On this weekʼs episode of The Amazing Race Canada, contestants went dogsledding on Fish Lake, biked on Grey Mountain, canoed the Yukon River and raced to the finish line at Miles Canyon.

The Yukon was the adventure showʼs backdrop this week.

Tuesdayʼs episode started where last weekʼs left off, in China, and the eight two-person teams learned, excitedly, theyʼd be flying to Canadaʼs North.

Upon arriving, the teams rested up at Sky High Wilderness Ranch in Whitehorse and in the morning were offered a choice: set up a tent perfectly or run a dogsled around the lake.

The dogsledding teams offered up more laughs. The duos struggled with harnessing the eager canines and once aboard the sled, had trouble directing the dogs.

Gold medal-winning hockey players Natalie Spooner and Meaghan Mikkelson quickly found that the dogs were ignoring their high-pitched shrieks of “Gee!” and “Haw!” and lowered their voices to sound more masculine. That worked better.

Although Quebec couple Alain Chanoine and Audrey Tousignant-Maurice struggled most with the dog sled challenge, they made up for lost time during the biathlon, where Chanoine biked around Grey Mountain and successfully shot five targets in a row. They ultimately finished the leg in first place.

Mother-son team Nicole and Cormac Foster werenʼt so lucky.

After using up their five bullets, contestants had to do another lap on their bike to earn another five.

It took Nicole more than 20 laps to sink her five shots. She was in tears as she and her son were the only team left at the shooting range.

They were the last duo to make it to the finish and were eliminated.

After the biathlon, competitors had to portage to the banks of the Yukon River and paddle 1 1/2 kilometres downstream to Miles Canyon.

One of the episodeʼs laugh-out-loud moments was when brother-sister team Sukhi and Jinder Atwal tried to determine which direction was downstream.

After a few minutes spent struggling against the current, they realized they had to go with the flow.

Throughout the episode, viewers tweeted about the beauty of the territoryʼs landscape and their desire to travel here.

Two million people turned in Tuesday night to watch.

Denny Kobayashi, senior manager of global marketing for Tourism Yukon, was pleased with the episode.

“The best thing weʼve got going for us is that the contestants loved it here,” he said. “The thing weʼre most pleased about is what we call the pride of place effect. Hosting the show and hosting these contestants isnʼt just the business case for tourism. Itʼs about Yukoners being very proud of where they live and whatʼs so special about living here, and we think this show conveys that message to millions of Canadians.”

The crew and teams came up to shoot in April, but negotiations began in the fall.

The tourism department showed location scouts several different sites and activities, then the showʼs staff decided what would make it onto the small screen.

“We always push things that are a little more uniquely northern, if we can,” Kobayashi said. “Thatʼs how we ended up with the dogsledding, canoeing the Yukon River is an iconic experience here, and camping, being an outdoor destination.”

The government spent $420,000 on various facets of the show and advertising, including $250,000 on purchasing time to run advertisements that look like Amazing Race Canada commercials and feature host Jon Montgomery but are, in fact, ads for Tourism Yukon.

And more than $150,000 was spent on production support – touring scouts around the territory, paying for hotels, vehicle rentals and local production assistants and producing the commercials.

Kobayashi estimates about half of these funds came back to Yukon businesses.

The whole process required a high level of secrecy.

“There were a lot of Yukoners involved who knew the program was here and knew who the competitors were, so they knew which ones werenʼt still in it. So they all had to sign non-disclosure agreements,” Kobayashi said.

The department ran a strong social media campaign for the show, too, retweeting viewersʼ remarks and posting interviews with the contestants to a section of its website dedicated to Amazing Race Canada coverage (travelyukon.com/racecda).

And the morning after the episode aired, Tourism Yukon offered the two eliminated contestants, Nicole and Cormac, a free trip back to the territory and a $5,000 gift certificate for a Yukon wilderness adventure.

“Part of the agreement we have with them on this trip is they have to tweet and post to Facebook their entire trip and experience back in the Yukon,” Kobayashi said.

“Weʼre going to get some more social media play when they come back.”

The results of this digital strategy are being closely monitored.

The tourism department is keeping engagement scores and measuring social media activity. Theyʼre also documenting all clicks on links to Yukon vacation planners from the siteʼs homepage.