Located deep in the largest roadless watershed on the Pacific Coast and coursing through a landscape studded with glaciers, azure lakes, and 800-year-old trees lies pristine whitewater. Often overshadowed by the Stikine and Alsek rivers, the expansive Taku watershed holds the promise of tight boxed-in canyons and a max gradient of 450 feet per mile, right on the edge of navigability.

On satellite imagery, it was 170 miles from Tunjony Lake, the source of Kowatua Creek, to where it joined the Taku in Juneau, Alaska. It took Lane Jacobs, Ben Stookesberry and Todd Wells ten days to navigate the ludicrously steep gorges of Kowatua Creek, through the Inklin River to the confluence of the Taku on a trip equal parts portage-fest and Class V stoke.

In partnership with BC Whitewater, Coast Mountain Chronicles offers a visual narrative spanning three years of whitewater adventure through the seldom explored watersheds of the Pacific and Boundary Mountain Ranges in British Columbia.