Exploring the Yukon River

Dateline: September 4, 2026.

    When you look online, Nanaimo gets the credit for holding the first bathtub race, in 1967. But many bathtub races had been held around the world by then - the first we have found was held during a regatta in Totnes, England, on July 19, 1952. By May 1961 they were well enough known that you could buy a toy bathtub race boat at the Hudson's Bay Company store in Vancouver (see the ad to the right). There were actually bathtub races held on land as well as on the water - both on dry land and on snow - but we're focussing on the water races here.

    The bathtub race from Nanaimo to Vancouver on July 30, 1967, appears to have been the largest by far at that point, with a rather incredible 214 vessels of widely-varying design, starting out.

    News about the upcoming Yukon River race first appeared in The Whitehorse Star on June 19, 1992:
"1st International "Molsam" Yukon River Goldrush Bathtub Race. Whitehorse to Dawson, Aug. 14-17, 1992. Interested? Bi-weekly meets at Gold Rush Inn. Next on July 1, 7:30 p.m. 1st prize: 4 oz. GOLD! 2nd prize: 2 oz. GOLD! 3rd prize: 1 oz. GOLD!"

    Although "Molsam" was only part of the name for the one year, the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Society went on to hold bathtub races for 13 years, with the final one being held in 2004. In 1997, another race down the Yukon River, the Dyea to Dawson Centennial Race to the Klondike, was held for the first time, and in 1999 it became the Yukon River Quest, which as of 2026 is still being held annually.

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The Whitehorse Star, Friday, July 31, 1992.

    The Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous office is sponsoring the world's longest bathtub race to be held over the Discovery Day weekend.

    The three-day, 460-kilometre race will start at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 15 in Whitehorse. There will be a mandatory overnight stop in Carmacks, and at 9 a.m. on Sunday, the tubbers start again for Dawson City.

    Festivities for tubbers and observers alike will be held in all three communities. On Friday, Aug. 14, there will be beer garden, barbecue and entertainment at Rotary Park in Whitehorse as a send-off for the intrepid tubbers. There will also be an inner-tube race as a preview to the big event.

    The Carmacks Hotel is putting on a beer garden and barbecue on Aug. 15, and the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous entertainers will perform.

    Dawson is hosting parties for the tubbers and their fans on Aug. 16 and 17. The Klondike Visitors Association is working with the Rendezvous office to combine Discovery Day events with the race events.

    Dutch Van Sandick of the Rendezvous office said the race is called the International Molsam Yukon River Goldrush Bathtub Race. It's named after two of the key sponsors - Molson Breweries and the Sourdough Sams.

    So far, about a dozen entries have signed up, and there has been a call from Australia about the rate, but no confirmation there. "This is a big international sport now, they have a world championship and everything," Van Sandick said. "There's about 10 races around the world. It's kind of neat, and it should bring in quite a few dollars up here."

    It costs $100 to enter the race, and tubbers are meeting every Wednesday at the Gold Rush Inn in Whitehorse.

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The Whitehorse Star, Tuesday, August 18, 1992.

By Rob Driscoll, Sports Editor

    Dawson City - Somewhere along the line, Robin Wheeler missed out on the theme of the Discovery Days long weekend. At a time when everyone was thinking about finding, this New Zealand-turned-Whitehorse resident was losing things left and right.

    Early Saturday morning, Wheeler left Whitehorse on what was expected to be an arduous trip to Dawson during the first annual Great Molsam Yukon River Gold Rush Bathtub Race. As it turned out, however, he missed the boat . . . actually, he lost the boat.

    Barely out of the capital city, Wheeler and his teammates, Bob Cousins and Herb O'Haver, encountered more-than-slight navigational problems. The story, as told in the lounge of Dawson's Downtown Hotel on Sunday night, sounded eerily similar to the fate of the good ol' crew from Gilligan's Island:

    The weather started getting rough, the tiny tub was tossed. Despite the courage of the fearless crew, the river boat was lost. Sudden, gusting winds had nailed the tub racers at the worst possible time - while they were out on the unprotected waters of the looming Lake Laberge. As the tub, piloted by Cousins, began to take in water, Wheeler wheeled the would-be support boat over to lend a helping hand.

    "All three of us were tending to the tub - getting the driver out and bailing out the water - while the (support) boat was idling," Wheeler explained. "It was then that I made a very elementary mistake.

    "I turned the boat's stern to the left into the incoming waves. We were in a very heavily-loaded river boat, so it was already quite low. One wave swamped us badly, and the engine cut out. As I tried to restart the engine, we got nailed again." Suddenly, Wheeler was overcome with a sinking feeling. "The next thing I knew, I was was yelling, 'We're sinking. Everybody bail out!' It all happened in about three seconds."

    The three castaways then grabbed all the floating materials they could and started to swim for shore. They were aided almost immediately by a spectating boat. Shortly thereafter, the pilot (rescue) craft came along headed by Dutch Van Sendick.

    "I thought I saw something in the distance, and then it disappeared," Van Sendick said. "I started heading over there and I thought, 'What's all that stuff floatin' around over there?' When I got to them, Robin was floating around holding a bottle of oil. The first thing he said was, 'Wanna buy a quart of oil?'"

    The pilot boat picked up the hard-luck crew while the spectators grabbed some of the wreckage.

    Wheeler intends to return to the Lake Laberge shoreline to recover some $200 worth of gas in a pair of drums. As well, he will attempt to resurrect his sunken river boat. Using a depth sounder, the boat was located at 60 metres below the surface.

    His campaign to reacquire the boat began with tying a string around a can and dangling it on his chest. The can, reading "Help raise my boat", had already netted Wheeler about 30 loonies by 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

    "Whether or not we can salvage the boat depends on if we can find a diver capable of going to those depths," he said. "There's also the problem of pinpointing the boat's position - it might have drifted along the lake's floor and, for all we know, could be 300 feet deep by now."

    Wheeler was taken off guard, to say the least, by the paradoxical plight of his $7,000-support boat. "We planned for every possible contingency on the trip, except for one," he explained. "The only contingency plan we didn't look into was that our support boat would sink."

    Sink, it did. As a consequence, somewhere along the bed of Lake Laberge, approximately 60 metres beneath the surface, lies Robin Wheeler's river boat.

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The Whitehorse Star, Tuesday, August 18, 1992.

    The Totem Oil motorized bathtub splashed its way from Whitehorse to Dawson City in a time of 16 hours, 10 minutes, 41 seconds to clean up in the Great Molsam Yukon River Gold Rush Bathtub Race on the weekend.

    The course followed the Yukon River for the entire distance and included an overnight stop at Carmacks. Late Sunday afternoon, the Totem team - Al Rock, Jason Rock, Philip Cunningham and Gail Gibbons - hit the Dawson shoreline, thus claiming the first-place trophy.

    Mellis of Nanaimo in his tub, the Lordship, finished second by a relatively narrow margin. Mellis' clocking of 16:34:06 was a very tight second place, upon consideration of the course's considerable length.

    Drivers Len Falle and Jade Perreault guided the Blumenscheine tub (18:52:40) to third place, while three Chrises and a Mike, sponsored by Tracey's Restaurant (Mike Leblanc, Chris Bruneau, Kris Schaber and Chris Moran) came in fourth at 21:27:45; and Lake Laberge Marge and Haggar the Horrible (Odell Anderson, Orin Anderson, Marshall Kelher and Edgar Schaller) captured the dubious last-place honor for finishing fifth in a time of 22:37:04.

    Nine crafts started in Whitehorse, but only five managed to finish the race. Despite the low turmout, organizers were encouraged by the interest created and promise another tub race in '93.

Whitehorse Star photo by Rob Discoll.