Bicycle Alaska 2008: Instalment 2
BICYCLE ALASKA, 2008
by
John Berry
Instalment 2: Skagway, AK to Fairbanks, AK, via Whitehorse, YT.
Fig.1: My bicycle on the WP&Y train to Fraser, British Columbia
The weather cleared as we proceeded up the gorges, and soon we were able to see the glaciers on the other (west) side of Skagway. It was possible to stand on the footplates between the carriages and take photographs, but as we got higher and higher this became more and more chilly, and I already had a cold and sore throat, so was not able to spend all my time out there. We had spectacular views of the line before us and behind us, above and below us, as we snaked around the tight curved and doubled back on ourselves around deep and steep canyons, over
high trestles and through
Carcross was originally “Caribou Crossing”, but the Anglican bishop of the early years of the 20th Century had petitioned the post office to shorten it. In the years immediately after the gold rush it had had a boarding school for Indian children, and had also been a popular jumping off place for tourists going to the extensive lake country to the south by sternwheeler. The scant remains of the last of the sternwheelers, the Tutshi, were parked across from the Information Center, almost all of the boat having been destroyed by fire.
At the far end of the system of lakes in a beautiful valley is a place called Ben-my-Chree, or “Girl of my Heart” in Manx Gaelic. Ben-My-Chree was settled in 1912 by Otto and Kate Partridge, Manx people who had been mining nearby until an avalanche destroyed the mine and killed their best friends and partners. They built Ben-My-Chree as a hunting and fishing lodge and Kate grew a magnificent flower garden in this unlikely piece of wilderness. Until the Partridges died within months of each other in 1930, the Tutshi brought as many as 9,000 tourists a year across the lake from the rail line at Carcross to be royally entertained by them. These guests included film stars, the Prince of Wales, and President Theodore Roosevelt, and the trade continued, diminishing slowly, until 1956. I wished I could have gone there, as I was told that it was still occupied and again had beautiful flower gardens. A very touching history of the area may be found at http://www.atlinhistory.com/BMC_Story.htm.
I ate a hearty lunch of hamburger and French fries at the roadhouse on the main road in Carcross. The food tasted fine, but there was grit in my hamburger, and the place didn't seem very clean in general. I met a young marine biologist, Lucretia Fairchild, there who was on her way to Cold Bay, at the very end of the Alaska Peninsula, to spend a year studying marine mammals at Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. There were also two couples from Whitehorse, riding a Harley Davidson in one case and an off-road Honda in the other. I had a pleasant chat with them and then got on my way to Spirit Lake, 6 miles away. The wind had now become a fairly annoying and very cold headwind, and soon I was passing through the “Carcross Dunes”, an area in which the wind blew the sand deposited from old lakes around so much that vegetation could never get a hold. I was getting tired and very cold.
The Spirit Lake Lodge looked spic and span from the road, consisting of a log cabin restaurant and a row of log cabin motel rooms. On checking at the restaurant I was directed to one of a pair of cabins far away from the road, but made mistakes twice in getting there since there were other cabins, too, occupied by seasonal staff who took care of the horses and the canoes and kayaks.
My cabin was clean, but was directly in the path of the wind now blowing off frozen Spirit Lake. The bedding was just barely adequate, and I could not get any warm water in the shower, which was 200 yards from the cabin – I had apparently picked a shower whose faucet was attached the wrong way round. I asked the owner if I could do laundry, and was told that I could use their laundry, in the shower block, for $5.00. This gave me an excuse to stay in a warm place. I ate dinner there, much the same food as lunch, but of higher quality and price. There was one other customer. All in all, the person who recommended Spirit Lake Lodge to me must have had deep pockets and have been there in the height of summer!
May 19th (Monday): Spirit Lake to Whitehorse – 38 (45) miles
This day was the worst one of my trip so far, but because it was the second full day of riding I had anticipated that that would be the case. It was cold and sleeted a bit, there was a headwind, the ride started with a substantial climb to Emerald Lake and continued pretty hilly. In addition to that my shoulders, legs and butt were all quite sore. Furthermore, I got my first taste of chip seal – the mixture of minimal tar and large gravel that is used for large parts of the highways in the Yukon and Alaska. When one is feeling fine and the wind is fair, this material is not a worry – but when one is sore and the wind is foul, it shakes one to pieces! Every mile seemed to be a worse agony than the last, and seemed to take for ever.
According to Wikipedia: “Chip seals are constructed by evenly distributing a thin base of hot … asphalt onto an existing pavement and then embedding finely graded aggregate into it. Newer techniques use asphalt emulsion (a mixture of liquid asphalt, surfactant, and water) instead of asphalt. This has been shown to help reduce aggregate loss and reduce cost of installation, but can increase the occurrence of stripping. The rough surface causes noticeable increases in vibration and rolling resistance for bicyclists, and increased tire wear in all types of tire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal). Unfortunately, as I was to discover within a day or two, the newer technique mentioned above is used on the Yukon portion of the Alcan, and the muck binds pretty well to the bicycle, as well as to the road!
Eventually the South Klondike Highway ended against the Alaska Highway, and there at the intersection was a lunch wagon just like the ones on city street corners. It seemed pretty popular, and I ordered a hot dog and French fries, which turned out to be wonderful. On talking to the people running it I discovered that their father, who had started the business, came from Liverpool. I got talking to a family at the picnic table outside, and found out that the daughter had been in Botswana helping people with AIDS, and had full intention of going back to do more work of a similar nature. They asked me about US and Texas politics, and I had to tell them I strongly disagreed with many policies of the current administration.
Fig. 9: The Yukon River in Whitehorse, YT.
The ride into Whitehorse was over more gentle terrain, but there was much more traffic, and it was beginning to rain. I cyclist got on the road ahead of me, and with great effort I caught up with him. This was a mistake: the next morning I awoke with serious atrial fibrillation. This gentleman was a local who had done some touring, and told me how to get to the municipal campsite. It was a glorious descent of several hundred feet down to the banks of the Yukon River, but I knew that I would have to do it in reverse soon. The campsite office was closed, so I continued to Whitehorse, where I found the Information Center and got information on the local hostels, and left a message for Ante Tokic. I visited the excellent McBride Museum. This not only has ethnographic and wildlife displays, but a collection of old carriages used on the early trails and of ancient mining equipment. In writing this blog I have discovered that the journals of Kate Partridge of Ben-My-Chree are also kept there, so I will have to go back there on the way south. I cycled around the downtown area, which was almost deserted because it was Victoria Day, a Canadian national holiday, and then stopped for a snack at Tim Horton’s.
Tim Horton's is a sort of Canadian version of McDonald's, only to my mind much nicer. It is nationwide, and is even expanding a little into the USA. It serves good coffee and excellent donuts and other pastries, as well as sandwiches.
While I was sitting in the Horton’s Ante turned up to offer me a night in their house. He gave me directions, which involved riding up Two-Mile Hill, an ominous name. In view of this I rode around for 20 minutes taking photographs of the more interesting buildings downtown. Two-Mile Hill was every bit as fearsome as I had expected,
and I had to
Fig. 12: A gentleman from Manchester practicing throwing an Atlatl at the Beringa Center.
I then mailed a large packet of unneeded pamphlets and gear home from the Post Office, and stopped at the last grocery store in Whitehorse to buy food and a light lunch (two sausage rolls). The Canadian Post Office is a real study in contrasts versus the US Postal Service. I have never had to wait in a long line in a Canadian post office, and have always had the most pleasant service. However, I must admit that it is expensive to mail a package home from Canada.
From the outskirts of Whitehorse onwards the scenery and the weather became more and more magnificent, whereas the road itself remained relatively tame, to my relief. In front of me I could see rain showers drifting across the line of the highway, with sunlight shining among the clouds and creating rainbows behind me. To the left the mountains grew higher, and to the right was the deep valley of the Yukon. I was determined to ride 60 miles, as that was the average progress I needed to make in order to reach Fairbanks, 589 miles away, before my friends the Wiltses left for upstate New York on June 1st.
By the time I began looking for a place to stop it was quite late, about 9.00 p.m., and I began to notice the tracks of large animals along the side of the road. Some of them were definitely moose, but others were as certainly large bears. The village of Champagne turned out to have been by-passed by a change in the alignment of the road, but by the time I reached the western intersection with the old road through Champagne I had left the tracks behind, and decided to camp right there. First I needed water – I had not figured out how to use the filter bottle, was using about one bottle of water every ten miles, and was half way through my final bottle. I flagged down an RV, and a very nice couple shared their water with me. I pitched my tent and
carefully went through the routine of brushing my teeth and washing 100 yards from the tent, and hauling up every piece of food and anything that might have been in contact with food as far up a tree even further away, and as high as I could throw a rope over a branch. This turned out to be not very high, but in the event high enough. I ate some fruit, energy bars and trail mix and turned in, exhausted.
May 21st (Wednesday): Champagne – Haines Jctn – Kluane Base Camp – 77 miles
I woke up cold to find ice on the metal parts of my bicycle, and also found some beautiful wild primroses on a nearby bank. I took over an hour to get my food down from the tree, clean up a little, bury my trash, and pack. The flysheet of my tent was soaking wet from the heavy dew. I pedaled on into Haines Junction, which was about 30 miles from where I had camped,
Fig. 14: Surviving original bridge on the Alaska Highway between Champagne and Haines Junction.
In taking my clothes off the night before I found that I had inadvertently taken the key from my room at La Bicicletta, so I mailed it back to Ante and Ann from Haines Junction, and also visited the Kluane (pronounced Kloo-AHnee) National Park Reserve Visitor Center. The staff here were very knowledgeable about the glacial geology and the wildlife of the area: I briefly entertained ideas of hiking in to see some of the things they mentioned, but the distances were too great: the snout of the nearest glacier is 20 miles from the highway.
And then the fun began: the headwind in Haines Junction was strong, but I reckoned that it was being funneled into the area from the huge canyon of the Alsek River, and that I would have a crosswind after about ten miles. This was true, but I also had the highest pass on the entire Alaska Highway, Bear Creek Summit, 12 miles ahead. This pass is at an elevation of 3293
On this day the weather was warmer, probably because the altitude was lower, and the wind was generally favorable after the first 10 miles around the south end of Lake Kluane. Most hills were easy. I stopped briefly at the visitor centre at the southwest corner of Lake Kluane, and then stopped for a late lunch at Destruction Bay, where I learned that there were several long stretches of road work to come. The first one, beginning almost immediately, was 
Fig. 18: Memorial shrine to an Indian, presumably killed in a highway accident, on pass north of Kluane Lake.
Fig. 20: Old and new Alaska Highway bridges across the White River
The water in the White River, the last of the major crossings for the day, and of all the large rivers that I crossed in the following days, seemed to me remarkably low, with only the channel full and extensive sand banks everywhere else on the valley floor. Furthermore, the channels of several of the rivers I crossed in the next few days were still lined and partially choked by ice. I have always read that in northern Canada and Alaska the rivers are bankfull torrents immediately after break-up because of the concurrent snowmelt. Here we were at a point when snow melt had reached its end in the lowlands, but must have been in full swing nearer the headwaters, and the streams appeared as I imagined they would appear at the end of summer. On asking about this I was told that the rivers were low because the glacier melt upstream had not really started, but the more I thought about it the less I believed this was the main factor. I think that the main reason is that there has been less snow than usual, and this has been partially confirmed by conversations in Fairbanks and Bethel.
Climbing away from the White River I met the German girl I had been told about by Carol Johnson at the Kluane Wilderness resort. She was on a mountain bike with all new equipment, including Ortlieb panniers, and had started in Anchorage about 10 days earlier. She was riding only about 30 miles a day and camping every night in the bush. She needed water and asked about the White River Resort, which I had just passed. It was not open yet, but was the first place that I had seen someone working on, preparing to open. So there was some hope that Karen would get the water she needed.
After the White River the road became more hilly, and there were several long stretches in which the bitumen had been scraped off and the road regraded and sprayed, making for slow going that was also quite dangerous on hills. The emulsion spray-based mud tended to stick to the undersides of the bicycle, and especially to build up around the brake and gear cable guides beneath the crank shaft. On smoother stretches I began to notice a rubbing sound from the front wheel due to mud around the brake shoes. I was also having more and more trouble changing gears on the chain wheel, because I had lost a lot of strength in my left thumb and forefinger and could not push the lever over properly.
I arrived at Beaver Creek exhausted but in time to visit the Information Center to ask about accommodation. I was told that the cheaper of the two Motels in town was booked solid by the road crews, but that the Westmark Hotel had hostel accommodation for $59 per night. By the time I got across the road to the Westmark it had become $69. However there was an RV campground nearby which had tent space for $12. While booking this I found out that it was also owned by the Westmark. I also discovered that the Westmark chain, which has hotels all over Alaska and the Yukon, was owned by Holland-America, and its primary purpose was to ensure that cruise passengers had a good place to stay when they were not on board ship.
The convenience store attendant who sold me the camping space was an immigrant from India, and told me and another person in the store that his family had got into Canada from Dubai, where they were living, with no hassle and very quickly, in contrast to some relatives who had spent years trying to get in.
He directed me to Shotgun Betty’s, a hundred yards away, for a good dinner, and his advice was good. After putting up my tent and having a good shower I ate a hearty meal of hamburger and French fries there.
May 24th (Saturday): Beaver Creek, YT – 15 mi S of Tetlin Junction, AK: 87 miles
The day started inauspiciously when I put my windbreaker down on the counter in the washroom at the Beaver Creek campground, and it activated the soap dispenser which filled one side of it with a very strongly scented liquid soap. I washed it out in the sink rather ineffectively, and tried to ride without it while it dried strapped on top of the bag behind me. However, the weather was too cold for this and I had to put it back on wet and ride rather uncomfortably for a while.
The Canadian border post was right outside Beaver Creek, but it turned out to be a very long 20 miles to the actual border. The “Welcome to Alaska” sign, at which a young couple kindly took my photograph, is near the bottom of a valley. From there it is a short but steep climb to the actual border post. I waited in line after two large RV’s who were held up for a while by questioning, and then was waved straight through after a brief glance at my passport.
Five miles after the border post there was a restaurant at Border City, run by a family from Oklahoma. Here I had an excellent BLT and green salad, the first non-eggsandbacon or burger&fries I had for over a week. Less than a mile from the restaurant I met Randy Olson, headed from Fairbanks to Roseau, Minnesota, with his Husky riding in a BOB trailer behind him. The dog had little booties on its feet, because it spent a considerable time each day running alongside Randy. Randy had less gear than any touring cyclist I have met: four very small panniers. He had very little water, and was sweating profusely, so I asked him how he was going to deal with the long stretches without settlements ahead. He said that he had a filter and it would be no problem. He was wearing Lycra, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a woolen hat, and this was the second time he had made the journey.
Within another ten miles, just before the Deadman’s Creek campground, I saw a very fancy mountain bike and trailer parked in a rest area. I stopped to talk to the owner, who invited me for a cup of coffee. He was Al Atkey, a man of perhaps my own age but dressed in rags and obviously camped in this spot, using a picnic bench as his bed. His conversation was rambling, focused on his father, who apparently piloted a Sopwith Camel in WWI, and ended up in Canada. He also talked about his love for classical music and how he was going to write a biography of Bizet and get it published. He also prospected for gold in the local creeks and was going to write a book about that. Furthermore he had other get-rich-quick schemes that would enable him to retire with millions. When I asked him where he got the water that would enable him to stay in such a place (I needed to know, because I had drunk his coffee made with water that never got past a simmer, and there was no water source in sight), he said that people gave it to him. He was very overweight, but I saw no food: I wonder how he comes by that necessity of life?
Fig.21: Al Atkey and his rig, near Border City, Alaska.
Just after leaving Al I met Josh, a serious cyclist bound from Anchorage to Edmonton. I told him about Al, leaving the decision whether to stop and chat up to him. He said that some little girls in the last settlement he had passed (Northway Junction) had offered to sell him water, and perhaps Al’s passage through had had something to do with that.
Josh was the last cyclist I would see before Fairbanks – within 24 hrs I had seen all the cyclists I would see on the trip, and three of the four had been within an hour!
The day was quite warm by now, and I bowled along nicely towards Northway Junction, but there was still a rubbing noise from my front wheel. I cleaned off the brakes, and the rubbing became intermittent and got louder each mile. By about 15 miles short of Northway Junction it had become a bumping as the wheel went around, and I realized that I had a serious problem. I stopped and examined the front tire: there was a huge swelling on it. I proceeded onwards gingerly knowing that the tire could explode at any moment. Periodic checks revealed that the swelling was increasing in size slowly, and I made sure not to go fast down any of the hills – very frustrating.
Fig. 22: The swelling in my front tire, 15 miles from Northway Junction, AK.
I arrived at the store in Northway Junction in the heat of the afternoon – the only time on the trip so far that I had felt hot. I asked the young girl keeping shop if I could use the store veranda to change my tire, and proceeded to replace the failed one with the spare. I had been carrying a spare because I knew before I left Austin that this front tire had a weak spot, though I think that the immediate cause for the failure was the roughness of the gravel stretches in the Yukon, and the penultimate cause that we had inflated the tire perhaps a little too much in Juneau. I had some difficulty getting the casings off and on the rim because of my weak thumbs, but a local person kindly helped me, and the job was all finished, cleaned up and the bike repacked within 70 minutes.
This settlement was a Native American one, and the owner of the store, contacted by telephone, did not seem too eager to let me camp in the campground. Also it was early, so I continued, hoping to get to Tok by night fall. However, I was getting tired and the hills were becoming closer together and steeper: also the temperature was dropping. By the time I reached a rest area 35 miles east of Tok, with a beautiful view across a lake to the ever-present mountains to the west, it was very late (10 pm) and quite cold.
I was too tired to put up the tent or cook, so I made a meal of the last of my bag of carrots (bought in Bellingham), my apples, trail mix and energy bars, unrolled my sleeping bag a considerable distance from my bike, and tried to sleep. Some mosquitoes had come out, so I had to use DEET, and then I heard a car apparently nosing around, so I went down and moved the bike to where it could not be seen from the road or rest area, but could be seen by me. I slept but could not get completely warm and so put my tent footprint over myself. About 2.00 am I was woken up by a strong and cold wind which blew away my tent footprint. Looking up I saw very threatening clouds coming from the north, but decided to just retrieve and anchor down my coverings. At about 6.00 am I got up to a strong NW wind, low temperatures, and a badly fibrillating heart, and was on the road at 6.30 am.
May 25th (Sunday): 15 mi S of Tetlin Junction to Cathedral Creeks, AK: 50 miles
After a short downhill stretch the road began a long, fairly steep climb. I could not deal with the cold, the wind or the hill in my present condition, and after 15 minutes put my thumb out half-heartedly for a lift. The first couple of cars did not stop, and then there was a 20-minute gap between northbound vehicles. A black bear scrambled up the bank on the left 100 yards ahead of me, crossed the road and went straight up the side of the cutting on the right. A car came by, I thumbed, it slowed down a little, continued on and then returned a couple of minutes later. The young driver asked if he could help, but it was obvious that he couldn’t since his car was loaded to the gills with household possessions and a young boy. Sadly I watched him go. I continued to ease up the long hill, with frequent rests, and finally found that I had stopped fibrillating. I got on the bike and began to ride, coming after a long struggle with the headwind and the hilly road to Tetlin Junction, where the road to Chicken and Dawson City turns off.
I thought that from here I would have an easier ride, since the road becomes flat and straight. However, the wind was now strong and directly in my face, my hands were numb with cold, and I could not use the left hand gear shift. I was averaging 7 miles an hour, and counting off each half mile in agony.
I finally reached the straggling outskirts of Tok, but could see no sign of any churches or any center at all. I stopped at Fast Eddy’s, a restaurant recommended by Milt Wiltse in Fairbanks. This was warm and looked very nice, but it was 10.45 and I needed directions to a Church and also a restroom. They told me that the churches were on the right, near the Visitor Center a ½ mile further on. When I got there this did not seem promising, but I turned off, and starting to explore one of the cross streets, found an Assembly of God Church. I was parking the bike there in order to ask about a Lutheran or Episcopal Church when a pleasant lady came along carrying a casserole dish. She began to give me directions to a non-denominational church, but then said, “We’re having a Potluck today, and the service is about to begin. Why don’t you join us?” This suddenly seemed a good idea, so I did. The ritual was simple: first hymns, then prayers, then a gospel lesson, then a short sermon by the Pastor, Joel Krise, a young and energetic person, and that was it. I knew none of the hymns, but the words were projected on a screen in front, and the singing was led by a young lady with a miked acoustic guitar and a strong and good voice. The prayers were interesting in that Juliet Churchill, an oriental (perhaps Philipino) gave a very emotional, and sometimes not English (Tagalog?) long prayer/praise session.
The potluck was wonderful, with many different dishes, including spaghetti and meatballs and chicken cacciatore, as well as fruits and pies, finished off with ice cream. The people were lively and I had some interesting conversations.
Then, after a quick visit to the Tourist Information Center, it was time to battle the headwind again. A glance at the map suggested that this would be the only problem, since the road appears to run alongside the Tanana River all the way to Fairbanks. This turns out to be misleading, but it was indeed dead flat and dead straight for the next 12 miles, funneling the wind and offering no shelter from it. However, on the north side of the road a bicycle path ran as far as the Indian village of Tanacross, and for a while I rode on this. Here the pines provided a slight wind break when the wind shifted a little to the north. But I soon gave it up, as the trail was badly (or not at all) maintained, with gravel cover near every driveway crossing and roots with occasionally sharp knees penetrating the tarmac everywhere, necessitating constant vigilance and swerving. In spite of this, the ride was a little easier than it had been before church and my excellent lunch. At Tanacross the bike path ended, and the road began to curve up into the mountains.
It was well on into the afternoon, and a few miles further on was Moon Lake State Recreation Site, a pretty spot where a few families were barbecuing and preparing to launch boats. There were also a large number of rather noisy teenagers who reminded me of Robert at home, and seemed vaguely threatening with their shrieking voices, exceedingly casual clothes and the drinks in their hands. Also, I could see no tent sites or showers and nobody was in the water, which looked cold. Camping here seemed a bit iffy in terms of getting clean or having any peace and quiet, and besides I had only done about 40 miles at that point, so I continued on. About 10 miles further on, just as the hills were getting rather steep, and the scenery beginning to be spectacular, I saw a sign announcing Cathedral Creeks B & B and Trailer Park on the left.
At first there seemed to be nobody around but two rather noisy dogs, but eventually a lanky man appeared, introduced himself as Art Blair, and showed me a rather nice cabin, complete with a stove in which a fire had already been laid. There was no running water, but a shower was available in the main house, and there was a dunny behind the cabin. A small electric cook stove enabled me to prepare a noodle dinner.
Art looked rather like Ned Slagle, an old colleague of mine from Sylva, North Carolina, and a bushy to beat all bushies. Tall, with wiry angular frame and features, and a wiry moustache. The cabin he showed me was, however, decorated in a very feminine fashion, and it turned out that Art was not the owner: he was a friend who was house-sitting while the owner, a Dutch lady named Chris Bentele, was back in Europe visiting relatives. I had a very good night's sleep, and next morning (Monday), Art cooked me a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomato and pancakes. While doing so he told me some of the tragic history of the place: Chris and her husband had settled here and built a beautiful large house. One day they came back from a trip to town and found it burned down to the ground, possibly due to lightning. They had made the best of a bad deal and, with their two daughters, moved back into the older house on the site. Then Chris' husband had died suddenly, and she was left to raise her two daughters alone in the Alaskan bush.
The Cathedral Creeks are three small creeks that tumble from the mountains to the south into the Tanana River where it makes a bend around Cathedral Bluffs. The B & B lies between the two eastern creeks, and their soothing burble can be heard at night from the cabin.
May 26th (Monday): Cathedral Creeks to Delta Junction, AK: 85 miles
Road log: http://www.bellsalaska.com/myalaska/akhwypg5.html
Soon after leaving Cathedral Creeks I crossed Sheep Creek, the first small example of a very common phenomenon along the Alaska Highway: you go up hill to the creek and then down hill after you cross it. This is because most of the creeks have built alluvial fans or cones where they leave the mountains. Five miles later I crossed the Robertson River, a much larger stream whose sources are glaciers surrounding Mt. Kimbal (10,350 feet) at the east end of the Alaska Range. It, too, flows near the apex of a large flattened cone. Neither in Dot Lake (population 19) nor in Dry Creek was there anywhere to eat, but at Dry Creek there were ploughed fields north of the road, the first ones I had seen since leaving Bellingham.
Fig. 23: The Johnson River, AK.
by
John Berry
Instalment 2: Skagway, AK to Fairbanks, AK, via Whitehorse, YT.
May 18th (Sunday): Skagway to Spirit Lake – 50 miles
I realized too late that by buying a ticket on the 8.15 a.m. train from Skagway to Fraser, BC, I had probably eliminated my chances of attending church.
I realized too late that by buying a ticket on the 8.15 a.m. train from Skagway to Fraser, BC, I had probably eliminated my chances of attending church.
Fig.1: My bicycle on the WP&Y train to Fraser, British ColumbiaThe day dawned brighter and with a higher ceiling than I had seen for many days. I was at the station early, and the brakeman helped me lift my bicycle, fully loaded, into the front of the first carriage, in which I would be sitting. The carriages are truly Victorian (some of them actually having been made in Victoria’s reign) and have freestanding oil-burning stoves. In mine were a couple from Mexico, four Germans, and an Alaskan mother and daughter.
The White Pass and Yukon Railway was built as a result of an all night meeting in Skagway between an American railway engineer and an English financier. It was finished after the Klondike gold rush ended, but flourished as a freight and passenger line, still under the original English ownership, until 1954. During World War II it was leased by the US Army in order to support the building of the Alcan Highway. From 1954 until the present the line has grown into an integrated transport company supplying Alaska and the Yukon. During the 1960s and 1970s it was one of the pioneers in container shipping, and actually owned container ships. The line has many similarities with the Kuranda Railway in North Queensland, Australia, which was completed 6 years before the White Pass and Yukon was begun. Both are 3.0-foot gauge lines, both begin at a deepwater port and both were cut at great expense through rugged rainforest country to a pass at approximately 3000 feet above sea level. Both are roughly the same length and were originally built to serve a large mining hinterland – a source of tin in the Australian case and gold, of course, in the Yukon. Both involved loss of life among the labor force: over 30 killed in the Kuranda case (E.N. Berry, 2001), somewhat fewer in the Skagway case. The hinterland sections of both have since been abandoned, and the spectacular sections cutting through the mountains have become popular tourist attractions in both cases. Both were commandeered for military use in World War II: in the Australian case the Atherton Tablelands at the end of the line were used as a staging area for hundreds of thousands of Australian and American troops bound for the Pacific campaign.
Fig. 2: Climbing the gorges to the Canadian border.
The White Pass and Yukon Railway was built as a result of an all night meeting in Skagway between an American railway engineer and an English financier. It was finished after the Klondike gold rush ended, but flourished as a freight and passenger line, still under the original English ownership, until 1954. During World War II it was leased by the US Army in order to support the building of the Alcan Highway. From 1954 until the present the line has grown into an integrated transport company supplying Alaska and the Yukon. During the 1960s and 1970s it was one of the pioneers in container shipping, and actually owned container ships. The line has many similarities with the Kuranda Railway in North Queensland, Australia, which was completed 6 years before the White Pass and Yukon was begun. Both are 3.0-foot gauge lines, both begin at a deepwater port and both were cut at great expense through rugged rainforest country to a pass at approximately 3000 feet above sea level. Both are roughly the same length and were originally built to serve a large mining hinterland – a source of tin in the Australian case and gold, of course, in the Yukon. Both involved loss of life among the labor force: over 30 killed in the Kuranda case (E.N. Berry, 2001), somewhat fewer in the Skagway case. The hinterland sections of both have since been abandoned, and the spectacular sections cutting through the mountains have become popular tourist attractions in both cases. Both were commandeered for military use in World War II: in the Australian case the Atherton Tablelands at the end of the line were used as a staging area for hundreds of thousands of Australian and American troops bound for the Pacific campaign.
Fig. 2: Climbing the gorges to the Canadian border.
The weather cleared as we proceeded up the gorges, and soon we were able to see the glaciers on the other (west) side of Skagway. It was possible to stand on the footplates between the carriages and take photographs, but as we got higher and higher this became more and more chilly, and I already had a cold and sore throat, so was not able to spend all my time out there. We had spectacular views of the line before us and behind us, above and below us, as we snaked around the tight curved and doubled back on ourselves around deep and steep canyons, over
high trestles and throughFig.3: A large trestle followed by a tunnel.
tunnels. For part of the route we paralleled the modern road, but on the opposite side of the valley. The road was bordered on both sides by snow discolored deep brown by the fumes from the vehicles. In view of the light traffic on this highway compared to the dense traffic of the cities in which most of us live, this was a vivid illustration of how polluted is the air that most of us breathe daily. Eventually the grade became more gentle and we emerged onto a pristine plateau of white snow, surmounted by a beautiful 
Fig. 4: The USA-Canada border.
blue sky and bound in front by jagged snow-covered peaks. After a few miles the train stopped at the Canadian border post, and a young lady came through to look at all of our documents. My bicycle was off-loaded, and I took a photograph of it at the control point, and then, at about 11.00 a.m., wobbled off in the general direction of Fairbanks.
Fig. 5: The beginning of the main adventure: leaving Fraser, BC.
Fig. 5: The beginning of the main adventure: leaving Fraser, BC.The road surface was much better than I expected, and the grades gentler. Soon I was whizzing down long hills and pedaling along the banks of long, ice-covered lakes. However, being the first real day on the road, I found crossing the divides between lakes to be tiring, but I was having a great time. I zoomed past the only tourist attraction I saw, a suspension bridge across the Yukon River, because it was on a downgrade and I was doing about 30 miles per hour.
Soon I came on a creek crossing saying “Dall Creek”, and almost immediately noticed some white dots on the hillside to my left. Right in front of me was the big sign announcing a welcome to the Yukon and bidding farewell to British Columbia. There were some cars stopped here, and I pulled up to photograph the Dall sheep. As I did so a man walked over from one of the cars carrying a tray full of cookies and offered me one. He introduced himself as Ante Tokic, a Croat who had ridden a bicycle around the world some years back in an effort to drum up support for peace in ex-Yugoslavia. Ante also introduced his wife, Ann Chapman, and told me that they owned a B&B in Whitehorse called La Bicicletta.
After this the road to Carcross seemed to become long and wearying: mainly because it was no longer mostly downhill, there was a bit of a headwind, and I was getting cold. However, by about 3.30 p.m. I was in Carcross, the summertime terminus of the White Pass and Yukon, but now a tiny sleepy village just off the main road. The people at the Information center very helpfully called the Spirit Lake Resort, with whom I had previously made a tentative booking. The rate for an unheated, unlighted cabin turned out to be much more than I had heard over the phone, but then the reception on my cell phone in Sitka had been very bad.
After this the road to Carcross seemed to become long and wearying: mainly because it was no longer mostly downhill, there was a bit of a headwind, and I was getting cold. However, by about 3.30 p.m. I was in Carcross, the summertime terminus of the White Pass and Yukon, but now a tiny sleepy village just off the main road. The people at the Information center very helpfully called the Spirit Lake Resort, with whom I had previously made a tentative booking. The rate for an unheated, unlighted cabin turned out to be much more than I had heard over the phone, but then the reception on my cell phone in Sitka had been very bad.
Fig. 7: Carcross, BC: the Anglican Church
Carcross was originally “Caribou Crossing”, but the Anglican bishop of the early years of the 20th Century had petitioned the post office to shorten it. In the years immediately after the gold rush it had had a boarding school for Indian children, and had also been a popular jumping off place for tourists going to the extensive lake country to the south by sternwheeler. The scant remains of the last of the sternwheelers, the Tutshi, were parked across from the Information Center, almost all of the boat having been destroyed by fire.
At the far end of the system of lakes in a beautiful valley is a place called Ben-my-Chree, or “Girl of my Heart” in Manx Gaelic. Ben-My-Chree was settled in 1912 by Otto and Kate Partridge, Manx people who had been mining nearby until an avalanche destroyed the mine and killed their best friends and partners. They built Ben-My-Chree as a hunting and fishing lodge and Kate grew a magnificent flower garden in this unlikely piece of wilderness. Until the Partridges died within months of each other in 1930, the Tutshi brought as many as 9,000 tourists a year across the lake from the rail line at Carcross to be royally entertained by them. These guests included film stars, the Prince of Wales, and President Theodore Roosevelt, and the trade continued, diminishing slowly, until 1956. I wished I could have gone there, as I was told that it was still occupied and again had beautiful flower gardens. A very touching history of the area may be found at http://www.atlinhistory.com/BMC_Story.htm.
I ate a hearty lunch of hamburger and French fries at the roadhouse on the main road in Carcross. The food tasted fine, but there was grit in my hamburger, and the place didn't seem very clean in general. I met a young marine biologist, Lucretia Fairchild, there who was on her way to Cold Bay, at the very end of the Alaska Peninsula, to spend a year studying marine mammals at Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. There were also two couples from Whitehorse, riding a Harley Davidson in one case and an off-road Honda in the other. I had a pleasant chat with them and then got on my way to Spirit Lake, 6 miles away. The wind had now become a fairly annoying and very cold headwind, and soon I was passing through the “Carcross Dunes”, an area in which the wind blew the sand deposited from old lakes around so much that vegetation could never get a hold. I was getting tired and very cold.
The Spirit Lake Lodge looked spic and span from the road, consisting of a log cabin restaurant and a row of log cabin motel rooms. On checking at the restaurant I was directed to one of a pair of cabins far away from the road, but made mistakes twice in getting there since there were other cabins, too, occupied by seasonal staff who took care of the horses and the canoes and kayaks.
My cabin was clean, but was directly in the path of the wind now blowing off frozen Spirit Lake. The bedding was just barely adequate, and I could not get any warm water in the shower, which was 200 yards from the cabin – I had apparently picked a shower whose faucet was attached the wrong way round. I asked the owner if I could do laundry, and was told that I could use their laundry, in the shower block, for $5.00. This gave me an excuse to stay in a warm place. I ate dinner there, much the same food as lunch, but of higher quality and price. There was one other customer. All in all, the person who recommended Spirit Lake Lodge to me must have had deep pockets and have been there in the height of summer!
May 19th (Monday): Spirit Lake to Whitehorse – 38 (45) miles
This day was the worst one of my trip so far, but because it was the second full day of riding I had anticipated that that would be the case. It was cold and sleeted a bit, there was a headwind, the ride started with a substantial climb to Emerald Lake and continued pretty hilly. In addition to that my shoulders, legs and butt were all quite sore. Furthermore, I got my first taste of chip seal – the mixture of minimal tar and large gravel that is used for large parts of the highways in the Yukon and Alaska. When one is feeling fine and the wind is fair, this material is not a worry – but when one is sore and the wind is foul, it shakes one to pieces! Every mile seemed to be a worse agony than the last, and seemed to take for ever.
According to Wikipedia: “Chip seals are constructed by evenly distributing a thin base of hot … asphalt onto an existing pavement and then embedding finely graded aggregate into it. Newer techniques use asphalt emulsion (a mixture of liquid asphalt, surfactant, and water) instead of asphalt. This has been shown to help reduce aggregate loss and reduce cost of installation, but can increase the occurrence of stripping. The rough surface causes noticeable increases in vibration and rolling resistance for bicyclists, and increased tire wear in all types of tire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal). Unfortunately, as I was to discover within a day or two, the newer technique mentioned above is used on the Yukon portion of the Alcan, and the muck binds pretty well to the bicycle, as well as to the road!
Fig. 8: Robinson Siding, South Klondike Highway
I made one stop along this part of the Klondike Highway, at Robinson Siding, a ghost town that flourished on a siding of the WP & Y from 1909 to 1915 as the result of a local gold discovery. A few buildings survive and have been partially restored: they are home to gophers and some birds.
I made one stop along this part of the Klondike Highway, at Robinson Siding, a ghost town that flourished on a siding of the WP & Y from 1909 to 1915 as the result of a local gold discovery. A few buildings survive and have been partially restored: they are home to gophers and some birds.
Eventually the South Klondike Highway ended against the Alaska Highway, and there at the intersection was a lunch wagon just like the ones on city street corners. It seemed pretty popular, and I ordered a hot dog and French fries, which turned out to be wonderful. On talking to the people running it I discovered that their father, who had started the business, came from Liverpool. I got talking to a family at the picnic table outside, and found out that the daughter had been in Botswana helping people with AIDS, and had full intention of going back to do more work of a similar nature. They asked me about US and Texas politics, and I had to tell them I strongly disagreed with many policies of the current administration.
Fig. 9: The Yukon River in Whitehorse, YT.The ride into Whitehorse was over more gentle terrain, but there was much more traffic, and it was beginning to rain. I cyclist got on the road ahead of me, and with great effort I caught up with him. This was a mistake: the next morning I awoke with serious atrial fibrillation. This gentleman was a local who had done some touring, and told me how to get to the municipal campsite. It was a glorious descent of several hundred feet down to the banks of the Yukon River, but I knew that I would have to do it in reverse soon. The campsite office was closed, so I continued to Whitehorse, where I found the Information Center and got information on the local hostels, and left a message for Ante Tokic. I visited the excellent McBride Museum. This not only has ethnographic and wildlife displays, but a collection of old carriages used on the early trails and of ancient mining equipment. In writing this blog I have discovered that the journals of Kate Partridge of Ben-My-Chree are also kept there, so I will have to go back there on the way south. I cycled around the downtown area, which was almost deserted because it was Victoria Day, a Canadian national holiday, and then stopped for a snack at Tim Horton’s.
Fig. 10: Downtown Whitehorse, YT.
Tim Horton's is a sort of Canadian version of McDonald's, only to my mind much nicer. It is nationwide, and is even expanding a little into the USA. It serves good coffee and excellent donuts and other pastries, as well as sandwiches.
While I was sitting in the Horton’s Ante turned up to offer me a night in their house. He gave me directions, which involved riding up Two-Mile Hill, an ominous name. In view of this I rode around for 20 minutes taking photographs of the more interesting buildings downtown. Two-Mile Hill was every bit as fearsome as I had expected,
and I had to Fig. 11: Ante Tokic in front of La Bicicletta
rest about a dozen times on the way up it. I finally reached the Alcan Highway, and found the last steep little street leading to La Bicicletta, where Ann greeted me and Ante soon appeared to usher me into the best room in the house. There I had the most luxurious hot shower that I had had since leaving home, and spent the rest of the evening viewing photographs of Ante’s round-the-world exploits. I then retired to bed, where I found my face burning hot and painful, and my hands a bit the same way. In order to sleep in the broad daylight I had to take an aspirin and rub Aspercreme into my hands and face. This should have been a warning that I was headed for trouble.
May 20th (Tuesday): Whitehorse to Champagne – 61 miles
I woke up with really bad atrial fibrillation, and was barely able to climb a flight of stairs or carry my bags down stairs. After breakfast with Ann and the Tokic’s young daughter I set off backwards to the Beringia Interpretation Center, which turned out to be fascinating. This center focuses on the ecology and ethnology of the ice-free Beringia terrain, both in Siberia and in North America. With a couple from Manchester who had arrived that morning on a very cheap flight on Condor Airways from Frankfurt I also was able to practice using an atlatl to throw a spear into a target. By the time I left my heart had stopped fibrillating.
I woke up with really bad atrial fibrillation, and was barely able to climb a flight of stairs or carry my bags down stairs. After breakfast with Ann and the Tokic’s young daughter I set off backwards to the Beringia Interpretation Center, which turned out to be fascinating. This center focuses on the ecology and ethnology of the ice-free Beringia terrain, both in Siberia and in North America. With a couple from Manchester who had arrived that morning on a very cheap flight on Condor Airways from Frankfurt I also was able to practice using an atlatl to throw a spear into a target. By the time I left my heart had stopped fibrillating.
Fig. 12: A gentleman from Manchester practicing throwing an Atlatl at the Beringa Center.
I then mailed a large packet of unneeded pamphlets and gear home from the Post Office, and stopped at the last grocery store in Whitehorse to buy food and a light lunch (two sausage rolls). The Canadian Post Office is a real study in contrasts versus the US Postal Service. I have never had to wait in a long line in a Canadian post office, and have always had the most pleasant service. However, I must admit that it is expensive to mail a package home from Canada.
From the outskirts of Whitehorse onwards the scenery and the weather became more and more magnificent, whereas the road itself remained relatively tame, to my relief. In front of me I could see rain showers drifting across the line of the highway, with sunlight shining among the clouds and creating rainbows behind me. To the left the mountains grew higher, and to the right was the deep valley of the Yukon. I was determined to ride 60 miles, as that was the average progress I needed to make in order to reach Fairbanks, 589 miles away, before my friends the Wiltses left for upstate New York on June 1st.
By the time I began looking for a place to stop it was quite late, about 9.00 p.m., and I began to notice the tracks of large animals along the side of the road. Some of them were definitely moose, but others were as certainly large bears. The village of Champagne turned out to have been by-passed by a change in the alignment of the road, but by the time I reached the western intersection with the old road through Champagne I had left the tracks behind, and decided to camp right there. First I needed water – I had not figured out how to use the filter bottle, was using about one bottle of water every ten miles, and was half way through my final bottle. I flagged down an RV, and a very nice couple shared their water with me. I pitched my tent and
Fig. 13: Arctic Primroses at my Champagne campsite.
carefully went through the routine of brushing my teeth and washing 100 yards from the tent, and hauling up every piece of food and anything that might have been in contact with food as far up a tree even further away, and as high as I could throw a rope over a branch. This turned out to be not very high, but in the event high enough. I ate some fruit, energy bars and trail mix and turned in, exhausted.
May 21st (Wednesday): Champagne – Haines Jctn – Kluane Base Camp – 77 miles
I woke up cold to find ice on the metal parts of my bicycle, and also found some beautiful wild primroses on a nearby bank. I took over an hour to get my food down from the tree, clean up a little, bury my trash, and pack. The flysheet of my tent was soaking wet from the heavy dew. I pedaled on into Haines Junction, which was about 30 miles from where I had camped,
Fig. 14: Surviving original bridge on the Alaska Highway between Champagne and Haines Junction.
realizing ever more clearly as I went along that this town was in the bottom of a very deep hole, that on my way north I would have to climb out of it, and that that would be very strenuous. There was a headwind of variable strength, but nothing too annoying, but by the time I reached Haines Junction I was sore and tired. To make up for this, the scenery to my left and in front was magnificent, consisting of higher and higher snowcapped mountains.
In Haines Junction I stopped at Frosty’s restaurant for lunch, and got talking to a group of Forest Service Fire-Fighting Instructors who sat down at my table. One of them told me that he had seen my tent last night, and had seen a grizzly bear within three hundred meters of it. He had decided to say nothing since he figured that, if I was camping there at all, I knew what I was doing! Thank goodness that I had followed all precautions!
Fig. 15: Our Lady of the Way, Haines Junction.
In Haines Junction I stopped at Frosty’s restaurant for lunch, and got talking to a group of Forest Service Fire-Fighting Instructors who sat down at my table. One of them told me that he had seen my tent last night, and had seen a grizzly bear within three hundred meters of it. He had decided to say nothing since he figured that, if I was camping there at all, I knew what I was doing! Thank goodness that I had followed all precautions!
Fig. 15: Our Lady of the Way, Haines Junction.
In taking my clothes off the night before I found that I had inadvertently taken the key from my room at La Bicicletta, so I mailed it back to Ante and Ann from Haines Junction, and also visited the Kluane (pronounced Kloo-AHnee) National Park Reserve Visitor Center. The staff here were very knowledgeable about the glacial geology and the wildlife of the area: I briefly entertained ideas of hiking in to see some of the things they mentioned, but the distances were too great: the snout of the nearest glacier is 20 miles from the highway.
And then the fun began: the headwind in Haines Junction was strong, but I reckoned that it was being funneled into the area from the huge canyon of the Alsek River, and that I would have a crosswind after about ten miles. This was true, but I also had the highest pass on the entire Alaska Highway, Bear Creek Summit, 12 miles ahead. This pass is at an elevation of 3293
Fig. 16: Bear Creek Summit
(3204) feet (977 or 1004 m), and I kept climbing and resting, climbing and resting, for 90 minutes. By the time I got there I was above a considerable amount of snow-covered ground. After that I had a tail wind, but it was exceedingly cold, and immediately the road descended several hundred feet to a broad plateau. Fifteen miles later, after crossing a large bridge, it rose again steeply to Boutillier Summit. From there it was only 4 miles into Kluane, at the south end of still-frozen Kluane Lake. I knew that there was accommodation at Kluane Base Camp, and that the Arctic Institute of North America is located in Kluane, but I was under the impression that they were one and the same – it turned out that the Kluane Base Camp is a private B&B run by a very nice French couple, Emmanuel & Annie Obeissart. Again my accommodation was a bunk in an unheated, unlit cabin, but at least the showers worked well, though in the shower my hands and face were severely pained by the hot water. The kitchen was warm and well-appointed, and I cooked one of my freeze-dried meals there. I noticed that it said on the package it was for two people, but I ate the whole thing anyway. In preparing it I noticed that my fingers were stiff and unfeeling, and that I had lost some of the strength of grip in my left hand.
This cabin had no bedding, so I slept in my sleeping bag, throwing my groundsheet over me as well, and was cool but not noticeably cold.
May 22nd (Thursday): Kluane Base Camp – Kluane Wilderness resort - 63 miles
After finishing a light breakfast and packing I walked across the airstrip adjacent to the resort and asked some people standing by a light aeroplane if I could find out more about the Arctic Institute of North America. I was escorted to the “Station Leader”, Andy Williams, a south Welshman. He told me that the Institute had in the past had stations in several different places in the high Arctic, such as Devon Island and Ellesmere Island, but that its current activities are mostly confined to the Kluane Wilderness area and the St. Elias Mountains. The Institute was founded by the Canadian government right after WWII as much out of sovereignty concerns arising from American activities in the Canadian Arctic as out of concern for science. It publishes the Journal “Arctic Research” and has been run for many years from the University of Calgary.
We discussed the old days of the drifting Ice Stations and attempts to cross the Arctic on foot. Andy told me that Wally Herbert had been knighted in 2000 and had died less than a year ago. Alan Gill is still alive, as is Max Brewer, the head in 1963 of the Arctic research Lab in Barrow. He is now over 90.
Fig. 17: Ice on Kluane Lake, YT.
This cabin had no bedding, so I slept in my sleeping bag, throwing my groundsheet over me as well, and was cool but not noticeably cold.
May 22nd (Thursday): Kluane Base Camp – Kluane Wilderness resort - 63 miles
After finishing a light breakfast and packing I walked across the airstrip adjacent to the resort and asked some people standing by a light aeroplane if I could find out more about the Arctic Institute of North America. I was escorted to the “Station Leader”, Andy Williams, a south Welshman. He told me that the Institute had in the past had stations in several different places in the high Arctic, such as Devon Island and Ellesmere Island, but that its current activities are mostly confined to the Kluane Wilderness area and the St. Elias Mountains. The Institute was founded by the Canadian government right after WWII as much out of sovereignty concerns arising from American activities in the Canadian Arctic as out of concern for science. It publishes the Journal “Arctic Research” and has been run for many years from the University of Calgary.
We discussed the old days of the drifting Ice Stations and attempts to cross the Arctic on foot. Andy told me that Wally Herbert had been knighted in 2000 and had died less than a year ago. Alan Gill is still alive, as is Max Brewer, the head in 1963 of the Arctic research Lab in Barrow. He is now over 90.
Fig. 17: Ice on Kluane Lake, YT.On this day the weather was warmer, probably because the altitude was lower, and the wind was generally favorable after the first 10 miles around the south end of Lake Kluane. Most hills were easy. I stopped briefly at the visitor centre at the southwest corner of Lake Kluane, and then stopped for a late lunch at Destruction Bay, where I learned that there were several long stretches of road work to come. The first one, beginning almost immediately, was
Fig. 18: Memorial shrine to an Indian, presumably killed in a highway accident, on pass north of Kluane Lake.not too bad. I stopped to visit the Museum at Burwash Landing. It was good, but covered much the same ground as Sheldon Jackson and the
visitor Centers for the Kluane wilderness: the local ethnology, wildlife, and botany. I asked about water at the gas station but was told that I would have to go down to the village at the lakeside for potable water. A young man in a pick-up truck gave me two bottles and refused payment.
Fig. 19: Kluane Wilderness Resort: I squatted in the third cab in from the left.
I rode on for another 10 miles or so and came to Kluane Wilderness Resort, which was completely abandoned. I had a chat with a young man, Carol Johnson of Tok, AK, headed south on a small motorbike on his way across Canada to Labrador. He had been to the Kerrville Folk Festival, also by motorbike, and so knew a little about Austin. He alerted me that there was a German girl slowly southbound on a bicycle a couple of days ahead. It was really too early to camp for the night, but I tried the doors of a few of the cabins on the north side of the road, and at the second try found a fairly clean one with a bed in it. The next settlement was Beaver Creek, over 83 miles away, so this abandoned cabin would provide the best available accommodation for this night by far. I scouted around thoroughly but found no sign of life, so moved in. The fire alarm was beeping, but I took the battery out, wrote up my diary as far as I could with my now fairly useless fingers, and went to bed.
May 23rd (Friday): Kluane Wilderness Resort – Beaver Creek: 83 miles
I got up very early, packed quickly, and got on the road. Very soon the road left the valley of the Kluane River and began to climb: the road to Beaver Creek consisted of a series of climbs across divides separating major tributaries of the Yukon, ending with the very large White River, which also formed the northern boundary of the Kluane Wildlife Sanctuary. The weather was quite beautiful, but still cold. As I came down the hill to the Donjek River crossing I encountered two coach loads of Holland-America Cruise passengers as they pulled in to a lay-by so that the passengers could read the information signs and use the bathrooms. The passengers were gaga over my trip, and one offered to take a picture of me.
May 23rd (Friday): Kluane Wilderness Resort – Beaver Creek: 83 miles
I got up very early, packed quickly, and got on the road. Very soon the road left the valley of the Kluane River and began to climb: the road to Beaver Creek consisted of a series of climbs across divides separating major tributaries of the Yukon, ending with the very large White River, which also formed the northern boundary of the Kluane Wildlife Sanctuary. The weather was quite beautiful, but still cold. As I came down the hill to the Donjek River crossing I encountered two coach loads of Holland-America Cruise passengers as they pulled in to a lay-by so that the passengers could read the information signs and use the bathrooms. The passengers were gaga over my trip, and one offered to take a picture of me.
Fig. 20: Old and new Alaska Highway bridges across the White RiverThe water in the White River, the last of the major crossings for the day, and of all the large rivers that I crossed in the following days, seemed to me remarkably low, with only the channel full and extensive sand banks everywhere else on the valley floor. Furthermore, the channels of several of the rivers I crossed in the next few days were still lined and partially choked by ice. I have always read that in northern Canada and Alaska the rivers are bankfull torrents immediately after break-up because of the concurrent snowmelt. Here we were at a point when snow melt had reached its end in the lowlands, but must have been in full swing nearer the headwaters, and the streams appeared as I imagined they would appear at the end of summer. On asking about this I was told that the rivers were low because the glacier melt upstream had not really started, but the more I thought about it the less I believed this was the main factor. I think that the main reason is that there has been less snow than usual, and this has been partially confirmed by conversations in Fairbanks and Bethel.
Climbing away from the White River I met the German girl I had been told about by Carol Johnson at the Kluane Wilderness resort. She was on a mountain bike with all new equipment, including Ortlieb panniers, and had started in Anchorage about 10 days earlier. She was riding only about 30 miles a day and camping every night in the bush. She needed water and asked about the White River Resort, which I had just passed. It was not open yet, but was the first place that I had seen someone working on, preparing to open. So there was some hope that Karen would get the water she needed.
After the White River the road became more hilly, and there were several long stretches in which the bitumen had been scraped off and the road regraded and sprayed, making for slow going that was also quite dangerous on hills. The emulsion spray-based mud tended to stick to the undersides of the bicycle, and especially to build up around the brake and gear cable guides beneath the crank shaft. On smoother stretches I began to notice a rubbing sound from the front wheel due to mud around the brake shoes. I was also having more and more trouble changing gears on the chain wheel, because I had lost a lot of strength in my left thumb and forefinger and could not push the lever over properly.
I arrived at Beaver Creek exhausted but in time to visit the Information Center to ask about accommodation. I was told that the cheaper of the two Motels in town was booked solid by the road crews, but that the Westmark Hotel had hostel accommodation for $59 per night. By the time I got across the road to the Westmark it had become $69. However there was an RV campground nearby which had tent space for $12. While booking this I found out that it was also owned by the Westmark. I also discovered that the Westmark chain, which has hotels all over Alaska and the Yukon, was owned by Holland-America, and its primary purpose was to ensure that cruise passengers had a good place to stay when they were not on board ship.
The convenience store attendant who sold me the camping space was an immigrant from India, and told me and another person in the store that his family had got into Canada from Dubai, where they were living, with no hassle and very quickly, in contrast to some relatives who had spent years trying to get in.
He directed me to Shotgun Betty’s, a hundred yards away, for a good dinner, and his advice was good. After putting up my tent and having a good shower I ate a hearty meal of hamburger and French fries there.
May 24th (Saturday): Beaver Creek, YT – 15 mi S of Tetlin Junction, AK: 87 miles
The day started inauspiciously when I put my windbreaker down on the counter in the washroom at the Beaver Creek campground, and it activated the soap dispenser which filled one side of it with a very strongly scented liquid soap. I washed it out in the sink rather ineffectively, and tried to ride without it while it dried strapped on top of the bag behind me. However, the weather was too cold for this and I had to put it back on wet and ride rather uncomfortably for a while.
The Canadian border post was right outside Beaver Creek, but it turned out to be a very long 20 miles to the actual border. The “Welcome to Alaska” sign, at which a young couple kindly took my photograph, is near the bottom of a valley. From there it is a short but steep climb to the actual border post. I waited in line after two large RV’s who were held up for a while by questioning, and then was waved straight through after a brief glance at my passport.
Five miles after the border post there was a restaurant at Border City, run by a family from Oklahoma. Here I had an excellent BLT and green salad, the first non-eggsandbacon or burger&fries I had for over a week. Less than a mile from the restaurant I met Randy Olson, headed from Fairbanks to Roseau, Minnesota, with his Husky riding in a BOB trailer behind him. The dog had little booties on its feet, because it spent a considerable time each day running alongside Randy. Randy had less gear than any touring cyclist I have met: four very small panniers. He had very little water, and was sweating profusely, so I asked him how he was going to deal with the long stretches without settlements ahead. He said that he had a filter and it would be no problem. He was wearing Lycra, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a woolen hat, and this was the second time he had made the journey.
Within another ten miles, just before the Deadman’s Creek campground, I saw a very fancy mountain bike and trailer parked in a rest area. I stopped to talk to the owner, who invited me for a cup of coffee. He was Al Atkey, a man of perhaps my own age but dressed in rags and obviously camped in this spot, using a picnic bench as his bed. His conversation was rambling, focused on his father, who apparently piloted a Sopwith Camel in WWI, and ended up in Canada. He also talked about his love for classical music and how he was going to write a biography of Bizet and get it published. He also prospected for gold in the local creeks and was going to write a book about that. Furthermore he had other get-rich-quick schemes that would enable him to retire with millions. When I asked him where he got the water that would enable him to stay in such a place (I needed to know, because I had drunk his coffee made with water that never got past a simmer, and there was no water source in sight), he said that people gave it to him. He was very overweight, but I saw no food: I wonder how he comes by that necessity of life?
Fig.21: Al Atkey and his rig, near Border City, Alaska.Just after leaving Al I met Josh, a serious cyclist bound from Anchorage to Edmonton. I told him about Al, leaving the decision whether to stop and chat up to him. He said that some little girls in the last settlement he had passed (Northway Junction) had offered to sell him water, and perhaps Al’s passage through had had something to do with that.
Josh was the last cyclist I would see before Fairbanks – within 24 hrs I had seen all the cyclists I would see on the trip, and three of the four had been within an hour!
The day was quite warm by now, and I bowled along nicely towards Northway Junction, but there was still a rubbing noise from my front wheel. I cleaned off the brakes, and the rubbing became intermittent and got louder each mile. By about 15 miles short of Northway Junction it had become a bumping as the wheel went around, and I realized that I had a serious problem. I stopped and examined the front tire: there was a huge swelling on it. I proceeded onwards gingerly knowing that the tire could explode at any moment. Periodic checks revealed that the swelling was increasing in size slowly, and I made sure not to go fast down any of the hills – very frustrating.
Fig. 22: The swelling in my front tire, 15 miles from Northway Junction, AK.
I arrived at the store in Northway Junction in the heat of the afternoon – the only time on the trip so far that I had felt hot. I asked the young girl keeping shop if I could use the store veranda to change my tire, and proceeded to replace the failed one with the spare. I had been carrying a spare because I knew before I left Austin that this front tire had a weak spot, though I think that the immediate cause for the failure was the roughness of the gravel stretches in the Yukon, and the penultimate cause that we had inflated the tire perhaps a little too much in Juneau. I had some difficulty getting the casings off and on the rim because of my weak thumbs, but a local person kindly helped me, and the job was all finished, cleaned up and the bike repacked within 70 minutes.
This settlement was a Native American one, and the owner of the store, contacted by telephone, did not seem too eager to let me camp in the campground. Also it was early, so I continued, hoping to get to Tok by night fall. However, I was getting tired and the hills were becoming closer together and steeper: also the temperature was dropping. By the time I reached a rest area 35 miles east of Tok, with a beautiful view across a lake to the ever-present mountains to the west, it was very late (10 pm) and quite cold.
I was too tired to put up the tent or cook, so I made a meal of the last of my bag of carrots (bought in Bellingham), my apples, trail mix and energy bars, unrolled my sleeping bag a considerable distance from my bike, and tried to sleep. Some mosquitoes had come out, so I had to use DEET, and then I heard a car apparently nosing around, so I went down and moved the bike to where it could not be seen from the road or rest area, but could be seen by me. I slept but could not get completely warm and so put my tent footprint over myself. About 2.00 am I was woken up by a strong and cold wind which blew away my tent footprint. Looking up I saw very threatening clouds coming from the north, but decided to just retrieve and anchor down my coverings. At about 6.00 am I got up to a strong NW wind, low temperatures, and a badly fibrillating heart, and was on the road at 6.30 am.
May 25th (Sunday): 15 mi S of Tetlin Junction to Cathedral Creeks, AK: 50 miles
After a short downhill stretch the road began a long, fairly steep climb. I could not deal with the cold, the wind or the hill in my present condition, and after 15 minutes put my thumb out half-heartedly for a lift. The first couple of cars did not stop, and then there was a 20-minute gap between northbound vehicles. A black bear scrambled up the bank on the left 100 yards ahead of me, crossed the road and went straight up the side of the cutting on the right. A car came by, I thumbed, it slowed down a little, continued on and then returned a couple of minutes later. The young driver asked if he could help, but it was obvious that he couldn’t since his car was loaded to the gills with household possessions and a young boy. Sadly I watched him go. I continued to ease up the long hill, with frequent rests, and finally found that I had stopped fibrillating. I got on the bike and began to ride, coming after a long struggle with the headwind and the hilly road to Tetlin Junction, where the road to Chicken and Dawson City turns off.
I thought that from here I would have an easier ride, since the road becomes flat and straight. However, the wind was now strong and directly in my face, my hands were numb with cold, and I could not use the left hand gear shift. I was averaging 7 miles an hour, and counting off each half mile in agony.
I finally reached the straggling outskirts of Tok, but could see no sign of any churches or any center at all. I stopped at Fast Eddy’s, a restaurant recommended by Milt Wiltse in Fairbanks. This was warm and looked very nice, but it was 10.45 and I needed directions to a Church and also a restroom. They told me that the churches were on the right, near the Visitor Center a ½ mile further on. When I got there this did not seem promising, but I turned off, and starting to explore one of the cross streets, found an Assembly of God Church. I was parking the bike there in order to ask about a Lutheran or Episcopal Church when a pleasant lady came along carrying a casserole dish. She began to give me directions to a non-denominational church, but then said, “We’re having a Potluck today, and the service is about to begin. Why don’t you join us?” This suddenly seemed a good idea, so I did. The ritual was simple: first hymns, then prayers, then a gospel lesson, then a short sermon by the Pastor, Joel Krise, a young and energetic person, and that was it. I knew none of the hymns, but the words were projected on a screen in front, and the singing was led by a young lady with a miked acoustic guitar and a strong and good voice. The prayers were interesting in that Juliet Churchill, an oriental (perhaps Philipino) gave a very emotional, and sometimes not English (Tagalog?) long prayer/praise session.
The potluck was wonderful, with many different dishes, including spaghetti and meatballs and chicken cacciatore, as well as fruits and pies, finished off with ice cream. The people were lively and I had some interesting conversations.
Then, after a quick visit to the Tourist Information Center, it was time to battle the headwind again. A glance at the map suggested that this would be the only problem, since the road appears to run alongside the Tanana River all the way to Fairbanks. This turns out to be misleading, but it was indeed dead flat and dead straight for the next 12 miles, funneling the wind and offering no shelter from it. However, on the north side of the road a bicycle path ran as far as the Indian village of Tanacross, and for a while I rode on this. Here the pines provided a slight wind break when the wind shifted a little to the north. But I soon gave it up, as the trail was badly (or not at all) maintained, with gravel cover near every driveway crossing and roots with occasionally sharp knees penetrating the tarmac everywhere, necessitating constant vigilance and swerving. In spite of this, the ride was a little easier than it had been before church and my excellent lunch. At Tanacross the bike path ended, and the road began to curve up into the mountains.
It was well on into the afternoon, and a few miles further on was Moon Lake State Recreation Site, a pretty spot where a few families were barbecuing and preparing to launch boats. There were also a large number of rather noisy teenagers who reminded me of Robert at home, and seemed vaguely threatening with their shrieking voices, exceedingly casual clothes and the drinks in their hands. Also, I could see no tent sites or showers and nobody was in the water, which looked cold. Camping here seemed a bit iffy in terms of getting clean or having any peace and quiet, and besides I had only done about 40 miles at that point, so I continued on. About 10 miles further on, just as the hills were getting rather steep, and the scenery beginning to be spectacular, I saw a sign announcing Cathedral Creeks B & B and Trailer Park on the left.
At first there seemed to be nobody around but two rather noisy dogs, but eventually a lanky man appeared, introduced himself as Art Blair, and showed me a rather nice cabin, complete with a stove in which a fire had already been laid. There was no running water, but a shower was available in the main house, and there was a dunny behind the cabin. A small electric cook stove enabled me to prepare a noodle dinner.
Art looked rather like Ned Slagle, an old colleague of mine from Sylva, North Carolina, and a bushy to beat all bushies. Tall, with wiry angular frame and features, and a wiry moustache. The cabin he showed me was, however, decorated in a very feminine fashion, and it turned out that Art was not the owner: he was a friend who was house-sitting while the owner, a Dutch lady named Chris Bentele, was back in Europe visiting relatives. I had a very good night's sleep, and next morning (Monday), Art cooked me a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomato and pancakes. While doing so he told me some of the tragic history of the place: Chris and her husband had settled here and built a beautiful large house. One day they came back from a trip to town and found it burned down to the ground, possibly due to lightning. They had made the best of a bad deal and, with their two daughters, moved back into the older house on the site. Then Chris' husband had died suddenly, and she was left to raise her two daughters alone in the Alaskan bush.
The Cathedral Creeks are three small creeks that tumble from the mountains to the south into the Tanana River where it makes a bend around Cathedral Bluffs. The B & B lies between the two eastern creeks, and their soothing burble can be heard at night from the cabin.
May 26th (Monday): Cathedral Creeks to Delta Junction, AK: 85 miles
Road log: http://www.bellsalaska.com/myalaska/akhwypg5.html
Soon after leaving Cathedral Creeks I crossed Sheep Creek, the first small example of a very common phenomenon along the Alaska Highway: you go up hill to the creek and then down hill after you cross it. This is because most of the creeks have built alluvial fans or cones where they leave the mountains. Five miles later I crossed the Robertson River, a much larger stream whose sources are glaciers surrounding Mt. Kimbal (10,350 feet) at the east end of the Alaska Range. It, too, flows near the apex of a large flattened cone. Neither in Dot Lake (population 19) nor in Dry Creek was there anywhere to eat, but at Dry Creek there were ploughed fields north of the road, the first ones I had seen since leaving Bellingham.
Fig. 23: The Johnson River, AK.The tremendous load of sediment from the Johnson River completely overwhelms the Tanana River where they join just north of Dry Creek: for many miles below this the Tanana is a braided river, whereas above it it is a "normal" meandering river.
Twelve miles north of Dry Creek the road crosses the Gerstle River on the Black Veterans' Memorial Bridge. This very impressive bridge was originally built in 1944 and is one of four "steel through truss-style" bridges on the Highway. It was renamed in 1993 as a tribute to 3,695 soldiers of the Army and the Corps of Engineers for their contribution in constructing the Alaska Highway. Just before I reached this bridge a huge moose elegantly ambled across the road a couple of hundred yards in front of me, silhouetted against the glow of the evening sun. The road now seemed to be passing through "civilization" – there were ploughed fields on both sides and signs for real estate developments along the north side. I passed a roadhouse, the Silver Fox, but decided not to stop, and then saw the Adam's Ribs BBQ on the left hand side. It appeared somewhat run-down but interesting, being housed in what looked like old Nissen huts. When I went inside it was huge – two large eating areas separated by a bar and service area – and not at all run down. The food was excellent, and my waitress was the lady who owned the place, along with her husband. They were from the lower 48 originally, but had been in Alaska a while, and by her account, seemed to have ended in the restaurant business almost by happenstance.
After finishing my meal, and having a very interesting chat with a couple from Fairbanks, Ruth and Larry Knapman, I cycled the remaining 10 miles into Delta Junction rather easily. However, by this time it was almost 10 pm, and I was very cold and could not understand how the teenagers sitting at the benches outside the Ice Cream Hut could be so comfortable in their minimal clothing. I had seen no place to stay as I came into Delta Junction, and there was nowhere open except the Ice Cream Hut. When I asked John, the owner, where there was to stay, he immediately offered me the use of one of the cabins that he had built, but never yet opened to guests, behind his business. There was no water, but he gave me a key to the bathroom at the Ice Cream Hut, and I was able to get fairly clean there before going to bed, and to use it in the night and again for my morning wash. The cabin was dusty from standing vacant so long, but otherwise very cosy: there was a good camp bed in it and a chair. I had a good night's sleep, but woke with some fibrillation.
May 27th (Tuesday): Delta Junction to Shaw Creek, AK: 22 miles, and Fairbanks.
The Alaska Highway ends officially at Delta Junction, but I felt so poorly and sore that I forgot to photograph myself and the bike at the official marker.
Still the infernal headwind, but otherwise a nice ride on a sunny but cool morning to Big Delta, where both the Richardson Highway and the Alyeska Pipeline cross the Tanana River. Here there is Rika's Roadhouse and Landing, originally owned by the Swedish widow of a local settler, it is now owned by a church group which farms in the area, and is heavily patronized by buses full of cruise-ship passengers. Here I had the best and cheapest food of the trip so far, and ate two breakfasts, but still could not shake the cold that seemed to permeate my body. I encountered the Knapmans again, and explored the grounds, which are an Alaska State Historical Park, with them. They were very knowledgeable about the history of the place, and I gradually warmed up in the bright sunshine.
Fig. 24: At Rika's Roadhouse, with the Alyeska pipeline crossing of the Tanana river behind me. I was chilled to the bone and very sore at this point.
Twelve miles north of Dry Creek the road crosses the Gerstle River on the Black Veterans' Memorial Bridge. This very impressive bridge was originally built in 1944 and is one of four "steel through truss-style" bridges on the Highway. It was renamed in 1993 as a tribute to 3,695 soldiers of the Army and the Corps of Engineers for their contribution in constructing the Alaska Highway. Just before I reached this bridge a huge moose elegantly ambled across the road a couple of hundred yards in front of me, silhouetted against the glow of the evening sun. The road now seemed to be passing through "civilization" – there were ploughed fields on both sides and signs for real estate developments along the north side. I passed a roadhouse, the Silver Fox, but decided not to stop, and then saw the Adam's Ribs BBQ on the left hand side. It appeared somewhat run-down but interesting, being housed in what looked like old Nissen huts. When I went inside it was huge – two large eating areas separated by a bar and service area – and not at all run down. The food was excellent, and my waitress was the lady who owned the place, along with her husband. They were from the lower 48 originally, but had been in Alaska a while, and by her account, seemed to have ended in the restaurant business almost by happenstance.
After finishing my meal, and having a very interesting chat with a couple from Fairbanks, Ruth and Larry Knapman, I cycled the remaining 10 miles into Delta Junction rather easily. However, by this time it was almost 10 pm, and I was very cold and could not understand how the teenagers sitting at the benches outside the Ice Cream Hut could be so comfortable in their minimal clothing. I had seen no place to stay as I came into Delta Junction, and there was nowhere open except the Ice Cream Hut. When I asked John, the owner, where there was to stay, he immediately offered me the use of one of the cabins that he had built, but never yet opened to guests, behind his business. There was no water, but he gave me a key to the bathroom at the Ice Cream Hut, and I was able to get fairly clean there before going to bed, and to use it in the night and again for my morning wash. The cabin was dusty from standing vacant so long, but otherwise very cosy: there was a good camp bed in it and a chair. I had a good night's sleep, but woke with some fibrillation.
May 27th (Tuesday): Delta Junction to Shaw Creek, AK: 22 miles, and Fairbanks.
The Alaska Highway ends officially at Delta Junction, but I felt so poorly and sore that I forgot to photograph myself and the bike at the official marker.
Still the infernal headwind, but otherwise a nice ride on a sunny but cool morning to Big Delta, where both the Richardson Highway and the Alyeska Pipeline cross the Tanana River. Here there is Rika's Roadhouse and Landing, originally owned by the Swedish widow of a local settler, it is now owned by a church group which farms in the area, and is heavily patronized by buses full of cruise-ship passengers. Here I had the best and cheapest food of the trip so far, and ate two breakfasts, but still could not shake the cold that seemed to permeate my body. I encountered the Knapmans again, and explored the grounds, which are an Alaska State Historical Park, with them. They were very knowledgeable about the history of the place, and I gradually warmed up in the bright sunshine.
Fig. 24: At Rika's Roadhouse, with the Alyeska pipeline crossing of the Tanana river behind me. I was chilled to the bone and very sore at this point.
I got back on the bike and headed towards Fairbanks, but my body was screaming with pain, and I only made it 11 miles, to the rather picturesque little inlet of Shaw Creek, before deciding that I had had enough, and put my thumb out for a lift. I only had to wait a few moments before Pat Doogan, driving a beat-up old red pickup, and pulling a boat trailer, stopped and offered me a lift. Pat turned out to be the recently-retired Assistant Attorney-General for Fairbanks, with a long history of working as a prosecutor in far-flung areas of Alaska. We had a very interesting conversation about crime and its causes as we approached Fairbanks past a couple of military airports and the commercial clutter around the town of North Pole, AK. We did not stop in North Pole, and I never went back there to sample its tourist delights, a very minor regret. As we passed through it I called my Fairbanks host, Milton Wiltse, and got directions to his house, and Pat insisted on driving me the whole way there.
That evening I had a wonderful shower and slept in a nice soft bed in a cozy warm room for the first time in eight nights. But I quickly found that sleep was impossible, as my face burned and there was an intense pain deep within my hands, very similar to the pain one feels on warming one's hands at a fire after getting them thoroughly chilled outside on a cold day. I had to get up twice to take aspirin before the pain subsided enough for me to sleep.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
E.N.BERRY, 2001: An Application of Butler’s (1980) Tourist Area Life Cycle Theory to the Cairns Region, Australia, 1876-1998. Unpub. Ph.D. thesis, James Cook Univ., Cairns, QLD.
That evening I had a wonderful shower and slept in a nice soft bed in a cozy warm room for the first time in eight nights. But I quickly found that sleep was impossible, as my face burned and there was an intense pain deep within my hands, very similar to the pain one feels on warming one's hands at a fire after getting them thoroughly chilled outside on a cold day. I had to get up twice to take aspirin before the pain subsided enough for me to sleep.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
E.N.BERRY, 2001: An Application of Butler’s (1980) Tourist Area Life Cycle Theory to the Cairns Region, Australia, 1876-1998. Unpub. Ph.D. thesis, James Cook Univ., Cairns, QLD.
posted by John Berry at 1:57 PM
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