ping pong table: YCKC enjoys 45 years of memories

By Echo Ross

Mailing a letter cost just two cents, there were no paved roads in the capital city and sporting clubs didn’t need a liquor licence in order to sell drinks for proceeds.
It was 45 years ago when the Yukon Canoe and Kayak Club (YCKC) – then called the Yukon Voyageurs Canoe Club (YVCC) – planted its roots. At the club’s annual general meeting Thursday night, one of the founding members, Don Graham, tried his best to recall his many memories from the early 1960s.
“In trying to go back 45 years, I was lucky to find some old newsletters,” he said. “Without the newsletters, it would be hard to figure it out. I would be doing a lot of guessing.”
The first newsletter was dated June 1962 and it mentioned the club was already one and a half years old, which would place its founding in early 1961. It was shortly before that Graham purchased a brand new, 16 foot chestnut canoe for $205 – a canoe he still owns to this day, although it has benefited from some re-building and re-canvassing.
“She don’t leak at all,” he stated proudly. “She’s still in really good shape.”
Graham came by his love for canoeing quite honestly. His dad was a prominent member of the Winnipeg Canoe Club in the 1920s, winning a silver cup in 1927 that still sits in Graham’s home.
“I was probably eight years old when I went on my first canoe trip, with my dad and brother. We always had a canoe. I remember one 80-mile trip from White Shell to the Winnipeg River. It was 103 F.
“When I came up (to the Yukon), I didn’t really think they’d have canoeing, but they did.”
Thanks to the inspiration of Ron Butler, another avid canoeist at the time who now lives on Vancouver Island, Graham sold his motorboat and trailer that he had brought with him, and bought his chestnut canoe. He and a group of friends formed the YVCC, which had 26 members on record in the 1962 newsletter.
Eleven of those members were children, a few were “single fellows” from the Bank of Montreal, and the rest were married couples. The wives, he said, were also active canoeists. In fact, Graham’s wife Claire was the first editor of the club’s newsletter.
“We were a social club right from the start,” he said. “As we all became good friends, we needed a club house, close enough to the water, large enough for dancing and a bar to make good revenue.”
YVCC initially made an effort to build a clubhouse on Schwatka Lake, but the Commissioner at the time, Jimmy Smith, put an end to the development. Finally, they received permission to build on some land at Loon Lake, just below Haeckel Hill.
They spent the next four years at that site, before they accumulated enough funds through canoe raffles, canoe rentals and bar proceeds to build a new clubhouse at Chadburn Lake, which was much bigger than Loon and was ideal to hold their annual regatta.
“I have pictures of the clubhouse under construction in 1968,” recalled Graham. “We scrounged old chesterfields and chairs, a power plant for lights and music. We had a barrel heater, propane stove, kitchen utensils, complete behind the bar set up and even a ping-pong table.
“On numerous occasions we rented out the club for dances and parties besides our own meetings and get togethers. In the winter, we flooded a skating rink on the lake and had open pubic events like Skidoo races and hill climbing. We held ping-pong tournaments and sold hot dogs and coffee at the events, which helped keep us afloat.”
It’s thanks to Graham and the old club’s presence at Chadburn that the lake is now closed to motorized boats. The Commissioner made it that way after Graham and his son collided with a motorboat, breaking Graham’s collarbone.
YVCC planned annual canoeing trips for its members, such as one to Tagish Lake on Victoria Day. Sometimes they had to paddle through running ice early in the season. One of the weekend trips they did many times was to Watson River, wither the top half or the lower half to Carcross.
As well as a long-distance trip to Dawson City on the Yukon River in 1962, the club paddled the Big Salmon River in 1963.
By the late 1970s, many of the club’s original members had either moved outside or drifted away, and many of the new people who took over didn’t use the clubhouse. Its state declined over the years, thanks in part to vandals, and the City of Whitehorse tore down the building in the early 1990s.
However, Graham’s love for canoeing is still intact, despite his age and what he called weak knees. He and Claire still live in Whitehorse and two of their children remain in the Yukon as well – one in Haines Junction and one in Hidden Valley.
The last trip they took together as a family was around 2002, he said, when they jumped in a big war canoe and headed up Teslin Lake. The previous year, they did the Wolf River.
“I’ve travelled a lot of lakes and rivers, and I can still say there’s a lot I haven’t done,” he said, adding he always refers to himself as a canoeist first when asked, despite the fact he has taken up sailing, biking and cross-country skiing as well.
He said it’s a great feeling to know the canoe club still exists, though it’s been modified over the years. Graham talks to Bob Daffe, who owns Tatshenshini Expediting and is a previous president of the YCKC, on occasion, and loves to hear about all the trips club members have taken.
“I remember watching Don paddling in a canoe, running the slalom course, and going, ‘Oh man, this guy’s going to kick our ass,” Daffe said to numerous laughs during his introduction of Graham at the AGM. “Fortunately, he flipped right near the end and I went, ‘Oh yes, we have a chance.’”
Daffe presented Graham with a special canoe paddle, inscribed with his name and the words “founding member since 1961”.
Current YCKC president Violet Vanhees said it was fun for everyone at the AGM to hear the paddlers back then were having so much fun and doing the same things paddlers do now.
“And they were enjoying their hot dogs and beer too,” she laughed. “That’s the sign of true paddlers.”
It was also neat to hear what was going on in the territory at the time, she said, pointing out “the Yukon was a different place back then.”
As the new YCKC looks toward its future, Vanhees expects to see another 45 years of success, with the youth and adult programs continually growing in popularity.
“We’ve got a really vibrant club. There’s a lot of enthusiastic people who love paddling and really want to see it grow.”