Support The Tyee. You Could Win This Wilderness Rafting Adventure

The Tyee is inviting Builders — monthly contributors to our publication — a chance to travel into the heart of northern Canada’s wilderness and see the kind of wild places that independent journalism helps protect.

Every current monthly Builder, and any that sign up before Dec. 31, will be invited to enter to win two seats on a 10-day, all-inclusive rafting journey with Canadian River Expeditions & Nahanni River Adventures that will wind its way through the Yukon, northern British Columbia and the Alaska panhandle.

To sign up as a monthly Tyee Builder and help us hit our goal of 500 new monthly supporters by Dec. 31, click here. You’ll receive an email to a contest form once you complete the signup process.

(And if you’re an existing Tyee Builder and you haven’t received an entry form by email yet, give us a shout at [email protected] and we’ll hook you up.)

Mornings will start with fresh coffee as you emerge from your tent on the Tatshenshini River and consider whether to spend the day hiking through wildflowers, rafting or revelling in the beauty of the surrounding wilderness.

Joel Hibbard, who runs the company, donated the $14,000 trip to show his support for The Tyee’s independent journalism.

The Tatshenshini-Alsek region was threatened by plans for an open-pit copper mine in the 1990s, Hibbard noted. Conservationists and journalists who reported on the issue helped ensure the area instead became a provincial park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, he said.

“That was in the ’90s at the height of the power of the newspaper — we’re in a very different situation now where media is shrinking,” Hibbard said. “I look at the legacy media companies now and it’s pretty gross... it’s basically just a platform for industry at this point.” 

Hibbard knows The Tyee is different. He’s been a reader for 15 years.

Donating the trip is a way to support The Tyee’s independent voice, encourage others to contribute and thank existing Builders, he said.

And to offer someone this once-in-a-lifetime wilderness experience.

“This is a chance for us to share the river with someone who sees value in it for its intrinsic worth and doesn’t need to see it exploited for industrial resources,” Hibbard said. If you win, what can you expect?

No camping or rafting experience is required, just a passport and warm clothes, said Hibbard. Adventurers will need to be able to walk over uneven ground for 200 metres or so.

The raft trip begins in the dry interior plateau of the Yukon and winds through valleys largely unchanged over the last 1,000 years. The journey ends at the largest non-polar ice cap in the world, Hibbard said. Rafters will witness massive fields of ice, sapphire towers, and gorges that show the paths ice sheets carved as they flowed to the Pacific Ocean 10,000 years ago. 

David Hibbard, Joel’s father, started guiding on the Nahanni River in 1989. Joel and his two younger siblings, Dana and Luke, grew up washing gear and mending equipment in the family business.

“Being fortunate enough to grow up and see these wild places, you start to take them for granted and don’t think elsewhere in the world would have anything different from the wilderness landscapes like we have here in Canada,” Hibbard said.

Travelling through tamed European wilderness and plundered Asian rainforests made him realize what a global treasure the Nahanni and Tatshenshini rivers really were, he said.

Hibbard recently took over the family business and runs Canadian River Expeditions & Nahanni River Adventures with his sister, Dana. 

The company also works to educate adventurers on Indigenous history, which can be challenging because they do not want to speak over Indigenous voices. “Many of the stories are not ours to tell,” Hibbard said.

To give a platform to voices from Indigenous communities, Hibbard said the company hires and works with as many Indigenous guides as they can. They also partner with Parks Canada in the Yukon in a program called “rafting with researchers” where Indigenous interpreters join the expedition on the Firth River and share their relationship with the land.

Even as a lifetime adventurer, the river’s beauty and awe-inspiring wildlife still leave him speechless.

Last year on an expedition Hibbard saw a giant golden grizzly chase a grey wolf away from a moose carcass.

“It was a full National Geographic moment. You could hardly believe what you were witnessing,” he laughed. 

The Tatshenshini River hosts five salmon species and supports the densest population of grizzly bears in the world, as well as golden eagles, bald eagles, moose and songbirds, he said. 

Expeditions run from June to August. In June, adventurers will experience the midnight sun and an abundance of wildflowers, while late summer expeditions are more likely to see the aurora borealis and grizzly bears, Hibbard said.

Flights or travel to Whitehorse, where the adventure will begin and end, is not included in the prize, and adventurers will also need to secure their own pre and post-expedition accommodation.

The Tyee’s drive to bring on 500 more monthly supporters ends at midnight on Dec. 31. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Some restrictions apply to the contest. Full contest rules available here.

Happy holidays, readers! Our comment threads will be closed until Jan. 2 to give our moderators a break. See you in 2020!