Crossing Canada

27 July 2024

When travelling, it is frequently the things that go wrong that stick in the memory and make for entertaining stories later on. At the time though, it doesn’t always seem that way and for one of our party at least we would wish things had been different. More of that later.

I ended my last installment on the road heading north and west, finally out of the smoke, towards Whitehorse (A). By now I had covered over 11000 km (approximately 7000 miles) since Halifax. The Ducati was behaving impeccably (I hesitate to write that for fear of a jinx), purring along in the unhurried manner that we were all adopting. The riding is easy and low stress with empty, open roads, few junctions and fewer towns to hinder our progress, but nonetheless it was high time the bike was treated to a change of oil; I planned to do that in Whitehorse, the biggest town in Yukon and through which we would be passing. I was able to do it without problem in a motorcyclist’s campsite just outside the city, where the owner gave me free rein of his extensive workshop. It was s good feeling to have looked after the bike; I take the view that if I look after the bike, it will look after me. Tyres are another item that normally would need to have been changed by now, but the ones I have on (Dunlop Trailmax Missions, for interested bikers) seem to be indestructible; amazingly after this distance they seem to have worn only about half the available tread. Maybe they will take me all the way.

Just after Whitehorse we left the Alaska Highway as our route tuned north on the Klondike Highway which follows the Klondike River to the goldrush town of Dawson City (C). I came here seven years ago near the beginning of my long ride down to Ushuaia (see loosenuts.blog), and I was delighted to find that little had changed.

The names are evocative of the history of the clamour for gold that gripped America and indeed people from all over the world at the end of the 19th century. These parts seem remote even now, Dawson is more than 530 km north of Whitehorse by a smooth well made road. In 1896 to 1898, up to 100,000 people attempted the journey either by navigating the Yukon river or traversing the mountains on foot. Many thousands died. The early centre was in a place named Forty Mile, some way to the west, but a strike in Dawson in 1896 led to the rapid growth of Dawson City, which became home to an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 miners and prospectors, and the purveyors of the infrastructure that grew up to service their needs. Some people made it rich and the town prospered, saloons lined Front Street and the town earned the soubriquet “Paris of the North”, maybe aided by its well-run brothels! The huge amount of gold that was being found by painstaking hand mining and panning brought big investors and mining dredges. A big strike in Alaska to the west led to a third of the inhabitants of Dawson leaving within a month, and the town started its decline. Happily for us, it remains largely as it was 120 years ago. Buildings have been preserved rather than rebuilt, and although it may be a moot point as to what is original and what is pastiche, the preservation has been in parts quite meticulous and it feels real. This is no Disneyfication.

A note on the hardships experienced by the prospectors in the goldrush: My sister-in-law’s Dutch great grandfather travelled up to the Klondike and his story is related in letters sent home. The first two set the scene, but the third letter is completely harrowing as it tells the story of his exploits – of a group of 400 men setting out only four survived. Do read this:

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AtaTmt8WjKqm8VVYxG1JQI-U0HzX

Dawson was the place where three of us had visited before (separately), and it became a goal in our minds. Great to be here, and we had allotted an extra day.

Some things can be seen as either good fortune or bad. Some are both. There is no denying that for a group of four men aged from 60 to 70, certain health issues become more common. For one of us, a common benign problem became an extremely uncomfortable and acute emergency. We had been in remote regions, sometimes a few days ride from any sizeable towns, and we would be in remote wilderness again in the coming days. So for this to happen while we were in Dawson, which now has a small but well equipped hospital, was an almost unbelievable piece of good fortune. My friend was seen and had an emergency minor procedure that produced almost instant relief in a very short period of time. The initial assessment, diagnosis and procedure were all conducted by a nurse who exuded competence as well as empathy. It was very impressive. The doctor took pains to help us plan the follow up treatment in a way that would allow us all to continue with our travels. I hope that would also be the case in the UK, but I’m not sure.

While in Dawson, I learned that Jasper had been evacuated as it was being threatened by wildfire – residents had been given five hours to leave. Then we heard that the town had been devastated. Today I saw it had reached the BBC news. It is heart-rending, seemingly all the more so as we spent an afternoon there just a week previously (see previous post Rocky Mountain Heaven).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cgerp77q1ynt

On the same day, we learned that the road we had ridden from Muncho Lake to Whitehorse two days previously had been washed away at Coal River by a sudden deluge – there is no detour under 1000 km. Then we heard that the Klondike Highway we took to Dawson City literally the previous day was closed by a landslide. And you may remember from a previous post that we stayed in Kicking Horse, just outside Golden, about 10 days ago – well Golden is now being evacuated under threat of fire and the road will be impassable. I am hopeful that the risk of fires will be diminishing now as rain has arrived and our luck holds. But that won’t help the poor sods whose homes and communities have already been destroyed.

On leaving Dawson City, we retraced the route I had taken previously riding into Alaska over the Top of the World Highway. I enjoyed it even more this time, possibly due to greater familiarity with riding on gravel roads, maybe a little less anxiety about a long and unknown route ahead, and maybe being in the company of Val and other experienced riders. It is a stunning road, it really does feel like being at the top of the world as for long distances the ground falls away on both sides as the road navigates a ridge through the Yukon and then Alaskan wilderness. For the most part, dense forest has given way to tundra and the views extend to mountains on each horizon. It is fun to ride the gravel and dirt, the bike squirming beneath us a little but mostly still feeling secure. I would have liked it to continue for more than the 170 km between Dawson and our destination for the night at Chicken. I’ve written about Chicken previously when I rode from North to South a few years ago – see https://loosenuts.blog/2017/07/06/a-twist-of-fate-its-about-the-bike/ if you’re interested. Suffice to say it is a tiny community that remains a relic from gold mining that happens to be on the only road in the region connecting Alaska to Canada (the TOTWH), so continues to exist. But it was great to be back, the cafe and saloon were as welcoming as ever, and it is the perfect place to meet other travellers and swap stories. I particularly enjoyed meeting a 21 year old guy from Montana called Bo (Beau?) on an old KTM 990 – he is clearly an exceptionally talented rider and flies about on the dirt roads at speeds that would be lethal to ordinary mortals. He has ambitions to enter the Paris-Dakar rally in the near future as an amateur. I introduced him to the concept of maps printed on paper…

We are headed for Anchorage, where Val’s brief adventure will end, but on the way have stopped for a couple of days at a remote lodge on the banks of Tangle Lake. We arrived yesterday in teeming rain, it looks very much like parts of Scotland but on steroids. Today is drier – it was good to get out for a short hike in the tundra, carrying our can of bear spray. We have been on a constant lookout for wildlife, we know that both black and grizly bears are abundant, as well as moose and herds of caribou but so far we have not seen any other than a few black bears as reported previously.

Tomorrow will bring about 100 km of gravel road – it is the original Denali Highway, the only route to the Denali National Park and Mt McKinley but is now rarely used. I’m hoping for dry weather, and wildlife sightings galore.