that he had rescued all our gear!
We all united at the end of the canyon and the Israelis were calling Bob the “Angel of the Yukon.”
Doug Makkonen showed us hotshot kayakers a wild helicopter ride through the canyon. He banked it super close to the canyon walls, then ran low over the rapids. Flew very close over Goatherd Mountain and then did a big drop down towards Bennett Lake, you felt like you were diving.
I had an exhilarating ride in the front seat but didn’t realize Bob was motion sick in the back. He happily got out of the helicopter when we landed and puked.
Running Turnback Canyon was such a thrill that I was on a natural high for 6 months. It would be a cold grey day in October and I was sooo excited and couldn’t really figure out why? Except that I knew, it was all about surviving Turnback Canyon.
By Theresa Landman