I have paddled three times in the longest canoe race in the world, the Yukon River Quest, with a team of breast cancer survivors. The race route starts in Whitehorse and goes north for 740 km along the Yukon River to Dawson City. An early leg of this journey takes paddlers through Lake Laberge, which is basically a widening of the Yukon River that is approximately 50 km long. These paintings are inspired by the north shore of Lake Laberge. Surrounded by old mountains, rounded and worn by countless rains, we paddlers were always aware of the sky and the weather on this lake. Fast and furious the rain can start and something we all knew well can happen …. everything can change on a dime. I have always been awed by this beautiful landscape, shaped by water over the millennia. The intense physical effort of this race and the awareness of the importance of staying right in the moment of each stroke of the paddle has somehow sharpened my memory, consequently informing each stroke of my brush in the making of these paintings.

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