Two Inuvik Residents (while in Dawson) Ask Me… Where Are You Going?

I say “Inuvik”

Man Responds – “Once you get up there and see the beauty, you won’t want to come back here.”

Woman Responds – “You know what You are Getting Into… Right?”

This is how our day started yesterday.

This is how it ended - My boots after the day. My bright
yellow jacket is now brown - and not so reflective.



The road, before it gets too bad. Sorry no pics of bad road...
too busy trying to get through it.

The road was a test. It was a test on how well I packed. It was a test on how well I put my bike together before I came. It was a test on how well I could ride, and most importantly, it was a test in dealing with fear.

I was not so frightened with myself. Sure there were times when I could feel the rear end sliding in sideways across the mud… but Michael taught me how to ride… he covered that. What was frightening was the unexpected. You would be riding along and what looked like mud… the same mud you were riding fine across minutes before… changed. You could tell you had crossed onto something else by the way that it felt, not the way that it looked. Suddenly it was water logged and loosey-goosey like glacial silt mud or quicksand. Then you could feel your stomach fall as you tried really hard to ride it through, desperately trying not to move too much, give it brake or move the steering. Just ride it through. There were parts of really wet mud where the water pooled on top and didn’t sink in. It sort of reflected milky white on top…. Although it looked frightening, it tended to be more stable.

I bet the Inupiat language has lots of words for mud…. Just like it does for snow or ice.

Visibility is down to nothing, and with all the mud, you can't see tail lights... even flashing ones. Lots of trucks on road.

I ran out of gas. That was my intention. I wanted to know exactly how far I could go… I have no fuel gauge. I made it to 252 miles. The destination was 253. This was the kind of day that it was. I switched to reserve and made it in without touching my emergency fuel. Jaz tapped into her emergency fuel 10 miles back - she as a gas gauge. Her bike cost $15,000 more…

I learned later in the day 4 motorcycle riders went down on the road yesterday. 2 north of where I am, 2 south. 3 of the bikes were not ride-able. I talked with two of the riders that went down. They described a road at least twice as bad as what I have already covered. 223 more miles north, and then turn around and redo the entire 450 miles again. George said that the ruts were over a foot deep and the boggy tundra makes it impossible to pass anywhere else. The quicksand/silty mud gets worse too. Greg said that as you near Inuvik, there are dark spots in the road.. these are bad. He described areas of deep very slippery clay that have a thin skin of dryness on top. He said the motorcycle nobbies shed the skin and drop the bike sideways right out from underneath you. This sounds incredibly appealing… don’t you think?

Hmmm… I am beginning to wonder what it will be like to be a Canadian resident, eh?

Jaz and I sit in the café and drink coffee.

She continues to steal the creamer from the table with an innocent look on her face... slides them off one at a time… for the road… she says.

Large trucks carrying supplies to Inuvik own the road...

I Forgot my Bra… now I know why my bike bag is so light…

Need I say more?

I tried to pack really light for this trip… only the essentials. I believe that ultimate lite packing is only 3 pair of underwear: one to wear, one that is drying out from being hand-washed the night before and one pair that is dry (should you fall… say in the Yukon River). Everything beyond that is a frill. I forgot my extra bra… that is dry. Oops. Oh well. Jaz and I also had the discussion that should we need to condense further and choose between the French press and clean underwear… well… I think y’all know what I would say to that.

I woke up in Dawson with bed sheet wrinkles pressed into my face deeply… this was on account of that Black Death I drank from a brewery in British Columbia the night before…. it is appropriately named. We wandered out and asked a local for a good place to eat and she rattled off a few places to go. While we talked a bird swooped in and actually pooped on her head. Talk about the mark of nature. She said crap (Really), I was thankful it missed me, and she laughed it off good hardly and claimed it was okay because “It’s shower day today”… which made us wonder what would happen if it had occurred after her shower. I love Canadians. They must have large farms of pigs everywhere. I have only been in Canada two days now and I have had a ton of ham and bacon. Except here it is rashers of bacon(?).

There are no words or pictures that can explain the absolute beauty of this place. I thought about how I could possibly capture this section of the Dempster from the Klondike cutoff to Eagle Plains… and I fall short. It felt like the Top of the World for a short while – then instead of driving along the ridge of the world you plunged down into her valleys. If, on the Taylor your ride the top, well on the Dempster you ride her bottom.

Eventually you find yourself passing through vast mountain valleys, treeless from elevation (I assume). Unfortunately I was battling the elements and got no photos. I am hoping the return trip will provide me with weather more suitable. Valleys gave way to swamping muddy bogs filled with black spruce and mosquito infested waters.

The first part of the road was still pretty navigable, but as the rains continued, the road deteriorated into what Jaz is now calling IFR (Insanely Flipping Risky). Click on Ice Gals link to see her blog about this trip. The mud got very deep and very squirrelly…. And y’all know how I feel about squirrels!

The rain rain rain made it a real challenge, and I kept riding up on Jaz. It seemed it worked better for her to go through the mud slow. It worked better for me to low through faster… we didn’t match. At some point we picked up a college professor from Edmonton, Mike. Mike was on a Suzuki and was riding solo for 3 months. I have realized on this trip that although Jaz is a highly skilled rider she is also F*cking insane. Jaz believes that if I continue on the current path I am on I will graduate from crazy to insane as well. Hmmm.

Klondike Kate's... home of Black Death (and great food and service)


The streets of Dawson.. are not paved


Garbage truck of Dawson had a pirates flag on it!

Let’s spend Canada Day in the U.S. and the 4th of July in Canada…

I took this photo near the Canadian border from On Top of
the World Highway

We awoke to rain in Tok. The Amish gremlins were still camped out, but the coffee was fresh and good straight from the jet boil French press… life was good. This holiday has every RV in Alaska headed towards Eureka to camp in a gravel pit (at least the locals), but all the tourists seem to be wandering aimlessly. I suspect we will be in that camp for the day.

From Tok, just down the line, is the junction to the Taylor highway – the trail to Chicken and the U.S. Customs.

Not long after turning onto the Taylor the road deteriorated enough that I got a smile on my face… soon pavement turned to broken pavement… broken pavement to gravel, gravel to dirt… dirt to dirt and potholes filled with water…. To the final outcome… mud! I declared with joy… “YES! Mud”. Jaz declared… “shiiit”.

Jaz and her rear end slid consistently over the course of several hours… she also got very good at pointing out where the deepest water filled potholes lurked… by hitting them. She claims this was all in the spirit of marking the way for me. I missed the ones I wanted to and plowed through some of them intentionally… nothing makes you smile like a kid than dirt…

Later in the day the mud dried to dust… and Jaz proceeded to dust me out for the rest of the ride. I arrived safely to the Yukon River with a nice white sheen. No issues from the nice folks on the Canadian border… this time. Perhaps they had their hands filled with the holidays?

The scenery over the Top of the World was spectacular as always… and I thought about the last time I came through in my truck. This is definitely one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.

Once we ferried our bikes across the mighty Yukon, we rolled into town where folks were cheering on the conclusion of a very long kayak race from Whitehorse. We found out hotel… a refurbished ATCO trailer hidden behind the gorgeous building pictured on the website, dusted our boots off and headed to Klondike Kate’s for a beer.

We should have been suspicious of local beer (BC) called Black Death Porter and Angry Scottish Ale… the alcohol content was much higher than amerika pisswater… and boy.. one beer later, with all that travel… and we were both toast!

We both fell on the bed and slept like babies until the morn.

Good thing… today the real trip begins. 450 miles straight to the top of the world. Who knows what connectivity and the Amish will bring. I have no cell phone connectivity anymore… the Iphone has become a paperweight.

GPS Tracking code for Huckleberry

Here is the GPS tracker code for the Inuvik trip.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0QS9aMYSXoeqa10zZImLMjVlMJEvy6krY

Stuck in Eagle Plains.

The Roads to Canada are paved with Flowers

Flowers growing wild along the Richardson Highway

We headed out of Anchorage for a repeat of the first 318 miles from previous weekends… past the city of god all the way to “one toke over the line”. The Richardson was in full bloom with many types of flowers. We saw trumpeter swans with their chicks, moose, and lots of squirrels.

I was not as stressed out packing for this trip , as I had gotten into the routine of throwing everything on the floor from the previous trips… so I had less distance to go to gather the items for this trip! I spent more time fiddling with the bike getting it finally up to conditions. The gas cans mounts are nifty and allow me a range of 350 miles away from civilization before I have to worry. The distance between Dawson, YT. CA and Eagle Plains is 255 miles, and this is the longest leg of this particular journey.

I kept trying to update the blog in Tok, but the Amish gremlins kept technology at bay… in fact at some point in frustration Jaz said..

I will give you some bandwidth… let me sign off –

We decided the wireless connection goes to a hub that is then connected via a dial-up. We entertained ourselves trying to recreate the sound effects of a 14.4 modem.

We gave up and focused on breakfast. I will have to play catch-up to the catch-up. We relaxed and talked about holidays, time without work, dropping out of society and never looking back. At one point I caught her looking at a hot pink post it note… I asked her what it said… cause she seemed to be chanting it internally and burning into her head whatever such a critical message is that would require her to carry it around with her in her pocket… she read it to me…

“Remember to go back to work on July 11”

“I Suggest You Don’t Go Up There Without a Rifle” -

Sea ice not far from Point Barrow

I spent almost the longest day of the year in the furthest community on the North American continent – Barrow, Alaska. Kim lived in Barrow for 15 years, and her family is still there. I tagged along for the visit. Barrow, like any other Alaskan bush community.. was low on pavement and high on dust. The interesting setup for city water makes water a precious and expensive resource, so VERY VERY short showers is the norm. We spent the whole weekend on a 4-wheeler, and I was surprised that gas was not that expensive… about $4.50 gallon (probably $4.10 in Anchorage). Milk however came in at $10.99 a gallon.

I visited the Inupiat Heritage area, saw a couple of native dances, took some great pics, and tried to get to Point Barrow – the highest point on the continent. We got to the very end of the northern most dirt road, and then a little bit more on a 4-wheeler trail, but we stopped there. Locals (including Kim) said polar bears are frequent there and we shouldn’t venture up there without a rifle. Not wanting to tangle with a polar bear, we stayed off the point. The wind was raging, and the sea ice was all around; the blue of the sky blended with the water, and all that seemed to break it up was ice.

Global warming is very apparent in places like Alaska. The ice melts sooner… putting village whale hunters at risk. Polar bears wander through town more frequently. Everyone in the community keeps an eye on the kids and those that don’t have the sense to stay close or take a rifle with them when they wander off…

Kim took me out to enjoy the tundra… and that we did! The tundra is very spongy, and the flowers and spots of color are very subtle, much like the traditional desert. The ground was very marshy and wet, and mud was everywhere. We tried to make it south of the community, but the water and mud was too much even for the 4-wheeler.

We stopped at an old beached ship called the Nanuq (Inupiat for Polar Bear) and played like kids on her deck.. Arrghhh! (Next time I go I need to take a hand-made pirates flag to raise up her landlocked mast).

We sat in the library and listened to story time, had some great meals, went to Pepe’s for the farthest North of the Mexican border tacos, and visited with old friends and family.

The sun never sets for 3 months of the year here. At one point I got confused because it seemed like there were two suns in the sky… the dimmer sun masked in thick cloud cover… and a brighter moon shining through thin cloud cover… what a trip!

Now that I’m caught up on the last two trips… I will move on to the current trip…

Riding my motorcycle to Inuvik, North Western Territories, Canada..eh?

Catch-up (Eagle 2 weekends ago)

I took this photo from the bluff overlooking the Yukon River
near park headquarters.

Even though I left Anchorage yesterday for great adventure… I am playing catch up on the last two weekends. Summer is busy!

I last blogged about my Eagle trip. It was spectacular. I got to visit with old friends, make new friends and… well… fall in the Yukon River.

Fort Egbert is one of our national historic landmarks and Eagle is a historic district. The opportunity to take photos of this area and also Calico Bluff was one of the driving forces to come out this way. The other major driving force was to get a chance to visit and say hi to Pat and Lou in person. Every year I get to talk with Pat on the phone about the goings-on for the Yukon Quest staging out of Slaven’s Roadhouse. I thought the Taylor Highway would be good practice on packing for the Inuvik trip, and the chance to say hi.

I got the opportunity to get out on the Yukon River to photograph Calico Bluff and ride along with the ranger to visit a couple of homesteaders. Calico Bluff was gorgeous in all its geologic wonder. We landed near the homestead and while the ranger visited with Andy, Jaz and I got to chat with Kate.

Kate is originally from Newfoundland, and their homestead had a great setup with solar/wind generation. Greenhouses, hunting and a fish wheel (the biggest damn fish wheel I have ever seen!) State of the art setup to live off the land. Kate runs a blog.. learn more about her lifestyle here:

http://alaskayukonadventure.blogspot.com

One of Kate and Andy's greenhouses on their Yukon homestead.

When we left her spread, and headed back to Eagle, I was helping the ranger bring the boat back onto the trailer… and I lost my balance… between that and my waders stuck in the silty mud, I basically sat down in the Yukon. This river is COLD! Frigid cold to be exact. I got back up and headed towards shore. The ranger followed and asked if I was wet… I said I was.. and he commented that I needed to get out of those clothes right away… I said “of course… I am right now” and started stripping on the beach… you never saw a ranger run faster… lol! I had an emergency change of clothes handy right on my bike..

We pressed on from Eagle straight to Valdez and took the ferry back to Whittier. It gave us the opportunity to unwind on the boat and process photos… it is all about the photos. I decided to get a business license as a photographer.. I have created a new website. Someday I will build it. Until then Jaz and I wanderer the Alaska countryside aimlessly…

Catchup #2 – Last weekend I went to Barrow. But right at the moment.. I’m too drunk to talk about it… lol.!