They were one young man, one old, setting out on a journey that can break the strongest of people. But the Englishmen weren't broken, nor even hurt, although they did cross paths with a couple of bears along the way.

At the end of May, Barry Ballard, 63, and a much younger Brendon Hogan jumped into a canoe and started paddling toward the sea, facing mosquito bites and sore haunches to raise money for sick kids back in the U.K.

They had raised $11,000 before they set off on what was supposed to be a three-month journey. They received $3,000 more along the way and made the Yukon River trip from Whitehorse to the Bering Sea much more quickly than they expected in 50 days rather than 80, with a few rest days mixed in.

'We encountered everything,' Ballard, a resident of Petersfield, England, recalled in a recent interview in Whitehorse.

'We were charged by a grizzly with two cubs and we nearly ran over a black bear swimming across the river.'

Although the trip was not as challenging as Ballard may have expected, sacrifices had to be made.

'I lost 24 pounds Brendon lost about 16 pounds,' Ballard said.

But it wasn't the triumph of success that Ballard talked about with the greatest enthusiasm: it was the people on the river he met along the way.

'The hospitality on the river people have been offering us so much salmon, moose steak ....'

The paddlers tried to give back what they could, offering up their first-aid kit to one of the last villages they visited.

'Theirs was empty and ours was very, very expensive.'

That was a village called Upik, one of the northernmost communities of people sometimes referred to as Eskimos, although the Upik people find the term derogatory, said Ballard, who was firmly impressed by them.

'The Upik Nation is the friendliest, most helpful nation of people you could ever want to meet.'

Ballard recounted how the paddlers gave their folding lawn chairs to one older gentleman who was thrilled to receive such prizes.

'I got lawn chairs, I got lawn chairs!' Ballard said, repeating the older man's exclamations.

Besides a fair share of mosquito bites, the canoeists also took a beating on their backsides.

'Our bums got bruised as if someone had taken a board of wood and pummelled our asses,' said the colourful Englishman.

It took the team three days to get a flight from Inmankiavi to Anchorage, and another three days for a bus to Whitehorse. They finally got here at 2:30 a.m. July 26.

Tired after the journey and with no place lined up to stay, the duo was again treated to northern hospitality when the bus driver offered to put them up at his place.

When Ballard spoke to the Star, he said he and Hogan were working to get their canoe back to the U.K., where they hoped to set it up at booths to help with additional fundraising.

In total, the duo paddled 3,218 kilometres in 42.5 days on the river.

'For an old fart like me, I did quite well,' said Ballard.

'We would like to say a big thank-you' to everyone on the river that helped us, and there have been loads.'

Ballard and Hogan were raising money for Dreams Come True, an English charity very similar to the Make a Wish Foundation, which works to grant the heart's desire of children battling terminal illness.