The Canning begins amid some of the Brooks Range’s most jagged limestone mountains. The upper river is exceptionally rugged and severely beautiful. As the river flows seaward, it bounds the west end of three sub-ranges of the Brooks Range, the prosaically named “Third Range,” the Shublik Mountains, and the Sadlerochit Mountains. By trip’s end the land is broad and the sky enormous. From a hill near the take out spot there is a view to the Arctic Ocean in good weather.

From each of our camps there will be time and opportunity for day hikes deeper into the mountains in search of wildlife. Other activities can include fishing for grayling and arctic char, making casts of tracks we find in the mud, searching out raptor nest on the cliffs near the river, or simply enjoying the quiet of the wilderness.

Wildlife encounters are difficult to predict, but in years past we have seen a great variety of wildlife on the Canning River. Sightings have included grizzly bears, wolves, arctic and red fox, Dall sheep, moose, caribou, musk oxen, wolverine and one year we saw a Polar Bear near the coast.

For birds you can expect to see a host of passerines including some rarities like bluethroats, northern wheatears and wagtails. Raptors will be fledging and the young birds will be learning to hunt on their own. We may see golden eagles, peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons, rough-legged hawks, short-eared owls, and maybe even the snowy owl, known as “ukpik” in Inupiaq.

Though it is not apparent on the ground, the Canning is at a literal crossroads of conservation. The headwaters are protected as wilderness, but as we travel down river, we enter the famous 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area Congress has never been able to either permanently protect nor exploit for oil and gas.

We’ll paddle about 90 miles of the Canning, from near the headwaters of the Marsh Fork, nearly to the Coast. This is a moderately difficult trip, not a “float”. We may have to drag the boats over shallow spots; we will have to paddle to get where we’re going, even though the current is always swift. There is Class III whitewater at several points along the river. However, no experience is required for paddle rafting, as instruction is provided. Everyone joins in the fun of paddling the boats under the guidance of a raft captain.