Conquering the Yukon River

“I was actually kidding when I sent it,” Biglione chuckled. “Totally underestimated the audience.” 

Matthews completed the Yukon River Quest in early July, her longest race since she started paddleboarding five years ago. The Yukon Marathon Paddlers Association touts the Yukon River Quest, nicknamed Race to the Midnight Sun, as the world’s largest annual canoe and kayak race. The 444-mile expedition along the Yukon River goes through the vast wilderness of Yukon, a Canadian federal territory. The three-and-a-half day event has race categories for solo or tandem kayaks and canoes, voyageur canoes and stand-up paddleboards. Eighty-eight teams from 12 different countries appeared in this year’s competition. Matthew’s passion is stand-up paddleboarding, and the race provided her with a new adventure to explore through paddleboarding. 

“I race so I can go out there and challenge myself and be able to go to these beautiful places,” Matthews said. 

Matthews’ five years of paddleboarding experience is a relatively short period for most people serious about it. She decided to give it a try after her husband Tim suggested it while on vacation with their family. She instantly became hooked. 

“She found a real passion forever, and I love it,” Tim Matthews said. “I had no idea that day that I introduced her to it that she would ever get into endurance paddleboarding. I didn’t even know it was a thing.” 

A big step up

Matthews, 48, was born in south Louisiana and runs a marketing agency in the Bay Area. Despite having always been around water, she had previously never canoed or paddleboarded on a regular basis. Most of her outdoor water activity was situational and usually occurred when an opportunity presented itself. Not even her family could have predicted how involved she would become. Her husband noted that this was the first real sports passion in which he had seen her become involved. 

One of the first things she did when she got back was to buy a paddleboard and go out into the Bay to test out the water. She started paddleboarding in a small lagoon in San Mateo and loved it so much that she continues to start her day by getting up at 5 a.m. to go out to Coyote Point to paddle and watch the sunrise before work. 

She stumbled upon an event called Ride the Tide, a 13-mile race from the Golden Gate Bridge to San Rafael. The race was a big step up from the 2-mile practices in the lagoon, and she hasn’t stopped since. 

“And after you do that, it’s like, what’s next? It can’t get much harder because that was pretty rough,” Matthews said. 

After more local races in Tiburon and Sausalito, she moved on to a 22-mile race across Lake Tahoe. She has also completed the California 100 three times in the past three years, a 100-mile race down the Sacramento River from Redding to Chico. The only reason she didn’t compete this year was because the race got canceled. 

Matthews knew that the Yukon River Quest would take extra practice despite her experience. So she began going to a circuit base camp in Burlingame to do bike intervals and strength training, and she started paddling the scariest, hardest water she could find in the Bay Area. She enlisted the help of Sean Morley, a friend and a member of the paddleboard community in the Bay Area. They worked on her rough-water skills, and he helped her pick a board that could handle the tricky waters of the Yukon River. 

“I had total faith in her from the start; I knew she could do it,” Morley said. “Anybody that could paddle 100 miles on a paddleboard on the Sacramento River has the ability, and then it’s about just doing the training in preparation.” 

A rigorous, but beautiful, race

Even with proper training, participating in the race can be hazardous. Of the eight people who took part in the stand-up paddleboarding category this year, two were forced to drop out. One developed heat stroke, while the other had his legs give out near the beginning of the race. Because of the condensed time, sleep is often discarded to finish the race within the allotted time. Matthews ended up only sleeping seven hours over the three-and-a-half day period. She often made deals with herself on the river in which she allowed herself to close her eyes for one minute as long as she didn’t fall asleep. The constant paddling also forced her to nibble away at food throughout the race and drink gallons of Gatorade to keep herself energized and hydrated. 

The river itself is also hard to navigate even for an experienced paddler. Small islands and changing water currents on the river forced Matthews to constantly adjust her direction. The hardest part of the race for her was having to paddle the 31-mile Lake Laberge, with 3- to 4-foot-high waves. The race starts in Whitehorse, the largest city in Yukon, and follows the river until it reaches the finish in the small town of Dawson City. The small amounts of checkpoints meant that she sometimes went 170 miles in between stops. 

Once Matthews got past the early difficulties and false starts, she was able to study the wilderness of the Yukon. The area around the Yukon River is sparsely populated, leaving racers with hundreds of miles of untouched nature. She would often go hours without seeing anyone, and she spent most of her time looking at granite rock formations, plants and the tall trees. Many granite formations looked like animals such as fish, bears and wolves because of the way the sun created shadows in the granite rocks formation. Her favorite part of the outdoors were the sunrises and sunsets. The sun rose early in the morning and didn’t set until after midnight, leaving most of the trip in sunlight. The sunsets often created colors of blue-silvers, grays, pinks and oranges at which she spent hours gazing.   

Matthews finished the race at 6:45 p.m. on a Saturday, four hours before the midnight cutoff and after a total of 69 hours and 45 minutes of paddling over three-and-a-half days. For her, the Yukon River Quest was more about finishing the race and getting a good experience during her first time. 

“I just wanted to go do it,” Matthews said. “I figured if I could get down that river, that’s good for me.”

Not slowing down

Although it’s only been a few weeks since Matthews returned, she has already resumed training. After only a week off, she got back into light exercises. She’s already restarted paddleboarding in the Bay and has her next race lined up on Lake Tahoe. After completing the Yukon River Quest, she has no intentions of slowing down. 

“I’m going to be 98 years old paddling,” Matthews said. “Honestly, nothing’s going to stop me. There’s no stopping me. There’s a work-around for everything.”