Discovery by Sketch
Narrative Painting Along the Donjek Traverse
Kluane National Park, 2025
The Donjek Route in the Yukon Territory's Kluane National Park is a largely trail-less route named for the Dän Zhùr berries. The Southern Tutchone peoples use these as decorations on beaded work. The highlight of the route is the Donjek Glacier, which rumbles its calving ice into the muddy Donjek River.
t’s an ambitious loop that required carrying 10 days worth of food and what is frequently a very dicey glacial river crossing. However, it represented a personal milestone in my decades-long recovery from a foot injury. Could I carry the amount of weight needed? Could I handle my anxiety over the possibly waist-deep river crossing? Yes and yes!
Rather than a sketchbook, I used a folded half sheet of Fabriano cold press watercolor paper. I roughed in a loose pencil line curving around the paper in approximation of the route. Then I sketched a continuous series of vignettes along the line, directly in pen or watercolor.
The painting is neither to scale nor entirely geographically accurate (though we did travel right to left assuming that south is up.) But it fully captures what stood out to me at the random intervals provided by snack breaks.
All photos by Ben McLuckie