Cathers Wilderness Adventures

Our cabin-based dog sled trips offer a home-style Yukon welcome and dog mushing instruction. On this 7-day adventure, explore spectacular wilderness by dog team, returning to our cozy home cabins each night. You start at the basics and progress at your own rate. This trip is fun for both beginners and those who have already been mushing. You learn how to harness the dogs and drive a dog team, first with small teams on easier trails, advancing to more challenging runs as your skills increase.

The 7-day trip is a more in depth introduction to dog sledding. You will get to know the individual dogs more fully and your own sled handling skills will increase noticeably as the days go by. You are also welcome to participate in the care and feeding of the dogs.

For health reasons, we ask that our guests are non-smoking.

Day 1
We pick you up in Whitehorse, then drive about 45 minutes to Lake Laberge where you meet the dog teams. You will receive basic instruction on driving a dog sled, before mushing a small dog team across the lake to our home and wilderness cabins. After unhooking the dogs and having a hot lunch, there is an afternoon "sled school", where you learn techniques for driving a dog sled on forest and hill trails as well as how to be a good partner to your dog team.

Day 2
Today is your first taste of "bush-trail" dog mushing. We set off with small dog teams as you try out the mushing techniques learned on Day 1 and get the feel of working with your team. Lunch is a campfire cook-out or picnic lunch. Return to the home cabins for dinner and overnight.

Day 3 and 4
Travel new trails each day as you improve your mushing skills and build a connection with your dogs. We stop for a campfire cook-out or picnic lunch part-way. About 5 to 6 hours per day on the trail. (Note: time estimates are approximate.) Dinner and overnight at the home cabins.

Days 5 and 6

By now, your steering and timing on the back of the sled will start to become more automatic, allowing us to travel farther in a day and explore further afield on more challenging trails. The scenery includes a winter wonderland of lakes, ridges, forests, hills, and meadows with mountains in the background.

Returning to the home cabins each night allows you to decide day by day if you want to go on the day's run or take a rest day. Those who want to put in as many miles as possible behind a dog team can be out there every day. Others may want a rest day and a chance to enjoy the peace of the wilderness setting with a hot drink and a book by the wood stove or to walk around taking photographs. Some guests may also enjoy a chance to go as a passenger in the guide's sled one day instead of driving their own dog team.

We have a beautiful location for watching the night sky and looking for northern lights. The cabins are located at the edge of a little meadow, which allows a wide view of the sky. Just behind the cabins is a hill that one can climb for a view overlooking the lake. On a clear moonlit night, you can see mountains 60 miles (100 km) away. Looking for the aurora is like looking for gold - it is where you find it. You may see the northern lights or not, but even if you don't, the stars are an amazing view all by themselves.

Day 7

After breakfast, we hitch up the dog teams to travel back across the lake to the road. From there, you travel by road about 45 minutes back to Whitehorse. You should be back in Whitehorse by early afternoon so you have time to look around the town. Overnight in a Whitehorse hotel is included, with airport shuttle available in the morning. (If you need to fly out on the afternoon of Day 7, we can have you back to the airport in time for afternoon flights. In that case, you can take the included hotel room at the beginning of your trip.)

For more information, we suggest you also read the general dog sledding page.

Please Note With All Itineraries: Since safety of people and dogs comes first, we reserve the right to revise the itinerary based on weather conditions, trail conditions, condition people and dogs, or any other circumstance that we believe could affect the safety of people and/or dogs.

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