A Flightseeing Adventure

After a rest stop at Steamboat Island and a tour of the dry docked and abandoned Evelyn, guests board a floatplane for a one-hour overflight of the Yukon River to Homestead Lodge. The river below triples in size as the Teslin, Big Salmon and Little Salmon tributaries flow in, churning its waters through the awe-inspiring Five Finger and Rink rapids. Now a truly “Great River,” the Yukon presents immense open vistas as it flows past huge rock outcrops, bluffs and rock walls at the confluence of the Pelly River.

Here, Homestead Lodge overlooks Pelly River Ranch, Canada’s most northerly viable homestead. With easy access to Fort Selkirk and a family invitation to visit Pelly Ranch, Homestead Lodge affords its guests an opportunity to live and touch wilderness river history as it was over a century ago. Safe and luxurious accommodation with a genuine homestead warmth and welcome provide each guest with a base from which to undertake a wide variety of unique, very personal experiences centred on the river, its history and its people.

Fort Selkirk – A Walk through Yukon History

From Homestead Lodge, guests will travel down river to Fort Selkirk, a living cultural heritage site that the Selkirk First Nation and Yukon Heritage Branch are working together to preserve and develop.

In the 1840s, Robert Campbell selected the Fort Selkirk site—a traditional gathering and trading site of First Nations peoples—as the location for the first Hudson Bay Company fort and trading post established in the Yukon. Today, it stands today largely intact and it remains accessible only by river.

Interpretive guides from the Selkirk First Nation will host guests in their walk through history at Fort Selkirk. A variety of programs are available to suit individual interests.