Alaska 2012

Yesterday we enjoyed a great ride along the Canadian Rockies, stopping at a glacier and then getting to Banff (a major ski resort in winter) by mid afternoon. As I rode I couldn’t but help compare the ride to those I’ve done in the Alps. Riding the Alps is a far more dramatic experience, the roads go through and over the mountains (often very twisty) which seem crammed quite tightly together. In the Rockies the road just meanders through the mountains’ valleys (usually next to a river) and the mountains seem more spaced out. Indeed I guess that sums Canada up.

The glacier was interesting, but I which I’d done the guided tour which a couple who rode on their own did. My group all walked to the bottom of the glacier and ogled its very dirty ice and the markers that showed how much it had receded since 1845. The other two caught a coach to the top of the glacier and then descended along it in a sort of ski lift before being dropped off to walk on it.

The hotel in Banff is good and I had a very nice evening yesterday eating, drinking and talking with about five others on subjects that weren’t motorbike focussed – which was a very pleasant change.

I might ride by myself today as there’s about 200 miles to go to our next destination, in Waterton National Park, and some will want to go the difficult way but I’ve decided to go the straight forward way as driving on a main road isn’t like driving on an English motorway where the authorities that be have made sure you can’t see any scenery and your part of one giant slow moving traffic chicane. Over here (remote under populated Canada) I have seen few motorways and there aren’t many cars about plus you’re usually directed through stunning countryside.

As I drive along the road of a day I think of things to write about in the blog and then I forget them when I get to the motel and start typing in the evening: So I apologise for the blog missing out on a lot of detail. For instance: today we rode for about 50 miles in fairly populated (for Canada) countryside until reaching Alberta where we drove for miles and miles on nearly empty roads again. The climate in that part of Alberta is quite temperate and the countryside is rolling hills – but imagine rolling hills as you know them but on steroids! Everything is just on a vaster scale in Canada. I can recall cresting the brow of a hill to be met with a vista stretching as far as you could see to the horizon (20 miles?) of densely forested rolling hills with a road weaving through them into the far distance. Just one empty road – the one we were on. The sky was blue with wispy cloud and it was warm. Now this is picture book scenery which rates an exclamation of “Oh wow”. The trouble is though, you then crest another brow and there’s an even more impressive sight – and so it goes on and on.

Journey’s end today was Jasper in the Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies which as you can see from the Wiki entry continues the “Oh wow” theme – as will the Icefields Parkway ride we’re doing tomorrow.

The downside to all this is a) you get blasé about the scenery and b) due to the nature of this trip we never stay anywhere long enough to explore it. So you’re always left thinking about what you missed.

PS Animal watch today was quite poor – just loads of deer and mountain goats.

Tonight we’re staying in an OK motel in Jasper – a real tourist town in the Park. And due to a booking cock up Symon, John and I are all sharing a room: c’est la vie.

Have arrived at Dawson Creek – mile ‘zero’ of the Alaska Highway i.e. the start of it. I’m tired and thirsty and the ride – apart from the first 60 miles of a 400 hundred mile run was fairly uneventful i.e. long straight roads through fairly ‘English’ countryside. Hope tomorrow is better.

Interesting day today: We left Teslin at 7am with the temperature at about 7 degrees C and drove east towards Watson Lake through the rugged but beautiful Yukon country. Soon after Watson Lake we turned south into British Columbia whose countryside was gentler and richer – though still full of trees, lakes, mountains and rivers with more or less nobody living in it. The temperature started to climb and our animal count went through the roof – dozens of black bears which you could stop nearly next to. They’d just sort of look at you at carry on grazing. They’re also smaller than you’d think – about the size of a fat St Bernard or just a bit bigger. We also saw a Bison and a Grizzly – who we didn’t go near. And I’m sure I saw an Otter or Beaver swimming in a lake we passed.

After several hundred miles – we did over 400 today – we started riding alongside the Northern Rockies – through beautiful valleys where the road often ran alongside swiftly flowing rivers.

Journey’s end was Toad River Lodge, a motel that is straight out of an old American movie i.e. it’s old and falling apart, dust blows all about, it’s hot and you aren’t sure what you’ll find when you open a drawer in the very seedy apartment that cost $100 for two the night! However the motel’s café did a good “Rib’its” and our shower room seems clean and has clean towels. We’ll only be staying here one night before riding another 400+ miles to Dawson Creek which is mile zero on the Alaska Highway. In short we’ll have ridden the whole highway by tomorrow night.

Yesterday afternoon I spent In Dawson City museum on my own. It was very interesting and included an exhibition of ‘panning for gold’ using original equipment. For those who haven’t made the connection: Dawson City was briefly the capital city of the Yukon region and was founded as a result of the gold rush in the late nineteenth century. Basically it went from boom to bust in just a few years and while mining for gold continued for most of the last century by one or two large companies, the flood of individuals looking to make their fortunes was over in a very few years.

Life was clearly very hard for those who made the trek to the Yukon but equally it must have been just as hard in the slums of London or various places in the USA or people just wouldn’t have upped and left to face such an uncertain future. Indeed I have concluded that it is impossible to really understand how people felt and coped in such a vast and inhospitable country before cars, trains and planes and modern utilities were common place. They were different times and people’s expectations and lifestyles were totally different to today.

After leaving Dawson City we rode alongside the Klondike river for a while (a bit of a clue there about this being gold country) and then on to Whitehorse, the capital city of the Yukon. We rode for about 300 miles through wilderness – or mountains, forests and lakes: There are a lot of them in Canada. In all that time we probably passed through about three little trading posts of a few houses where there’s a store that sells petrol and groceries – one also had a café where we had a quite pleasant lunch. Apart from that there’s no habitation and the wildlife continues to be in hiding when I ride past – one baby bear and one deer is all I saw apart from birds and squirrels!

After coffee in Whitehorse we rode rapidly on to Teslin (see piccies) where a motel was booked. We got in at about 5.30 pm and after a shower and a meal I’ve just had time to blog before going to bed ready for another early start tomorrow. Guess that’s the biggest problem with this trip – the long days in the saddle.

Yesterday John, Symon and I (Mike left by him self earlier) rose in leisurely style at about 8 am; had breakfast – first motel to include it – and then set off at about 9.30 in pouring rain! We rode to the gold prospecting town of ‘Chicken’ on perfect roads for about sixty miles. After a coffee and helmet clean up at Chicken we rode on – on wet, muddy, dirt road for 30 miles to the Canadian border. While riding took a lot of concentration the views where amazing and I’ve made some hi-def video shots with my on bike cam recorder for when I get home. The good news was that the rain had let up by now and by the Canadian border it had stopped. Once over the border we were initially on good roads and again were goggle eyed by panoramic views of mountains all around us – though you do start to take the view for granted as the tens of miles clock by. Sadly the good road soon disappeared and we rode the best part of 60 miles to the Yukon River on gravel roads.

Riding on gravel roads is interesting: it feels a bit like your on ice in that the front of the bike (and the rear) just keeps sliding by a few inches from side to side all the time. And, totally counter intuitively, if the front squirms too much in thick gravel you accelerate and the quicker you go the less it squirms. So we batted along at about 50 to 60 mph and got to the Yukon River by 4 pm where we boarded a free ferry boat – it took about 10 cars at a time – before riding into Dawson City.

Dawson City is either a gross tourist attraction or a bit of the past preserved – depends whether you’re a cynic or not. Must admit I can take it or leave it. By ten in the evening and after a few beers it became apparent that everybody and their mother was out partying; then someone told me it was Canada day! Most of us spent the later part of the evening in the casino which is owned by a charitable trust that puts any profits back into Dawson City. The stage act was pretty good and I had an enjoyable evening before retiring to bed.

Today is a rest day before a long old haul south again tomorrow. Slowly we start to head back to America now – though on the way I will pass near if not through Cranbrook, British Columbia where my great grandfather (maternal side) started life anew (when he was about sixty) early last century – I think I got that right. If we do I may stop and photograph the grave for my sister!