PA5: Whitehorse to Prince Rupert

Just one out of the three hosts I had messaged were able to offer me a place to stay.
Both were passionate cyclists who had made extensive use of Warmshowers in the past. Over the course of my stay I got the impression that they were hosting as an act of reciprocation, rather than a joy in its own right.
With three small children running around they were probably just absolutely shattered. Never look a gift horse in the mouth; I was glad to take a break and wash up.

Whitehorse has a distinctly affluent feel compared to many of the urban areas I visited in Alaska.
There is a brilliant riverside bike path that runs the whole width of the city centre, with lots of little enclaves equipped with picnic tables. 

Several shops offer canoe, kayak or packraft rentals and several tourist trap places stock products like fireweed honey, speciality teas and nuggets of gold.

Typical of most of the population centres in both Canada and Alaska, there were a couple of shops selling cannabis. Decided to pop in and have a chat with the owner about the laws in Canada.

Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister of Canada, legalised weed in October 2018.
The minimum age to purchase is 18.
The maximum you are allowed to possess is equivalent to 30g of dried cannabis.
Every citizen is allowed to grow up to 4 plants for personal use. Laws vary by province.

During my various campsite stays I’ve probably met more people getting stoned than having a beer.

Located astride the surging Yukon river, Whitehorse used to be the main point of access for prospectors intending to head downriver to the gold fields.
Large flat-bottomed ‘sternwheelers’ plied the route. SS Klondike, now a museum exhibit, is one of the only survivors.

Signs of the gold rush are everywhere in town. Original wooden buildings remain in the town centre. Several statues, including a bust of Jack London, are dotted around at different intersections.

Even the car parks are decorated with some rather heroic murals.

This historical business was all very fascinating, but I was mostly preoccupied with locating the restaurant Cooper had recommended to me on the road.

The Klondike Rib and Salmon warns customers to expect queues of at least 45 minutes at the door during peak times.

Luckily, I got in the door right away and soon found myself plonked down in front of a lovely cold pint of ‘Yukon Gold’.

‘Would you like one, two or three Salmon fillets with your chips?’ ‘You know the answer to that question.’

Topped up on battered fish and well rested, I found renewed enthusiasm to stamp on the pedals some more.

The ALCAN was closed only a few kilometres out of town, so I made a detour south to Carcross.

Found myself beating into another headwind, with the shoulder mostly covered in gravel and detritus.
The combination of wind, high rolling resistance and traffic speeding past was not a particularly enjoyable one.

A nearby mountain is called ‘Wind On Forehead’ by one of the local tribes. Sums it up rather well really.

Drivers in North America expect cyclists to stay on the hard shoulder.
They don’t try to slow down or wait behind for a good moment to pass. They just press on regardless of blind corners or whatever.

Passing vehicles usually move over a bit, even if there is oncoming traffic. This depends upon the other driver paying enough attention to move over into their shoulder to make room.

Oncoming traffic will overtake and come hurtling past head on, a foot or so from my handlebars. It’s a bit disconcerting.

Sometimes I get a blast of a horn from behind. Is it encouragement or frustration? Am I not cowering in the ditch enough to their liking?

I’m not surprised that I don’t see many of the lycra crowd out here. It really isn’t the sort of riding you would do for fun.

Visited Carcross desert just on the outskirts of town.

Another town on the prospector trail, Carcross flourished when two British businessmen constructed a railway that connected the port town of Skagway with Whitehorse.

Up to that point it had been a case of whatever could be carried on your back over the Chilcoot Pass. All the bits of steam engine required to build riverboats on the Yukon, for example.

These days there is a heavy emphasis on the Carcross-Tlingit First Nations communities present in the area.

Leaving Carcros, there are some rather brilliant views alongside Crag Lake.

Decided this would make a winning campsite and put the tent down near a lay-by.

It wasn’t long before someone else had the same idea.

Greg pulled up in his van and set up.
He’s travelled all over North, Central and South America.

He immediately recommended Pimsler for learning Spanish.

Had a chat about potential routes through Mexico.
I am torn between keeping to the pacific coast and heading down to arid Baja California, or taking a more inland route.

Greg was in favour of the latter and recommended Copper Canyon.
Others have heaped praise on Baja for its rugged scenery and beautiful beaches.
One thing that everyone agrees on is that you mustn’t linger near the Mexican border, especially near Tijuana.

According to Greg, Guatemala is an excellent place to stop and take Spanish classes: A large proportion of the population is indigenous, speaking their own native tongue. Spanish is often a second language, so language schools should be plentiful and cheap.

Saying goodbye in the morning, I made my way back up to the Alaska Highway.

On the way I met Andrew, a cyclist from New Zealand.

Definitely one of the friendliest riders I’ve run into, he had previously spent some time living in the UK and Norway, before coming over to Vancouver on a working holiday visa.

Andrew had just pedalled my planned route to Prince Rupert in reverse, so we swapped notes over a jar of Marmite.

I carried on down the ALCAN for a few days.

Getting bored and a bit dejected with the loneliness of solo travel. I began wondering whether I was making a complete pig’s ear of the whole journey. Am I moving too slowly? Am I even trying hard enough? Am I spending too much money?

I started necking maple syrup from the bottle to get a bit of zing.
A sugar rush on wheels, music belting out from my Walkman to keep the tempo. No resting long enough to get cold.
Some sort of geological marvel in the background, but didn’t stop to read the information board. Need to stay on track.

Almost reached 70 miles when I spotted a sign for a campsite. After days of wild camping, a bit of human contact ought to be just the thing?

Very important to pick the right neighbours. Roll slowly past and get the vibe from each campsite.

A dog ran out, gave me a good woofing and then came up for cuddles, tail wagging. Christina, the dog’s owner, and her Aunt, Kathy, came over for a chat.
Mind if I camp next door? No problem!

Bill, wandered over while I pitched up and invited me over to their fire for the evening.

Bill is dating Kathy, who lives down in Florida.
He reckoned he couldn’t be 100% Canadian as he loves to escape the cold and dark of winter. I really can’t blame him to be honest!
It’s a pretty common phenomena in North America. Retired folks who migrate south in the winter are nicknamed ‘snowbirds’.

Christina somehow managed to sleep two dogs and a kitten in her car, in addition to herself and all her camping clobber.

Her provisioning for the trip seemed to involve baking about a million pastries and muffins, which she offered around generously.
She’s just bought a new plot of land, planning to get a cabin built so she can get into some proper homesteading.

After Bill and Kathy went to bed we had a long chat over a campfire about life in Canada. Took turns telling stories and having a laugh about this and that.

Got invited back for an enormous breakfast. Pancakes, eggs and bacon with all the trimmings.

After making new friends it’s always a shame to say goodbye right away.
Suitably loaded down with a couple of home-made pizza rolls, I headed back down the highway.

Pedalled on to Junction 37, the beginning of the Stewart Cassiar Highway, and found a spot in the trees to camp.

Spent a night at Watson lake, before heading out on my long ride down to Prince Rupert.

Spotted a touring bike parked next to a rest area, which turned out to belong to a cyclist going the same way as me.

Marijil is a Quebecan nurse riding from Inuvik (A Canadian town on the Arctic Ocean) to Ushuaia, Argentina.

MJ enjoys collecting discarded license plates by the roadside. She isn’t entirely sure what she is going to do with them, but they get mailed home regardless. I’m glad I’m not the only crazy person out here…

She had also been struggling with the social isolation of traveling solo, so we agreed to share the road.

She had met Christina earlier, who had given her a pastry and tipped her off about a campsite where you could rent out canoes. Sounds like a good destination, let’s check it out.

Neither of us had done any touring with another rider before.
Back home I get annoyed at cyclists taking up half the road riding abreast, but we couldn’t really chat otherwise.
I spent half the time looking over my shoulder and ducking in behind her when traffic approached.

We nattered our way down the road. I got an extensive digest on all things Quebec.

MJ assured me that there is no point in buying poutine anywhere outside the province.
They really know their way around a bottle of Maple syrup too: Baked beans mixed with it, brie baked in it with walnuts on top, eggs boiled in a pot filled with it for dessert. Interesting.

The province is famously protective of its French heritage. All children must attend french speaking schools, unless you can prove that your family is not of French origin.
80% of songs played on the radio must be in French. Essentially, if you want your song to have air time in Quebec you have to re-record it in French.

Many Quebecans, especially of the older generation, speak no English whatsoever.

The PQ administration in Quebec put their independence from Canada to referendum in 1980 and lost by a narrow margin.

MJ assured me that some hardcore Quebecans believe to this day that the government cheated the election to keep the province in Canada. Many continue to resent being part of the largely English-speaking country.

Quebecans seem to get mixed reviews from the rest of Canada.

MJ’s perspective is that they are preserving their unique cultural identity.
She can trace her ancestry back to some of the first pioneers who came across the Atlantic to take a chance in the new world. Why wouldn’t she want to be proud of that?

We found the lakeside campsite, put up our respective tents, cooked our respective dinners and then took a canoe out for a spin.

The next day was constant climb and descent, with a sturdy headwind.

MJ heard that a local business, Jade City, offered free coffee. It turns out that the same way I pine for beer, she does for coffee and hot showers. Probably healthier right?

We battled our way into the wind and eventually rolled up, somewhat diminished, outside the place.

Some of the highest quality jade on the planet is produced here, mostly for export to China.
Jade City even had its own reality TV show, Jade Fever, that ran for seven seasons on Discovery Channel Canada.

I spotted a jade bear worth 25,000 dollars and suddenly became very wary of touching anything. MJ bought a necklace.

They were happy with us hanging around the place, so we ended up plonked outside on a picnic table.
I marvelled at the amount of coffee MJ chucked down the hatch with no apparent ill-effects. If I have so much as a cup of tea after midday I really struggle to sleep.

Sitting down might have been a mistake, we had started off with a plan to do 60km further, it rapidly shrunk to 40km, before we eventually just asked the store clerk where the nearest campsite might be.

It turned out to be a lovely lakeside spot with beavers busily ferrying branches over to their den. At first glance you might think someone had attached an electric motor to a bit of tree, until you saw the little mammal dragging it.

One of our neighbours had a dog that wouldn’t stop barking. They explained that they had trained it to react to large animals, such as bears, for security.
The dog hadn’t barked once during the last 12 days of camping, until tonight. Brilliant!

Eventually got to sleep, despite my trepidation.

I woke up to animal noises outside, suddenly the head end of my inner tent bulged inwards. I felt a large, soft body push up against me.

I shouted ‘HEY!’ and then waited. Heard something scurry off and then some splashing.

Gingerly poked my head out the tent, head torch on, bear spray held closely in a death grip.

The beaver was swimming away casually across the lake.

Instant relief. Head back on pillow. Zonk.

The next morning revealed the game the little bastard had played on me.

Why did it have to go there of all places?

The next few days were rainy and windy. Our earlier light-hearted chatter diminished greatly as our world shrank to the size of the task being carried out. The next hill, when will the rain stop? Will they have hot showers and coffee? I wonder if they sell beer?

MJ is without doubt a faster rider than me the majority of the time, although I seem to outclimb her on the steeper stuff. Not sure why.

We settled into our own personal struggles through the foul weather, and often lost sight of each other. MJ going on ahead.

At Deese Lake I needed to stop to make a phonecall.
We ended up staying for much of the day in the grocery store/ cafe, watching the rain outside. MJ drank around a gallon of Coffee.

Finally dragged ourselves out into the drizzle about 2pm and began the long climb to the top of Gnat Pass.

The dog followed us about 10 miles out of town, until it spotted a squirrel and shot off into the bushes, never to be seen again.

MJ confessed her mood really sinks when the weather is bad. We hadn’t really spoken since leaving the dog behind.
I could tell her energy was flagging a bit.

Offered to give her a bit of shelter from the wind and she tucked in on my back wheel.

It makes a substantial difference. The closer you can get without actually making contact, the greater the shielding effect.

Again, neither of us are experienced group riders, so it took a bit of practice to judge our respective energy levels.

Some of the little climbs I just pushed a bit harder to carry over the top, where she clicked down a couple of gears and slowed right down. This made me move too far in front and put her back out in the wind again.

I tried to anticipate and adjust my speed accordingly to avoid leaving her behind.
Ended up getting a pain in my neck from constantly shoulder checking.

Saw a sign stating 5km of descent. Much jubilation, MJ shot off ahead.

Got to the bottom to find another sign, 7km of climbing. Bollocks.

Hit the maple syrup like a fiend and popped on the Walkman. It took us right up to our very rainy campsite for the night.

The next day MJ was full of beans and zoomed off ahead of me. I was feeling less so. Felt a bit hurt to be left behind, considering the care I had taken to make her previous day easier.

20km later I caught up with her at a gas station and discovered why. They sold coffee…

Agreed on a campsite for the night and I offered that we should just rendezvous there, so no one (MJ) had to get cold while waiting for the other to catch them up.
Pedalled on at our separate paces, meeting up at the designated provincial park campground.

Once camped and fed, MJ was adamant she didn’t want to wild camp the next night. She needed a place with showers.

The next developed camp ground was 72.5 miles ahead, over mountains, into a headwind. I really wasn’t feeling it.

Not having a hot shower was making her miserable. Having to do knackering big days on the bike, followed by a couple short days due to the location of various campsites was making me miserable.

The mood was pretty glum.
I resolved to bloody well try to enjoy it tomorrow and see what happened.

The next morning MJ did a 180 and decided to wait out the day in her tent, to dry her kit out.

Her tent was only giving one or two word answers when I asked how she was doing.

I didn’t feel like we knew each other well enough that I could offer the sort of emotional warmth she might need, without seeming really creepy.

In two months of traveling this was the only person I’d met who didn’t vanish after a day or so. I was reluctant to part company.

I decided to press on with my old tried and tested 50 mile a day template and plod my way through the distance in a manageable fashion. Told her where I would be at roughly what point in the future.

Packed up and set off. Turned out to be the one day the rain wasn’t falling.
Wild camped that night and woke up to rain again. So be it…

Pedalled.
Wild camped.
Pedalled.
Met a couple of black bears.

Camped at Meziadin Junction.

Heard from a traveller that MJ was two days behind me.
Pedalled.
Wild camped.
Pedalled.
Reached Kitwanga.

Rolled into town and headed towards the RV park, with it’s fancy camp-wide WiFi, hot showers and laundry facilities.

There was free camping at the centennial park, but without any of the facilities I needed.
I spotted a vehicle and two guys waving at me.
Get clean, or socialise?

I did a U-turn and headed over to say hello.

Lorenzo and Renato hail from Italy.
Lorenzo has already driven his Toyota Land cruiser all over the world in various stages.
He invites people from his patch in Italy to come join him for a leg or two.
The guests make a financial contribution to keep the show on the road.

Lorenzo has been going for over a decade. He’s essentially a professional overlander at this stage.
Renato was tagging along on this leg, up to Alaska and back.

Communication was conducted through Renato, who had some English.
He also turned out to be the chef of the operation, and insisted on whipping us up some authentic spaghetti.

Cracked some beers and had a lovely evening pointing at maps and sharing photos of our travels.

They rolled north the next day. I moseyed over to the RV park and pitched up again.

First hot shower since Deese Lake, first but of laundry since Whitehorse.

Turned out I had camped between two RV’s from the same group. It wasn’t long before I was invited over for a chat and a beer.
Greg said “We saw this guy with his bike and were like, we need to get this guy over here!’

Greg introduced me to his mates Parker and Jonah. Their girlfriends and kids were all out here making the most of the labour day long weekend.

MJ rolled in and I went over for a natter. I’d paid up for both of us, so we could share a spot. She was planning to meet an old nursing colleague here the next day.

Parker invited me out for an ATV ride. Ostensibly to collect more firewood.

I was prepared for a relatively sedate drive, like Ted had taught me in Anchorage.

Parker hit the gas. I watched the speedometer climb up to 80km/h as we hared off down the trail.

Bits of tree were slapping the windshield. The trail was only as wide as our ATV.
Felt the wheels lose traction a couple of times, fishtailing in the mud. Parker fed power as appropriate and expertly carved through the corners.

Came up on a barn with the door open. We rolled in. Time for a break I guess?

He slammed on the power and hauled on the steering wheel. Suddenly we were going sideways, doing donuts and figure of eights.
He confessed afterwards ‘I was like, should I tell him what I’m about to do, or…?’

Jonah and Greg joined in the game too.

‘So…how do you like Canada?’ ‘Pretty good mate!’

We did actually get some firewood in the end.

Parker’s dog Shadow caught us up and joined company. He’s got a serious motor on him, easily keeping pace with the ATVs as we drove back to camp.

Great bunch of blokes, got pretty well intoxicated around the fire. I learned the important life skill of how to ‘shotgun’ a beer.

Hungover in tent all the next day. One more night?

Planned a two day ride to Terrace. The weather was so rubbish I just pressed on into town and camped at Ferry Island.

Leaving rainy Kitwanga.

Kicked about in Terrace, stayed another night at Ferry Island.

Two days to Prince Rupert. Beautiful views across the Skeena river. The weather was behaving for once!

Spotted a family of bald eagles fishing amongst the rocks.

Obviously they all flew off before I could boot up the phone…

Went over the easiest mountain pass of my life. 160m Rainbow pass.

Pedalled downhill to Prince Rupert. Very ready to be done with this ride…

‘Hey you made it!’ A car, containing Greg, zipped past.

Met Nathan out on his bike, training for a charity ride ‘Cops For Cancer’. Got invited to his place for dinner that evening.

Nathan and his partner both serve in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

They gave me a really good insight into the social situation around Prince Rupert, over a delicious BBQ dinner and a couple of cold beers.

Being ‘the cops’ on their street, they get a lot of neighbours knocking on their door at all kinds of hours. Often it can be something as banal as being asked to educate someone’s kids on the importance of XYZ.

I left late and camped at the RV park on the other side of town. I knew all hell was going to break loose the next day…

Greg and his colleague, Derringer, picked me up and loaded the bike into the back of his truck. They had just come off a night shift at the trainyard and wanted to get some time on the river before their next one.
Boat in tow, we headed back over Rainbow Pass and up the Skeena.

Met Parker, his Dad, Gord, and brother, Daniel, at their cabin.

Parker was working on putting a new covering on the roof.
We dragged the old wood stove out and installed the new one.

Time to head out on the river?

It was the first day of moose hunting season, so Daniel and Parker were both bringing their rifles along.

You aren’t allowed to shoot from a moving boat with the engine on. The plan was to hit the breaks, cut the engine and hopefully snag some dinner.

Daniel really lives jet boating. He works as a boat welder.

He made his own from scratch and repairs the others’ boats in his spare time.
It’s a real community affair.

A jet boat at full tilt will plane in mere inches of water.
If you come off the gas you will draw more water and immediately become beached.
Power is always the answer.

Daniel is a balsy pilot. He never missed an opportunity to take the shallowest possible route up the river.
You could feel the pebbles rattling under the hull.

‘We should turn back now, I don’t want to hit any rocks up here’ ‘okay, sounds good’
Immediately hit a rock.
Kind of ricocheted around the cockpit a bit.
Dan was unfazed.
The aluminium hull can take a lot of abuse in its stride.

Spent the rest of the evening cruising between cabins, keeping an eye out for moose.

Got dropped off back at the RV park the next day, early ferry to Vancouver Island the next morning.

Still got a long way to go.