Four international adventurers will canoe the Yukon River as part of their Big 5 Kayak Challenge.

Matthew and Richard Harpham of England, Aisling Ni Chuinn of Ireland and Gordon Ross of Courtney, B.C. pushed off their canoes from the bank of the Yukon River in Whitehorse Tuesday morning as they prepared to tackle their second of five major kayak and canoe trips in a single year.

Paddling nine hours a day for approximately 17 days, the crew will travel 1,200 kilometres into Alaska.

"We've been training quite hard and we expect to go hard,” said Richard Harpham.

New to the team in 2010 is photographer Gordon Ross. Richard Harpham and Ross met during the Olympic Games in Vancouver. Harpham was managing Olympic underdog Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, a skier from Ghana. Ross was working at the Games as a professional photographer. The two "got along like a house on fire,” said Ross, and Harpham invited his new friend to join him on his kayaking journey.

This is the second year the team will attempt to paddle five bodies of water within a 365-day period, and last year the animal viewing was plentiful.

On their final excursion of 2009, the crew paddled 1,360 kilometres from Port Hardy, B.C. to Glacier Bay, Alaska.

Throughout the 27-day trip, the team encountered a number of wildlife, including humpback whales, orcas, and grizzly mothers fishing with their cubs.

The B.C./Alaska voyage was not their first chance for wildlife viewing. In September 2008, they kayaked 135 kilometres around the Isle of Wight. Their second expedition had them battling Arctic weather conditions as they paddled the length of the Thames in February 2009. Big 5 Kayak members invaded France after they traversed the English Channel for their third trip, and they faced Atlantic swells in May when they paddled from Land's End to the Isle of Scilly in the UK.

This year they will travel from the Scottish village of John O Groats to the Orkney Isles in the UK, from Scotland to Ireland, from London, England to Marrakech, Morocco, and, of course, they will canoe from Whitehorse, Yukon to Fort Yukon in the Arctic Circle.

The crew chose to do the voyage in a canoe because they thought it would be more historically appropriate than a kayak, given the location.

The Big 5 challenge is not just a show of endurance and physical ability, the team also raises funds for the Willow Foundation, which provides youth with life-threatening illnesses a chance to escape the pressures of daily life.

They donate to the Muscle Help Foundation, as well, which helps young people in the UK who have muscular dystrophy.

"It's great to have that platform to talk about things that are really important,” said Harpham. "We're not superstars, we just set a course and decided to follow it.”

Richard Harpham also has his own personal reasons for embarking on the journey.

"For me, I reckon, being in British Columbia and then Alaska last year, it was probably the most spiritual place that I've ever been to,” he said. "And then also the people that we met - just the most incredible hospitality.”