During the summer holiday of 2011, Kyoko and I chose to visit our friends, Tammy and Tomo, in the north of Canada. These were friends we met here in Hokkaido. They live in Tsurui Village for part of the year and the lovely Yukon territory for the other part. As they told us many times that the Yukon is very beautiful, we were eager to see for ourselves.
We did many fun things with them. Our favorite activity was a canoe trip down the famous Yukon River. There were five adults and one baby on the trip. We travelled in three boats, with Kyoko and I sharing a two-person kayak that our friend bought in Kushiro.
This river is famous because it was used by nearly 100,000 people in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. Long ago, people built boats out of trees along the river and paddled down the river, hoping to find gold. Many of them were successful.
We saw many animals on our journey. We saw porcupines, beavers, and even several bears. I was very happy to also see bald eagles. The bald eagle is the national bird of the United States and is on the one dollar bill.
