The 2014 Yukon paddling season ended with a small, hard-fought race in the rain on the McClintock River Saturday morning.

The territory’s top River Quest team reunited for a final race, eventually winning the last race on the local canoe and kayak calendar – the Autumn Classic.

Team Ts’alvit – headed up by Jim and Pam Boyde – led the entire way upriver and back, winning with a time of 1:13:53.

Other members of the winning team included Pat McKenna, Monique Levesque, Kim Outridge, Karen Mann and Jake Paleczny.

McKenna was the only change from the River Quest roster, filling in for Pauline Frost.

Hot on the voyageur canoe’s heels was solo canoeist Tim Hodgson, who finished just 14 seconds behind.

Organizer Peter Coates and his son, Thomas, were third in 1:16:22, while Alison Schreiber was the red lantern award winner, completing her solo canoe race in 1:36:40.

The annual race sees paddlers travel upriver for 5.5 kms before snatching tokens from a marked tree – spiders this year – and returning downstream towards the McClintock Bridge on the Alaska Highway.

“It was an interesting little race,” said Peter Coates. “It was actually really rather close.”

Rain poured down on the participating boats throughout the event.

On Thursday night, the Coates duo traversed the route to hang up the race tokens in the tree and the standard pre-race trip was more exciting than usual.

“About two-and-a-half kilometres up, a young grizzly bear swam across and then stood and got all cross with us,” said Coates. “He chased us, following us up the river.

“He was huffing at us and bouncing, and being all aggressive ... He was probably trying to assert his territory; probably getting all cross with any tree that didn’t look right.”

Once past the bear, the two paddlers encountered an ornery beaver while they were hanging the tokens.

“He was swimming to and fro, looking at us and slapping the water, so I wasn’t sure there would be anything there when we got to the race,” Coates chuckled.

“That was kind of fun.”