- We were worried about the forest fire along the Teslin and considered changing our plans on account of it. In the end, we paddled past it on day 2 and it was a surreal and interesting experience, but was a non-issue with respect to safety. However, some time later that same fire blew up to a much larger beast so in that case it could have been problematic to get through it.
- The current pushing us along made for a very relaxing pace and we could knock off substantial distances each day. We only had several hours or so of head wind to deal with, so that could have made a big difference. Even with a headwind, we had enough current behind us to push us along at a good pace, the wind just made it such that we had to work a bit more for our distance.
- We saw one distant black bear and one young grizzly bear. The black bear was seen from camp across the river and up a hill and never would have been noticed had I not been scanning the hill through binoculars for just such a sighting. The grizzly bear was seen briefly on the river bank as we drifted past and it did not seem to notice us. Bear poop was present at numerous places long the trip.
- We saw lots of eagles on the Teslin River, but very few on the Yukon River.
- The song of the Swainson's thrush was heard almost everywhere we went.
- One moose was seen across the river from one of our campsites.
- Three red-throated loons were seen (a first for me) on the river just downstream from the junction with the Big Salmon.
- We caught several grayling (Jim especially, but I caught one) at a creek that joined the river near where we camped at the end of day 3.
- We caught a few jack one day on the Teslin River, but otherwise we were skunked for fish. Those jack became our fish-fry supper that night which ended up being our only meal of fish for the trip.
- Ralph and Wes took responsibility for the first 4 days of food (with some of the meat provided by Jim) and Karrie and I took care of the second 4 days. The latter included dehydrated chili, dehydrated spaghetti sauce, dehydrated shredded chicken with coleslaw, lazy cabbage rolls, brownies cooked in a dutch oven, etc.
- The Teslin River water was a brown colour with silt whereas the Yukon river was a blue green colour. At the confluence it took a few kilometers for the waters to blend and you could see the brown water along the river right bank and the blue-green water along the river left bank. Throughout the trip the water was easy enough to filter without clogging our filters.
- We saw hardly any mosquitoes, and just a few other biting insects. I brought bug jackets and a lot of repellant, and only used a bit of repellant a couple of times in the evening.
- Our weather was mostly good - often overcast or under the haze of smoke from fires (such as fires near Lake Laberge), moderate temperatures that had me in long sleeves in the morning and short sleeves by mid to late morning. It was often cool, but never cold. I think I wore shorts maybe once, the rest of the time it was long pants. We had a couple of times where it rained a bit overnight and one morning where we delayed getting on the water for less than an hour while we waited out the light rain under Wes' tarp. On our 4th day it drizzled a bit while we paddled. There were a couple of days where we had periods of head winds, but for the most part the winds were not an issue. I wore long sleeves most evenings and a couple of times wore a light- or mid-weight sweater. Much of the warm clothing I brought went unused.
- There were no real rapids on the trip, but there were boils and turbulence, as well as a few sets of riffles in sections of the river. Initially I aimed for some of these riffles and almost rapids, but I found them to be quite unpredictable due to the volume of water in these rivers being more than I am used to and the turbulence pushed us around a bit if we weren't ready for it. Wes in his solo canoe was easily pushed around by the boils and whirlpools that appeared in the current so was constantly correcting for them. The tandem canoes were not affected to such a degree.