Yukon Striker: Diving From Greater Frontiers
Dive Coasters, love them or hate them, are rising to be one of B&M’s more popular models with six being installed across the world since 2016. Known for their impressive scale, towering vertical drops with a stomach churning pause, and large inversions, Dive Coasters become instant icons for their park. However, some parks have different approaches, opting for a dive coaster that tells a story with theming elements instead of scale, such as Baron 1898 at Efteling.
Nevertheless, many parks still aim to offer the biggest and baddest rides in the name of competition and attention. For an amusement park in Ontario, Canada they aimed to do just that, while also paying homage to the park and country’s origin. This is Yukon Striker, the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest dive coaster.
What is the Yukon?
Located in northwestern Canada lies the Yukon Territory, a 432,443 square kilometer (186,272 square mile) region filled with mountains and large plateaus. The defining natural landmark of the Yukon is the Yukon River, the third largest river in North America flowing 3185 kilometers (1979 miles) northwest through Yukon and Alaska, terminating at the Bering Sea. These factors contribute to the two reasons the Yukon Territory is known. The first being it’s untouched wilderness and for the Yukon Gold Rush in 1896.
The Yukon River
The Yukon Gold Rush, or the Klondike Gold Rush to some, can be traced back to the 1870’s when prospectors journeyed to the Yukon in hopes to find gold. By 1896, approximately 1,500 prospectors were panning for gold along the river. On August 16, 1896, George Carmack, Jim Mason, and Dawson Charlie discovered gold and word quickly spread. Beginning in 1897 the gold rush began with over 100,000 people braving the expedition to Dawson City in the Yukon Territory to strike wealth.
As with gold rushes, very few managed to discover gold and by the next year it was believed that there was little gold left in the Yukon and with the discovery of gold in Nome, Alaska bringing an end to the Yukon Gold Rush. While the gold rush itself was famous, the trip was just as famous, if not, infamous. Word of the discovery of gold took so long to reach the masses due to the combination of the remote region of the Yukon and the harsh conditions. These very conditions will impact the trek of the 100,000 miners, for only 30,000 made it to Dawson City.
Everyone was challenged with life-threatening conditions as a result of icy valleys and rocky terrain. In efforts to minimize the risks Canadian officials required potential prospectors to have a year's worth of supplies to cross the border. The two primary routes to Dawson City, The White Pass and The Chilkoot Trail, were both filled with mud and steep inclines most could not overcome. To those who made it through they then needed to build or rent boats and sail hundreds of miles to the location. This treacherous journey made the Yukon Gold Rush a dangerous gamble, prompting one to weigh the decision to risk their life to potentially find wealth.
Building a Theme Park in Canada
The theme park scene in the Toronto region has been deemed as a risky investment due to the adverse weather conditions present for half of the year. Multiple companies, including Disney, had looked into building a park for the region at one point, but all were turned away from worries about return on investment and the weather. It was not until the 1970’s Taft Broadcasting would take the risk and developed plans for a theme park in Vaughan. Known as Canada’s Wonderland, the park opened in 1981 bringing with it five roller coasters, Wilde Beast, Mighty Canadian Minebuster, Scooby’s Gasping Ghoster Coaster, Thunder Run, and DragonFyre. These rides were accompanied by four themed areas including International Street, Medieval Faire, Grand Expo World 1890, and the Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera with a fifth area planned shortly after the park opened, Frontier Canada.
Frontier Canada was to be a representation of the Yukon Territory during the Yukon Gold Rush and provide guests with the opportunity to learn and experience how life was for prospectors, miners, lumberjacks, and the indigenous people. The park consulted Pierre Berton, a Canadian journalist and historian from Dawson City. Both he and Canada’s Wonderland spent time determining how to create an accurate area to appropriately represent the region, going as far as to visiting Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri to examine how they approached an 1800’s themed amusement park. Once finalized, plans called for multiple attractions including The Chilkoot Tramway and Slide, a steamboat ride, an arctic experience, and a hands on gold panning experience.
Original Concept Art for Frontier Canada
During the inaugural season, Canada’s Wonderland saw great success and immediately began plans to develop the park. However, Frontier Canada was initially delayed until the 1982 season. It was then later shelved in favor of building the International Festival. When questioned why Frontier Canada was delayed, park spokesman Mike Filey stated that they could either rush the construction of the area by removing aspects of the plan to meet deadlines, or hold off and wait for a time to do the job right. Another factor was the decision to build more attractions to encourage guests to visit multiple times, most notably through record breaking rides.
In 1984, Taft would partner with Togo to bring a unique experience to Canada’s Wonderland’s sister park, Kings Island. Known as King Cobra, it was the first Stand Up Coaster to be built in North America as well as the world’s fastest stand up coaster. Just one year after the opening of King Cobra, Taft opened a second Togo Standup at Canada’s Wonderland under the name SkyRider. While not as tall nor long as Kings Island’s, it was the world’s fastest stand up coaster. The ride featured a vertical loop, multiple hills, a helix, and a unique trick track element. In 1991, another record breaker would be built in the form of Vortex, an Arrow Dynamics Suspended Coaster, featuring the world’s tallest drop on a suspended coaster at 26 meters (85 ft.).
While these records may not have been huge, they proved that Canada's Wonderland was willing to build record breaking coasters for the masses. 2007 was the year Canada’s Wonderland was brought into the Cedar Fair family of parks and the following year the park saw the first of three Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) roller coasters. Behemoth opened in 2008 as Canada's tallest and fastest roller coaster. Four years later, Canada’s Wonderland broke the record again for tallest and fastest coaster in Canada with Leviathan, the first giga coaster from B&M.
Leviathan at Canada’s Wonderland
Diving to Greater Heights
Throughout this time period, B&M introduced the Dive Machine in 1998 with Oblivion at Alton Towers. Unlike other roller coasters, the Dive Machine coaster focused on one element, a large vertical drop. When Oblivion opened, it stood at a height of 20 meters (65 ft.), but featured a 55 meter (180 ft.) drop underground reaching a top speed of 109 km/h (68 mph) with a track length of 373 meters (1,222 ft.). Seven years later, Busch Gardens Tampa opened Sheikra, the first Dive Machine to feature inversions and reach the 61 meter (200 ft.) height mark. In addition, it stood as the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest Dive Machine. However, Sheikra would lose its height and speed title two years later with Griffon at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. All records would then be broken again with Diving Coaster at Happy Valley Shanghai in 2016.
In 2015, The Sandusky Register published an article stating they had received a memo allegedly from Bolliger & Mabillard for a new dive coaster coming to Cedar Point in 2016. In the article was a list of statistics for the proposed coaster. However when Cedar Point announced Valravn, the world’s tallest, longest, and fastest dive coaster with the most inversions as well, the stats were not consistent between Valravn and the proposed Dive Coaster. However two years earlier, Canada’s Wonderland had been planning a dive coaster of their own, one which would feature the exact stats and elements described in the Sandusky Register. Upon analyzing where to put the coaster, they decided to place the coaster in a way that would utilize the land from Skyrider, which was removed after the 2014 season. Perhaps the most notable feature the park had to build was an underwater tunnel that the coaster would need to go through, threading the helix of Vortex in the process. This tunnel was built in the winter of 2018 with the track installed, and was then covered up to hide the ride from visitors during the season.
Yukon Striker and Frontier Canada
On August 15, 2018, Canada’s Wonderland announced Yukon Striker, the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest dive machine along with featuring the most inversions on a dive machine. The ride is themed to the Yukon Gold Rush of 1897, specifically the journey. The story goes as the thousands of people tackle the perilous journey, a golden eagle soars above watching the gold rushers to see who will fall and who will succeed in discovering the riches hidden in the riverbeds. For it is observing who can survive the challenges of the Chilkoot Trail and the Yukon and be able to earn themselves the title of Yukon Striker.
Along with the coaster, Canada’s Wonderland also announced a new area, Frontier Canada based off of the plans that were conceived with the park. The area is inspired by Dawson City and the surrounding area and was the conversion of the former White Water Canyon area along with a new mascot, Major McKenzie. Within this area are two other coasters, Mighty Canadian Minebuster and Vortex. In addition to various Canadian themed rides such as Soaring Timbers, Lumberjack, and Timberwolf Falls.
Animation of Yukon Striker
Riders begin the ride experience by entering the station stylized to match the aesthetic of Frontier Canada, but before they board their ride, all guests loose articles must board a ride of their own. First seen on Flying Apsaras in Western Region at Happy Valley Chengdu, there is a bin system tied to each train on the ride. Guests place all of their loose articles in a bin suspended on a track prior to boarding their train. As they board and ride the bins move across the station to the other side where riders can reclaim their articles. While it may look a bit funny, this aids in increasing the capacity of the ride as it cuts the time riders would have spent securing those articles on the platform.
Once they board they are on one of the three 24 passenger trains, each row hosting eight riders. Each rider is then secured with a harness with a lap bar and vest component locked via hydraulics and a secondary seat belt. Once clear, away goes the floor and it is time to soar and riders take a banked right turn into the 68 meter (223 ft.) lift hill. Once at the top riders take a slow right turn offering a panoramic view of the park and then engage with the holding brake. Riders are held over the 75 meter (245 ft.) drop for approximately three seconds and then drop into a tunnel under the lake and through Vortex’s helix. It is at this moment the ride achieves its top speed of 130 km/h (80.8 mph) and enters a massive immelmann. The ride then takes riders through three back to back to back inversions with a zero-g roll, a vertical loop (a first for any dive coaster), and an immelmann into the block brake. The ride then finishes with a smaller drop into an airtime hill and a helix before entering the brakes.
Overall riders travel 1,105 meters (3,625 ft.) of track with a ride time of just over one minute from the top of the lift to the final brakes. Overall with its three trains and incorporation of the block brake, the ride is capable of dropping 1,310 riders every hour. To see first hand how the ride is, check out the POV below!
Did the Ride Strike Gold?
Upon opening on May 5, 2019, reception to the ride was overall positive. Many praised the ride for it’s smooth and exciting ride experience, claiming it to be one of the best rides at the park. In Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards, the ride debuted at 34th place and won best innovation of 2019 for it’s loose article storage system.
In our Vote Coasters poll, Yukon Striker has seen success as well. In 2020 it debuted as the third best dive coaster placing at 145 out of 1,211 coasters. It managed to maintain that position in the 2021 Vote Coasters poll, rising to 135 out of 1,381 coasters. The ride serves as a major attraction for Canada’s Wonderland and will be a must do attraction for any thrill seekers in the region.
That is all I have to share on Yukon Striker, it was fun writing this article and I intend to write more posts of this nature. If you have any opinions on Yukon Striker, leave a comment below or engage with us in a conversation on Twitter or Instagram. Thank you all for reading and keep an eye out for more posts in the future!
- Andrew