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A land-based wellness canoe journey along the Yukon River
“Even though the largest rocks may stand in its way, water will always find a way to get through it.”
The Yukon River: Medicine, Teacher, Pathway
Paddle journeys have been happening for thousands of years on Turtle Island and around the world. These journeys serve as a pivotal part of a young person’s need to travel, connect, explore, and self-discover. The river is many things: a medicine, a teacher, a pathway edging the land, a reflection of where a person is at in their life, and a wise friend. Guided by the Indian Residential School Survivor Society, facilitated by Fireside Adventures, this healing journey puts youth into the canoe and guides them along the Yukon’s most powerful river, allowing them to form and strengthen relations with Northern First Nations communities, the land, one another, and themselves.
This experience is led by Indigenous and non-Indigenous guides, counsellors, and youth workers. Our intention is to use the canoe journey to provide youth with the time and space needed for healing and self-care, while using trauma-informed and land-based lenses. Canoe journeys have been proven as an effective and impactful intervention and prevention strategy among youth. Their healing capability stems from providing opportunities for reflection, personal growth, healing, relationship building, skill building, and adventure. In many ways, the canoe journey can be understood as an essential part of a youth’s rite of passage. It is a time to be challenged, pushed to strive for their potential, and explore themselves as they learn to be more self-propelled in their communities and personal journeys.
Healing and support through collaboration and community
Fireside is grateful to be collaborating on this summer's "pilot" Healing Canoe Journeys with the IRSSS. Under the guidance of Jeff Willis, Fireside Adventures has made it a priority to engage with and learn from Indigenous communities and organizations and provide spaces for Indigenous youth that are culturally sensitive and informed by the First People’s Principles of learning, such as our former Sparrow Leaders (upload the Sparrow video) programs and involvement with Windspeaker. The Healing Canoe Journeys are the next step in our commitment to supporting all youth in their healing process, while offering outdoor experiential, strength-based learning to become future leaders.
“My mind empties, my heart opens, my spirit soars.”
Itinerary and Trip Details
Packing List
Dates: May to August. Contact us now to book! Ages: 13–17 (Co-ed)
Locations: Whitehorse, Yukon River, Huchá Hudän/Fort Selkirk, Carmacks
10 days: $2,899.00 CAD + GST
14 days: $3,399.00 CAD + GST
Deposit: $200.00 CAD + GST
PROMO CODE available!
For select Duke of Edinburgh’s Award participants
Click here to contact us and learn more
Includes: Return flight from Vancouver to Whitehorse, pre-course check-in, online registration, 24-7 instruction, land transportation, accommodations (tenting), meals, group camping gear (canoes, tents, cooking gear), leadership certificates
More info: office@firesideadventures.ca
Strength-Based learning through First People’s Principles
The canoe journey provides a moment for youth to breathe, reflect, and strengthen their relationships with their culture, land, relationships, and selves. It also brings the opportunity to learn and use invaluable leadership and wilderness skills. These skills are proven to give youth the confidence, ability, and drive to build lifelong connections with nature and help contribute meaningfully to their communities back home. Guided by the First People’s Principle of Learning, these are some of the skills that the youth will learn and practice as they move along the Yukon River:
Land: Learn about animals, plants and traditional uses, and identify the peoples who call this land home. Grow closer to the land by strengthening your outdoor wilderness skills – like wilderness camping, canoe manoeuvres, risk management, and wildlife safety – and by practicing environmental sustainability through practices like ‘leave-no-trace’.
Culture: Embrace the First People’s Principles of Learning. Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focus on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships and sense of place). Develop positive personal identity alongside family, cultural and traditional knowledge. Then, define what Indigenous and environmental leadership means to you and hold yourself accountable.
Relationships: Develop better relationships with the living and non-living world by understanding, respecting, and acting upon Indigenous ways of knowing. Nurture social-emotional skills and social bonds within the group, and learn to extend these skills to family, friends, and beyond.
Wellness: Develop a positive personal identity and leadership skills, as well as strategies to live a healthy, balanced, and sustainable lifestyle. Over the course of this journey, clarify your personal values, strengthen your decision-making skills, and learn how to set and achieve short-term and long-term goals. Nurture your sense of self through creative expression.
Employment and education: Spending time in nature brings challenges but also opportunities for peace, reflection, and connection. Using social-emotional learning, become more self-propelled and strengthen your decision-making and goal-setting abilities through mentorship in post-secondary school options, career planning, and employment opportunities. Additionally, youth will be awarded high-school credits for their participation.
“Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us; Let us journey to a lonely land I know. There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us, And the Wild is calling, calling...let us go”
