Six days on the tundra learning to make tourism better.
words & photography :: Feet Banks
I’m not sure what the secret to life is, but if you stay open to new experiences and do your best to leave every place/person/situation better than you found it, you might be on the right track.
However, crouching over a hole in the dirt trying not to get crap on my shoes while a 15-knot subarctic wind howls up my undercarriage has me questioning the first part of that statement. And knowing I need to save all my used toilet paper in a paper bag/stuff sack combo so I can “pack it out” on my back for the next six days isn’t selling me on the second part either.
Welcome to the Yukon—and the backcountry ethos of Terre Boréale, Canada’s first B Corp–certified outdoor tour operator. “I look at the tourism industry the same as mining or anything else,” says Maxime Gouyou-Beauchamps, who founded the Whitehorse-based Terre Boréale with his partner, Miléna Georgeault, in 2013. “Let’s find a way to make the industry better,” Max adds, “for the land, for the community, for the planet in general. Nothing is ever perfect—we use helicopters, we drive a big van—but let’s find the best way to do it that we can.”
For Max and Miléna, this means locally sourcing, preparing and dehydrating all the meals on their guided hiking and canoe trips. It means putting their community first and hiring guides who live in the Yukon rather than flying people in.
It means sourcing local teas from local sources and buying gear from local shops rather than shopping online. It means they won’t camp in the same zone year after year, all backpacking trips are zero-plastic (food is carried in specially made reusable canvas bags) and, as mentioned, it means guests like me need to carefully fold our used toilet paper, stuff it in provided brown paper bags and carry it around in a special “toilet kit” stuff sack for the duration of our six-day hike. (Turns out it’s not even a big deal—there’s no smell or anything.)
“Up here we’re on alpine tundra,” explains Max, a biologist specializing in biodiversity conservation. “The soil doesn’t have the same microbes to break down waste like what you get at lower elevations or the rainforest soil you are used to in BC. Up here, that paper would still be there for a long, long time. For us, it’s important to be responsible to the land and the animals that live here. We pay attention and adapt to the space, that’s it.”
That attention to detail—along with months of introspection, paperwork and mentorship—earned Terre Boréale their B Corp status in June of 2023, making them one of the first in the Canadian tourism industry to do so.
Born and raised in France, Max and Miléna ended up in Canada through their biology careers and quickly fell in love with the wilderness and emptiness of the north.
“I remember flying into Whitehorse the first time,” Miléna says. “It was late at night and really dark, and I remember staring out the window and it was just black everywhere. I didn’t see a single light until the very last minute, right before we landed. The vastness of the landscape here, the lack of human infrastructure—I loved it.”
Realizing professional biologists with master’s degrees spent more time indoors at a desk than out in the field, the idea for Terre Boréale grew organically from what the couple were already doing in their spare time—canoeing, hiking and exploring a vast, barely populated land. “We had so much fun showing friends and family around the Yukon,” Miléna says, “it made sense to just keep sharing that feeling. The feeling of freedom.”
To help sustain those freedom vibes, as well as protect the Yukon landscapes that inspired them in the first place, Terre Boréale limits group size on their adventures to six people maximum, with a guide for every three people. Which is how I found myself plunked down in the alpine tundra for six days of hiking on the eastern edge of the Yukon Coast Mountains with Max, guide-in-training Amélie Harbeck-Bastien and two farmers from the Southern French Alps, Fabien and Jerome, all staring down six days and 50-plus kilometres of hiking in totally wild, unfamiliar (to me) terrain. Yukon Ho!!!
***
The first realization to hit me is the lack of trees—no trees, no shrubs, no nothing—it’s just rocks, lichen, moss, low plants, flowers and the odd bunch of grass.
But the tundra is home to plenty of animals. Hiking on our first afternoon nets great views of multiple Dall sheep, their white fur popping in juxtaposition to the greens, browns and greys of the tundra vegetation or shale rocks. Then a small herd of northern caribou poke over a ridge and stop to stare inquisitively at us, perhaps the first humans the younger members of the herd have ever seen. “They grow a new set of antlers each summer,” Max explains in both English and French. “To think that a 400-pound animal can survive on a diet of lichens and grasses is astonishing, let alone be able to regrow those huge antlers.”
It’s wild that any mammal can eke an existence from these windswept, barren lands, but Max says we are also likely to see pika, arctic ground squirrels, wolves and grizzly bears over the next few days. Each hiker (and guide) is equipped with bear spray and instructed to always keep it on hand, even during those late-night missions to the latrine hole. Especially then.
“Most of the animals up here could care less if we come around or not,” Max explains. “Our goal is to keep it that way.” To accomplish this goal, Terre Boréale limits the number of groups they take on each hiking route in a year. There are no campfires on the hikes (which makes sense because there is no wood) and all food dishes are rinsed with tea then “drank clean” to reduce any food scraps in the wild. When hiking, we do follow established game trails in certain lower elevations, but overall the Yukon tundra seems more than hearty enough not to be bothered by a footprint here or there until the winter snows cover then erase them each spring.
Dinner that night is homemade lasagne Max and Miléna made themselves and dehydrated. All the food on Terre Boréale’s multi-day hiking adventures comes from their own kitchen, another step towards creating a healthier, more sustainable, personalized experience.
“All our ingredients are as local as possible,” Max says. “With our meals we know we used Yukon beef. What’s in those store-bought meals? Where did the ingredients come from? How much fuel was burned to get them to the Yukon from wherever they originated?”
Valid questions, made more so by the isolation of the region. The Yukon only has four highways, and two of them are dirt. Our camp is at least 50 kilometres from the nearest road. Hunkered down as night falls at 1,700 metres (5,577 feet) above sea level, I learn my first of many Yukon hiking tips: Two sets of gloves is smart, but bring down pants, too.
The Yukon only has four highways, and two of them are dirt.
I learn my second Yukon hiking lesson sometime late that night: In a landscape with no trees or wind blocks, position your tent with your feet pointing into the prevailing winds, or else some late-night broadside gusts may threaten to flatten your whole gig.
Somehow, my three-seasoner remains standing to see some morning sun and warm granola kick off another day. With camp one established (and my tent repositioned) we hit the trail carrying only daypack weight, which is great because the Yukon terrain seems a fair bit gnarlier than my usual BC Coast Mountain trails. There’s no bushwhacking (yet) but with so much open space, distances can be deceiving: “Just over that ridge” can turn into a 90-minute undulating slog. And you never know when you might end up in a two-kilometre valley of shale rock so hard and jagged it can easily cut through the rand of a hiking boot.
“The quality of your boots really matters up here,” Max explains. “On the harder trips we ask our guests to send photos of their gear—boots and sleeping bags—or at least the make and model names. We need to be sure because a lot of people don’t realize what it can be like up here.”
Wait a minute, there are harder trips? “Longer, mostly,” Max replies. “And with no basecamps—on the Donjek Glacier or the Ogilvie Mountains trips you’re carrying your full pack for eight or nine days.”
By evening, the group camaraderie is established—nature and suffering, the great equalizers. Jerome and Fabian share tales of farmer life in the Alps: How you only count mother sheep when talking about the size of your flock. What dogs you need for herding vs. protection from wolves. “With rain gear, we wear green slickers,” Jerome explains. “Farmers wear green, fishermen wear yellow. That’s how it is.”
A light rain blows in and out through the night and most of the next day, never downpouring like Coastal BC, just pockets of mist-like sheets riding the ridgelines on the omnipresent wind.
Trudging downhill under a fully loaded pack, en route to the lower-elevation Bernier camp, I spot my first shrub of the trip and yes, even an actual tree. Then Max spots a grizzly bear hunting ground squirrels on the other side of the valley. For an animal that weighs upwards of 315 kg (700 lbs) the pure speed of the bear astonishes me as it careens up, down and across a slope steep enough to make any hiker tread lightly.
“That’s my kind of bear sighting,” Amélie says quietly. “Way over there.” Everyone agrees and we take turns watching the massive bruin through binoculars until we discern it’s moving in the opposite direction from us before continuing to carefully pick our way down a steep slope leading into slightly thicker brush and a pair of lakes that mark camp two.
Today’s Yukon hiking tip: Don’t consider coming without hiking poles; you will fall and get hurt. Get the extendable ones (more on that later). Also, bring your own binoculars.
Related content from ML:
In a treeless landscape, we sit on the ground. For all Terre Boréale hikes, Max and his guides supply guests with lightweight foam seats that immediately become essential: Every meal is taken hunkered under a lean-to, constructed from two silk tarps and six to eight extendable hiking poles. (See? Told ya.) By day five, the lunch-break tarp assembly functions like clockwork. Fabian, Jerome and I have been out long enough to have re-synched ourselves with the wild and the team. Everyone knows their job and within minutes we have shelter, albeit one that stands only 130 centimetres (4 feet, 2 inches) at its highest point.
Crouched out of the wind in a sweeping valley of giant boulders, we reflect on the morning—a long-but-pleasant, sun-punctuated push up a stunning creek valley of mosses and wildflowers—and how it differed from yesterday’s mist-shrouded trek to a lookout on a nameless mountaintop (1,840 metres/6,037 feet) with almost straight-down views to Primrose Lake, our eventual pickup spot.
With experience as a geologist working in the Yukon mining industry, Max likes to poke his pole around in the sand wherever a creek flowing from one valley connects with another. “This is the Yukon,” he says. “You might find gold.”
Mining is still a major economic driver up here, and the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s still looms large in the province’s identity. (It also drives a crapload of tourism.)
Most of the land in this region—the traditional territory of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation—seems unsullied by industry and the extraction roads so common in the BC wilderness. The only sign of human existence we note the entire week is a flat stone with the remains of a small fire on it—probably, Max says, from sheep hunters that sometimes fly into this zone.
The only footprints we see are those of caribou, sheep, wolf and grizzly. And the only gold we find is when the sunshine of impending autumn washes across the red and gold leaves of the lower valley shrubs.
Max likes to poke his pole around in the sand wherever a creek flowing from one valley connects with another. “This is the Yukon,” he says. “You might find gold.”
After sixteen beautiful and challenging kilometres of hiking, bird identifying, flower noting (Max and Amélie take scientific field notes they later share with a provincial database), we stumble back to camp, eat chili con carne under the tarp and quickly retire to bed. Tomorrow is day six, which means full packs and a big elevation change to meet the float plane at Primrose Lake. Sleep comes easily.
***
The sound of rain hitting a tent fly is paradoxical. On the one hand, few sounds are as soothing as the pitter-patter of tiny drops of water/nature/life bouncing off the best stretched nylon shelter current technology has to offer (or at least the best you can afford) while you bask—cozy and comfortable—in a sleeping bag.
On the other hand, the sound of rain on your tent also means it’s raining, which is not ideal for anyone hoping to catch a glimpse of Aurora Borealis, the famed Northern Lights.
“We get them,” Max assures us, “but we get clouds, too.” (Max is prone to quite excellent statements of fact like this. When I expressed surprise at such cold temperatures for early September, he said, “It could be five degrees warmer this time of year, but it is not.”)
While the Aurora remained shrouded this trip, when I left my tent on night four to piss check the sky, I stared in awe at the Milky Way pouring out from behind a nearby peak as brightly as I’d ever seen it.
We awake on day six to find snow almost down to camp level and quickly disembark for the final push, over a creek, up a valley, across a snowy ridge then down across what Max says, “might be a bit of a no-fall-zone gully.”
It’s definitely steep, and the snow has found us by the time we reach it. To be as safe as possible, and because this is what guides do, Max and Amélie cut steps into the scree and dirt to make the 20-metre crossing easier for the rest of us. The rain lets up as we punch down another steep ridge and hit treeline, wet, tired, but with the end in sight—almost.
“Fabien! Jerome!” Max shouts, before diving into an extended monologue in French. When he’s done, he grins at me and translates:
“This is called bushwhacking. It will be hard. You will get very wet. There will be branches that hit your face. Your hiking poles will get caught up on every branch. There will be slippery boulders and rocks and roots that you cannot see. They will trip you. It will be hard. You will get frustrated and will probably swear out loud. That is okay. That’s bushwhacking. Okay, let’s go!”
It wasn’t that bad, for bushwhacking, but only because the band of soaking, flexing, lashing poplar and willow didn’t last long. And then we were on the deciduous-lined, sandy shores of Primrose Lake, reflecting on 60-plus kilometres and six days of true wilderness and adventure. I attempted to teach my companions the “Canadian tradition” of spelling their names in the sand with moose turds, but the French are not easily fooled. And neither is the Yukon. The Yukon will test you, but it will also give you gold. It’s a place to find out what you’re made of, or distance yourself from what you’re not. The Yukon is as unflinching and unforgiving as it is unendingly beautiful.
With the buzz of an approaching float plane drawing near, Max swats away some low-elevation mosquitoes and turns for a last look back up the mountain we’d just descended. The rest of us join him, remembering that morning’s slick rocks and snowflakes big enough to knock a person over. Thinking back to the changing colours of autumn with dark skies looming behind, or the rocky ridgelines framing rainbows across the lake, the sound of pikas scurrying in the rocks. The spongy softness of creekside moss underfoot and the family of ptarmigan pecking in the sand. The Dall sheep skulls or the caribou antler sheds. The rolling views of mountains in every direction. Even the bushwhacking.
In a time where so many good spots get blown out as soon as they’re discovered, the Yukon remains a special kind of wilderness. A place where you can have a new experience, and, if Max and Miléna have anything to say about it, still leave that wild beauty unaffected by your presence.
“Up here,” Max says, “the worst thing that should happen is you make a new friend.”
The best thing is everything else, packed-out toilet paper and all. Yukon Ho!
Check the ML Podcast!
