Change of location for start of annual Yukon River Quest

For the first time in its 11-year history, the Yukon River Quest won't begin on Whitehorse's Main Street.

By Whitehorse Star on June 22, 2009 at 1:55 pm

For the first time in its 11-year history, the Yukon River Quest won’t begin on Whitehorse’s Main Street.

As a result of increasing participation in recent year’s, the approximately 740-km canoe and kayak race is scheduled to start in Rotary Peace Park instead.

“We could see it coming that it was not the ideal (spot) anymore,” said Jean-Francois Latour, president of the Yukon River Marathon Paddlers Association.

“When we started that 10 years ago there was 30 people running down main street to their boat, last year we had over 200 and that created some little problems.”

The race is set to begin at noon on Wednesday and Latour doesn’t expect the change in location to have an impact on the results.

The first 10 years the start was right on Main Street between First and Second Avenues. Main Street was always closed down, while paddlers made their way towards the Millennium Trail towards the river. However, Latour said in 2008 there was too much going on downtown, which resulted in the change. 

Latour said the city was very co-operative in letting the River Quest use Rotary Peace Park, which will result in a much shorter run to the water than from downtown.

“It will be as exciting of a start as downtown, he said. We just won’t have as much exposure than we have had on Main Street, but we don’t see it as an issue. I think it will be a much better start, much smoother, much more room and less problems with accidents.”

“We definitely want a big crowd in Rotary Park on June 24 to see the start.”