Wood and Whirlpool River linkup, Canadian Rockies Packrafting

The route linking together the Wood River in BC and the Whirlpool River in AB, crossing the continental divide twice, was pioneered by the local team of Ben and Luke a decade ago. They were extremely resilient in the face of difficult mishaps which illustrated the whitewater and navigational challenges on the Wood River, an objective perhaps not paddled since.
In August 2024, our team spent a week on these two rivers accessed from the upper Athabasca River, running what we could at high water. We paddled the Wood River from Fortress Lake to Jeffrey Creek, and the Whirlpool from the Kane Glacier effluence to the road bridge.

[@KCCNYwhitewater]

I am honored to share a last name with ya, esp after that wild back surf!!

[@HinterlandOutdoors]

Nicely done gentlemen!

[@seanmcmoney8180]

The only, Humans, that porcupine ever saw. Looked like a great trip.

[@alaskauncle1917]

Really cool to see this trip done again.

[@CarlMarvin]

Wowza, beautiful video of what looks like a beautiful trip. If there was ever an ad for a valkyrie that worked on me, this is it 😂

[@testudbro19]

10/10 - looks like a sick trip. Great double feature with Ben&} & Luke's video

[@maximbudnick]

I love how this video just glosses over all the obvious difficulty of the journey. I watched Ben and Luke's video a while back and it sure was arduous. Great work as always Jeff!

[@gadzooks32]

remembered their video too and was thinking the same thing! The boats on their trip were also in a different category compared to a valkyrie

[@jeffreycreamer]

That's a great point - We would have gotten stomped on this river with the equipment those guys had. Ben did an amazing job documenting the trials they faced, especially given how uncertain things were for them.

[@HinterlandOutdoors]

We had no idea what we were doing on that trip but fortunately have learned a few things since then 😂. Awesome job! ​@@jeffreycreamer

[@desertratky75]

Ridiculous. Amazing y’all. Keep motivating and inspiring.

[@alaskauncle1917]

Jeffrey its cool to see this trip done again and see what the rivers are like in places Ben and I couldn't paddle. If you're ever in Alaska I'll buy you a burger or feed you home cooked moose if you'll tell me the whole story. Love to look at a map with you. Really thankful we made it out okay. With our limitations at the time (boats and my skill level) we could have easily got in more trouble than we did. Fun fact. I found a job in Alaska and met my wife through connections from the Wood River trip. "The Lord leads in mysterious ways..." to quote another outdoorsman.

[@jeffreycreamer]

@@alaskauncle1917 I'd love to meet up with you someday! This trip ended up being a lot more than we expected for sure. Might be a year or five til I get back to to AK but I'll definitely get in touch!

[@marcusrobinson1778]

One day I'll be keeping up with you. Hit 12 miles of the llano river in Texas today. Kinda sleepy. Was hoping for more rain.

[@DanRansom]

Another insane linkup and video. Amazing.

[@jeremiekarlsson]

Beautiful river, what a great trip!

[@almighty123T]

What a river! Looks amazing!

[@Wyoutside]

👍🏻 nice Jeff!

[@current-raft]

Awesome WW and great nature ❤

[@HuwMiles]

doing God's work gents. Holla at me when you wanna come packraft nz

[@jeffreycreamer]

100%, one of these days

[@packraftingqueenstown]

​@@jeffreycreamerstanding by....

[@kyle.mays97]

“Babe wake up, a new Jeffery Creamer video just dropped”

[@immersion_research]

Great work team.

[@davidmull7263]

So, now I'm seriously considering quitting my job to go packrafting in the Canadian Rockies.

[@jeffreycreamer]

I'm more intrigued by that zone that any other at the moment.

[@matt962671]

Does the sediment/color of the river make it any harder to read the rapids? Similar to skiing in flat lighting?

[@jeffreycreamer]

I feel like I don't have trouble in these glacial rivers even when they are very turbid. However, I have a lot of trouble reading water in our desert rivers because of the turbidity. I don't know how to explain that - maybe desert rivers have blocky irregular sandstone that is hard to predict but glacial rivers have predictable round boulders.

[@rlpatton1970]

Looks like new boat punches waves and stays pretty dry

[@jeffreycreamer]

It does pierce through waves better than larger volume packrafts, and the bow rocker helps it ride over most other features as well. Agreed.