We set off from Hyder at 8am. After entering Canada – Hyder’s on the border – we drove through a small town and then rode for 150 miles without seeing any habitation and only a few vehicles! Indeed for the next 250 miles we passed no towns or hamlets and just a very few motels and petrol stations. All we saw was massive lakes, massive mountains and massive forests. My motorbike friends may joke about the enormous petrol tank on my bike but they wouldn’t if they were out here!
Not sure what I think about Canada. The people are friendly and the prices of things OK, but its vastness and desolateness makes it only suitable for a certain kind of person I guess – suspect that’s why most of its population just live in a few cities mainly on the East coast. Also the wild life seems to be in hiding as far as I’m concerned. Just one moose today! I also wonder if it’s a bit over hyped for you see people casually cycling around miles from anywhere without a care in the World?
Tomorrow we chug towards Alaska – again. 400 miles to Haines Junction: Oh, by the way, I’m currently in the Yukon at Watson Lake and riding through the Yukon all tomorrow. By tomorrow night we’ll have done nearly 3000 miles and be quite near the half way point which, frankly, I’m looking forward to. The jury’s still out as to whether I’ll do the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay. I’ll more or less definitely do the first 250 miles of it to Wiseman but after that its 250 miles of packed dirt road!
Indeed the roads are surprisingly good over here – please touch wood for me. A couple of guys were here 3 years ago and both are surprised how much new road has been laid. Let’s hope it continues.
I’m staying in weird place tonight, ‘The Airforce Lodge’, which is the last remaining one of its type. It’s a prefabricated building designed to house American transit pilots who flew new American war planes to Fairbanks where they gave them to Russian pilots who flew them on to Russia and used them to fight the Germans in WW2. Apparently there were thousands of these lodges the caretaker said – this one has been completely refurbished. Quite an irony that the caretaker is a good German from Hannover!