Caribou Legs has arrived in Whitehorse, as purpose-driven as ever.

Brad Firth, the Gwich’in ultra runner better known by his deer moniker, tapped into the Save-the-Peel spirit to fuel his recent daily marathons across the west and North.

“The most important purpose is just to run and create awareness for the Peel watershed,” he said in an interview Wednesday morning, following his three-month jaunt through B.C., Alberta and the Yukon.

“I just wanted to get that vibration out there that we need fresh water in the Yukon and that we need to keep that watershed alive and free and out of harm’s way. And I wanted to send that vibration all across Canada, as far as I can go.”

Having just completed a meandering summer sojourn from Vancouver to Whitehorse, Firth plans to head to Watson Lake in a couple weeks before taking off for Ottawa, on foot, in May 2015.

Young students from the Liard First Nation had emailed him questions, “so I thought I’d just run down there and talk to them face-to-face.

“I enjoy talking with kids in school and ... and connecting with youth, especially at-risk youth,” Firth said.

After tackling that stretch of road he will have taken on virtually every highway in the Yukon and Northwest Territories and run 8,000 kilometres in less than a year.

The fleet-footed 44-year-old launched his latest journey from Metro Vancouver’s Braid SkyTrain Station, heading east to Kamloops and into the dry heat of the Okanagan Valley. Then he wound down through Revelstoke and the river-laced Kootenay region, over the Rockies to Calgary, Edmonton and Grand Prairie, and eventually back west through Dawson Creek.

He capped off the land voyage by pushing north to Watson Lake and, 78 days after he started, Whitehorse.

He arrived in town around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, having been picked up in Marsh Lake by a driver who noticed his struggle through the onslaught of snow the city received yesterday.

“I was getting pelted and my feet were wet,” Firth said.

He said the run, which he did without assistance, cut through vast expanses of forest, valley and plain, and reminded him of his cause continuously, especially in Alberta — not always for positive reasons.

“On the way I just kept seeing all these pools of water, the lakes, contaminated with oil on the surface. It was a sight.

“I wouldn’t drink the tap water in most of Alberta,” he said.

It was along that province’s Queen Elizabeth Highway between Calgary and Edmonton that he was stopped twice by RCMP.

“They just were concerned,” he said. “I told them I was running for the Peel.

“One of the ones gave me a ticket,” though not for that reason, he noted.

Firth typically ran 65 to 70 kilometres a day — more than a marathon-and-a-half.

He carried a three-litre CamelBak and subsisted on trail mix, protein powder, honey, garlic cloves, dry meats, dried salmon, the occasional fruit, and caribou fat.

“Sometimes there was no fruit so I would go without,” he said.

He encountered countless people and well-wishers as well as Dall sheep, bison, elk, eagles and black bears as he went.

“I’m always interacting with people and campers, and I sing songs to myself — or to this black bear. I met a black bear, so I sang a song to him, an Ojibwe song,” he said.

“There was a little bit of fear there, but most times I was calm and relaxed.

Firth would rest about once every four days on average.

“As I got to Dawson Creek, I thought, this is where it starts to get punishing, the roads and the canyons, and more and more steep climbs with every kilometre, with more and more vicious hills.”

Firth is no stranger to ultra-runs, however. He grew up on the ski trails and hockey rinks of Inuvik, N.W.T.

“Once I sobered up I realized, ‘Wow, I still have it,’ and cultivated it.”

Firth, having jogged from Inuvik to Whitehorse to meet the premier and protest for the Peel in advance of the week-long trial around its future this past spring, plans to do the 750-kilometre Yukon Arctic Ultra in February and to run across Great Slave Lake within the next year as well.

“It’s a straight line from Hay River to Yellowknife.” No problem.

Firth will complete the final 30 kilomtres of his run — stalled due to the weather Tuesday — this Saturday from Marsh Lake.

He plans to hit the legislative assembly at 1:30 p.m., from which point supporters can complete the final few blocks with him and finish at the totem pole at the foot of Main Street by 2 p.m.

A small speech and gathering will follow, capped off by a potluck celebration at Hellaby Hall at the Anglican Church at Fourth Avenue and Elliot Street.

“Thank you to all the people behind the Peel,” Firth said.

“Keep hope alive out there.”