Frenchy's Rant

Until this point on this trip, we’ve been fairly fortunate. Not only has the weather been generally favorable, the roads unparalleled, the company funny and fun, we’ve also been fortunate enough to spy ‘The Big Three’ animals that everyone comes to Alaska hoping to see. In no particular order, we’ve seen cows:

Pigeons:

And of course, the animal Alaska is most famous for, Dogs:

Thus far, all our wildlife viewing has been up close and personal, but also fun and completely attack free. But now we’re stuck, eyeball to eyeball, hearts pounding as we face down the biggest and baddest animal of them all, bigger and badder than the Big Three combined.

Just when things look like they are about to get all splattery, something comes along. More specifically, a truck races through our standoff, startling Mama Buffalo enough that we are able to squirt through before she turned us into Grade A Ground Human.

Wheeeewwww! That was a close call! If you ask me, it was a little too close, and unfortunately it’s not even the last close call of the day. We still need to find a place to sleep.

Glad to be in three individual, intact pieces, our group shuffles away from the buffalo, following the deserted road for mile after hotel free mile. At the perfect time, that time between the end of hope and the beginning of despair, the perfect place magically appears in the woods like an oasis. Either they have forgotten to illuminate the NO part of their Vacancy sign, or we have caught another very lucky break.

It’s late. We’re tired, but hopeful. At the desk, I kick off the most tedious conversation of all time.

“Hi.” I begin. “Do you have rooms for tonight?”

“Rooms? Hmm… ” The clerk shuffles some papers, then looks out the window. The sun is setting out there. Yep. Sure is. Gonna be dark soon. Though we both can see this fact, it takes a minute for this information to register with this man. Finally he looks back at me. “Yes. I have rooms.”

“Great! We’ll take two!”

“Well, wait a minute…” He then waits a full minute in silence, before turning a few pages in the hotel register book. “Ummm… Now, let me… check the right day…” Thankfully, he doesn’t wait a full day, just pauses for a really, really long time. Collectively, we hold our breath, waiting to learn our fate.

“Ah, yes. Here is today. Umm… Yes. I have rooms available today.”

“Great! We’ll take two!”

He scratches his nose, looks at us like he is seeing us for the first time, then continues, “I have two inexpensive rooms with bath tubs only…”

“Great! We’ll take….”

Continuing his last thought, the man cuts me off, “…and I have a two room suite, with full bathroom, but it is expensive.”

It takes more precious time to learn the difference in price between the cheap rooms and the suite is $20. After more banter, we finally are allowed to rent the suite. And I have to say, while it took a while to get there, the effort is worth it. The lakefront cabin suite is mighty sweet!

It’s hard to leave the next morning. The resort books three day float plane trips to really remote cabins, which sounds so perfect that I have a hard time believing it is real. Now I have another place to add to my bottomless bucket list.

Sadly, there isn’t enough time to ride in a plane that intentionally floats on water, so it’s back on the road again for us. We have about 2400 miles to go, and less than a week to do it in. Horny Canadian wildlife greet us on another fine morning in their country.

The road is fantastical as well, supplying an endless variation of curves, hills and of course, scenery. We continue to chip away at the remaining miles.

We stop at Testa River Outfitters, to fuel up man, woman, and machine.

The entire day pretty much flows by. Thoughts come and go, and I start to get bored. I reach back to grab Sleeping Beauty’s hand, and a spontaneous thumb wrestling war breaks out. We go at it, back and forth, having our own private Thumb Wrestlemania while speeding down the Alcan highway. I am sad to say that while I am still the heavy weight of our relationship, after twenty rounds, Sleeping Beauty is declared the Official Thumb Wrestlemania Champion of the World!

We wind our way down the highway, until, with very little fanfare, we reach another milestone on this oddysy; the famous ‘Start of the Alcan‘ sign.

I’ll admit, after ten days of nearly constant motion, the three of us arrive at the sign a little loopy and road weary. We make ourselves laugh until we’re drooling by imitating the way random strangers would help us capture this historic moment if we asked them to take our picture in front of the sign.

And with this accomplishment, the most difficult two thirds of our ride is officially complete. We toast the Best Day Ever right in the parking lot, and mentally prepare for the final thrust through Canada, back into the USA for good, and – unless I can talk them out of it – home and the inevitable end of our ride.

The End? Not even close! Click here for more.

The desk clerk in Whitehorse greets us with a hardy, “Good Afternoon!” It’s 9:30 at night, but he’s not completely nuts, it’s still bright enough outside to be the middle of the day. After securing rooms in an actual hotel, taking actual showers and using an actual hairdryer, an emergency Macallan inspired Map-kin strategy session ensues.

Democratically, I decide for everyone else that while Valdez, which lies exactly six hundred-forty miles southwest of our present position is technically reachable, it will require a lot of high mile days on the back end to get home. The time we spent waiting for the campfire to calm down has eaten into our days. We consult iPhones, Google Maps and the GPS, as well as good old paper analog map, and come up with a decent Plan B.

Haines is in Alaska, which means there will be a Welcome To Alaska sign nearby. While Alaska is not an island at all, I have something special planned for this unsuspecting state just the same. Haines is also served by the Alaskan Marine Highway, so if we’re lucky we’ll be able to roll into Haines and catch a ferry to nearby Skagway, enabling all six of our eyeballs to maximize enjoyment of the captivating Alaskan sights in front of them.

Satisfied, Dark Meat succumbs to the lure of the telephone, and Fiona and I wander around Whitehorse, finding the strangest Canadian power duo band ever. Along with six locals, we enjoy the weirdest cover tunes ever heard, until the sky finally turns a little less bright, and we fade off to bed.

The Alcan highway is a pleasure. We twist the right grip hard, and enjoy the breeze that only a high speed cruise can provide. As some point, while we’re traveling at ** MPH, a blue Toyota truck zooms past us at ** plus 20 MPH and rapidly disappears into the distance. Rounding one of the several million beautiful curves the Alcan offers, we see that the Mounties have caught and pulled over their man, and are in the process of writing him a ticket worth at least $***. Better him than me!

And on we go.

The road into Haines is a special kind of mind numbing beauty. The distant mountains suddenly loom large over our heads, each one completely different than the next. It’s as if Industrial Light and Magic chose this area to store prop mountains for the movie version of Northern Exposure.

The kilometers turn into miles again as we reach the border. After a quick glance at our documents, we are allowed back into the USA, but not before stopping in front of the ultimate prize of the trip.

ALASKAAAAA!!! WOO!!!!!

Since it is not technically an island, I cannot technically claim Alaska for the Kingdom of Rhode Island. But nothing is stopping me from making the expansive lands of Alaska an official protectorate of the Fiefdom of Frenchy!

All this monkeying around causes us to miss the ferry to French Skagway, which is by no means a disaster. We secure decent rooms in a decent motel in French Haines, and sit in front of our rooms for the traditional toast.

A little kid on a Schwinn rides past, slows down, gawks at me and says, “Hey! You! You look like somebody famous, like from a record or CD!”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“Like somebody from ABBA! You know that band?” Just to make sure I do, he then spells it for me, “A-B-B-A.”

I think I just got punked by an eight year old, and am not sure what to do next. The woman sitting next to us outside her room gets a good laugh out of it, while the kid speeds off on his bicycle.

After some pleasant chit-chat, the lady tells us she had been diagnosed with cancer for a second time, and Alaska has always been high on her bucket list. So, one day she packed up her dog, rented a car and is enjoying the hell out of herself, the road, the stories and the characters she’s met. She isn’t sad, she isn’t depressed, she is doing the same thing that we are, making the best of the time we have.

That’s heavy.

After she excuses herself, all three of us wander to a local dive bar for a beverage. As soon as we sit, three amazingly, astoundingly drunk local patrons slur at us from across the bar. “Ya wanna live in Haines, ya gotta really lower yer standards! This town’s nuthin’ but th’ same people in th’ same stools talkin’ ’bout th’ same shit all th’ time. If ya don’t like ’em, ya can always shoot ’em!”

Knowing this won’t end well, we sneak out, and visit the most incredible museum of all time.

Yes, we visit the Hammer Museum, the only museum in the world of its kind. I admit, I want to walk in there to have a chuckle, but it turns out the place is seriously cool. Dave, the Hammer Museum owner and an incredibly enthusiastic man gives us the history of this unique place. He lived in the wilds of Alaska without electricity, desiring to be completely self sufficient. His hammer collection grew, and in 2001, he and his wife purchased a building in French Haines. They turned their purchase into the Hammer Museum, a quirky but awesome haven for all things hammer.

The next morning, we are up early to queue for the ferry to Skagway. Dark Meat Snack seems nervous on board. It doesn’t take long to figure out why.

Significant risk of attack? Attack by what, The Pirates of the Taliban? That isn’t the only sign that strikes fear into the dark heart of Dark Meat.

We’d been warned that the town of French Skagway is everything that French Haines isn’t. That warning had merit. Skagway looks custom built to suit the tourist’s idea of what Alaska should be. It looks like the set for The Love Boat Comes To Alaska. Three enormous cruise ships are moored in the port, puking tourists out into the pretend frontier town by the thousands. As they step off the shuttle bus, I overhear one couple actually blurt, “Ohhhh, Haaarrry! Looook!! We’re in Alaaaaskeeeerr!”

“Lets go buy something!”

Ready to get out of Alaaaaskeeeerr and back to Alaska, we hightail it for the highway. The scenery out of French Skagway, real, authentic, unmanufactured Alaskan beauty is equally as breath taking as the scenery into French Haines was.

As a bonus, the border crossing back into Canada is simple and hassle free.

Back in the Yukon and on the Alcan highway, we make up for lost time. There I am, happily cruising along at a high rate of speed, when suddenly I am hit in the neck by a small caliber insect. The impact knocks my head back, waking Sleeping Beauty from her nap. Because I am so tough and strong, I carry on until the stunned-but-not-quite-dead insect wakes up inside my shirt and demonstrates his displeasure by stinging me five times in my belly. I then lose all dignity, howling like a bitch while I somehow manage to park Rain Cloud Follows, wake Sleeping Beauty up and get her off the bike and rip off my jacket all in one motion. That little bastard got me good, making my incredibly ripped set of abs and impossibly flat stomach swell up to at least ten times its normal size.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Hammering back to Watson Lake, our planned home for the night, we are shocked to see more thick smoke. In our absence, the fires have gotten worse. Route 37 is completely closed now. Nobody is waiting to go through. Watson Lake is completely covered by a blanket of white smoke.

Smokey or not, we stop by the world famous Signpost Forest.

67,000 ‘Welcome To…’ signs are too tempting to pass by. With the application of a single sticker, I make the largest land acquisition in history, claiming all 67,000 territories for the Kingdom of Rhode Island. Welcome to the kingdom, one and all!

We’d planned to stop for the night in Watson Lake, but we’d also planned for Watson Lake to have breathable air. Heading further down the Alcan, we look for the next suitable place to stop.

The next place to stop is about eighty miles down the road. The boarded up windows and seven foot tall grass surrounding the hotel give me the correct impression that the place is not accepting guests at this time. That is bad. We continue for many more miles. The next place we see is actually open, but the sign indicates there is no vacancy.

We enter the run down lobby to find dinner and hopefully a room.

After charging us the Canadian equivalent of an arm and a leg for a junk food dinner, the woman at the register puts on her best Scare-The-Tourist act. “Good luck finding a place with an empty room. People are leaving Watson Lake because of the smoke. There aren’t many rooms between here and Dawson Creek, and they’re all gonna be full.” No sense wasting a Boo-Boo face on her, we walk out to choke down our stale but expensive dinner.

Obviously not satisfied with her attempt to ruin our day, she returns with more good cheer. “Oh yeah, forgot to mention, be really careful for the buffalo. They’re all over the place, and extremely hard to see at night. Wouldn’t want to hit one of those heavy buggers in the dark, now wouldja?”

Finally satisfied with her dismal warnings, she goes back in the store, flips the Open sign to Closed, switches off the lights, then turns into a bat and flies away into the night.

Thanks!

Buffalo? Whatever. It’s getting dark, and we don’t have a place to sleep again. One disaster at a time, right? Right. Let’s go.

Five miles down the road, we meet this guy.

Oh, shit! Bat Lady wasn’t kidding! That thing is huge! Not five feet from us, right at the side of the road, the oblivious animal is blissfully munching away. Did I mention this buffalo is HUGE! We creep by this hulking mass of pre-ground burger as quietly and tentatively as we can. Safely past the beast, we are positively giddy at the sighting.

So giddy that we nearly plow into the buffalo’s entire extended family right around the next corner.

I stop in my tracks, surrounded by tons and tons of angry looking beef. Dark Meat, no longer the darkest meat on the street, bravely puts Rain Cloud Follows between himself and the biggest of the buffalo. Sleeping Beauty, insane or blissfully unaware, decides this is the perfect time to channel the Buffalo Whisperer, and jumps off the bike to snap a few pics.

A mother buffalo with baby buffalet calf by her side stops eating and starts giving us the hairy eyeball. A very big, very angry, and waaay to close to us hairy eyeball. She snorts her displeasure, just to be clear. Fiona stops fucking around with the camera and nervously jumps back on the bike. A three way French-Trini-Buffalo Mexican standoff commences.

Out in the middle of North East B.F.E., all by ourselves, stopped on a deserted road, on two motorcycles that offer little to no protection from any form of buffalo attack, things stop being fun and suddenly become very, very serious.

Seriousness? On this blog? Say it ain’t so! Click here for more.

Funny how precious a simple chain of hydrocarbon molecules can be, and how much the lack of that precious chain of combustibles can weigh on a mind. It’s pretty simple. I don’t have enough gas to get back to any hotel. Dark Meat ‘might’ have enough, but that doesn’t help me much. By the time I borrowed his bike and rode all the way back to far-off Dease Lake for more fuel, the gas station would surely be closed for the night.

Among the rest of the clutter in my head, one other thing weighs on my mind; a little fact that keeps rattling its way to the front of the ‘Things That Make You Say Shit!” queue. Miles back, as we blissfully were racing along the government supported racetrack called the Cassiar Highway, we had our first glimpse of wildlife.

When I noticed the blurry brown shape, I tried to convince myself it was just a really big dog, but even the idea of having to spend a night in the woods with really big, really hungry, un-caged and freely roaming dogs doesn’t appeal to me much.

So it’s time to figure something out. We decide to head back down the Cassiar, and give good fortune a chance to smile on our little group. There were a few random, mostly abandoned looking buildings we passed on the way up. Who knows, maybe one of those empty buildings will turn out to be a huge gasoline refinery giving out free samples. One thing I know from years of motorcycling is that no matter what, something will come up.

It always does.

Being the cynical skeptic that I usually am, I doubt the report of no gas at the last station, and, in an effort to discount at least some bad news, I make the closest gas station our first stop.

So much for that great idea. The nearest ‘convenience’ store is also closed, with a similarly frank, very inconvenient message taped to the door.

We’ve been out for a few days already, and dates lose significance when they don’t matter. However, I am pretty sure we have slid into the month of August, which, according to this sign should mean the road is open. But that road is still closed. Obviously, there is no luck to be found in this little town, so back down the road we go.

About forty miles later, in the comically named town of Jade City, we find a real gem, literally. Jade City, as far as we can tell, consists of a few out of business shops, and one still in business gift store; The Cassiar Mountain Jade Store, specializing in… wait for it… Jade. Brilliant, I know.

Unfortunately, due to the distinct lack of available pumps, we immediately realize the Jade Store doesn’t specialize in hydrocarbon compound vending. We venture inside to see if they might specialize in hot food distribution, or at least have an idea where we might spend the rapidly approaching night.

Fiona wastes no time. She immediately finds the Jade Store owner, and applying her best Boo-Boo face innocently asks, “Is there any chance there might be accommodations in this city? We’re kind of in a jam.” Resistance to the Boo-Boo face is nearly impossible, and I am interested to see the outcome.

The owner curtly replies, “City? HA! Thirty-four people live in this city.” With a shrug she continues, “No hotels here. Closest hotel is in Dease Lake.”

Wow! Epic fail for the power of the Boo-Boo face! This is worse than I thought.

Not sure what to do next, we wander over to the candy shelf and start stocking up for what could very possibly turn out to be a very long night. As we are trying to figure out if Peanut Butter Cups have more nutritional content that Mars Bars, the owner comes back and says in a low voice, “You know, I do have a bunk house out back that’s partially empty. Business has been down because of the fire. Some of the workers are on a little vacation.” Pointing to the young girl working the cash register she goes on, “The only one staying in the bunk house right now is her. If it’s all right with her, I guess you three could stay in there.”

All three of us apply our best Boo-Boo faces, and after some careful consideration the girl slowly nods her approval. She has her own room, and thus will be spared the stench that always radiates from my boots when I take them off. Lucky her! We are saved from at least one problem, and as I’ve learned from years of live television production, the best course of action is always to deal with one disaster at a time.

Dinner consists of a bowl of Ramen noodle soup and a Coke. Turns our that Ramen noodle soup has more nutritional content than either a Peanut Butter Cup OR a Mars bar, but then again, the Styrofoam bowl the soup comes in probably does too.

After dinner we are ushered out back to our home for the evening. As we head there, we are given the lowdown on the place.

“There are no toilets, just an outhouse. The generator goes off at 10:30, and doesn’t come back on until six.” Pointing at Fiona and me, she says, “There’s a fold out couch for the two of you, and a single bed for him. It’s not the best, but it is the best we’ve got.”

“Sounds perfect! Thank you so much!”

The bunk house is admittedly a bit rustic and spartan, but, in my book, rustic and spartan beats being bear food any day. I try to convince my beautiful girlfriend that it is romantic, though it is obviously far from romantic. Sleeping Beauty is a trooper, laughing and rolling with the punches, at least until nature calls. She says, “Some girls get to go to the beach for vacation, but me? I get… THIS!”

To entertain ourselves, we toast the Best Day Ever while sitting in the middle of the deserted Cassiar Highway. Our Macallan supply dips precariously low, nearly as low as the supply of fuel in my tank. We sit in the middle of the road for about twenty minutes, until suddenly a Jeep with New York license plates comes over the distant hill.

The young couple stop and ask about road and hotel status. They get the good news; there are no hotels, no gas, and the closed road is won’t be open until 7:30 the following morning. The female passenger doesn’t take that last bit of news particularly well. In her best Jersey Shore accent, she wails, “Oh no! I am NAWT getting up that early!” Glaring at her bewildered boyfriend, she adds, “And I am NAWT sleeping in this Jeep!”

Good luck with all that.

Best Day Ever juice supply exhausted, tolerance for the day exhausted as well, Fiona and I retire to the comfort of the bunk house, climb into the sofa bed and are instantly asleep, ready for whatever the next day might bring; ready to face one more disaster at a time.

Six AM. Cold out. Clear too. There’s a fire up ahead, and we have high hopes that we’ll cross it today.

The forty mile slog back to the closure drains another half from my nearly empty gas tank. I know there is a gas station directly on the other side of the closure, but there’s no way to know if they have gas or not.

One disaster at a time.

We arrive at seven, and it doesn’t look like anything has changed from the night before. One of the forestry workers comes over and starts chatting, assuring us they want everyone to get through too. He whines a bit about how difficult the public can be, then walks away. With not much else to do, we sit and wait for the magical hour to arrive.

The magical hour comes and goes. Nothing happens. The magical next hour comes and goes too.

A kind gentleman comes over and offers coffee, saying he and his wife have plenty in their trailer. Since we have nothing but a bottle of water, we happily accept. As she hands out the first warm cup of goodness, his wife calls down from the trailer, “Anybody want toast? I have home made jam too!”

Disaster or Best Day Ever?

Two hours, two coffees and two jam covered toasts after the magical hour has passed, a helicopter approaches, circles overhead, then lands in the middle of the road.

Surely this is going to be good news.

Nervously, everyone waits with fingers crossed as the pilot and highway worker confer, safely out of earshot.

After a lengthy discussion, the man with the orange X on his vest walks back and shakes his head. “No go. Visibility is too poor right now. It doesn’t look too good for today. We’ll try again at eleven.”

Great. A man, clearly frustrated, shouts, “WHAT!?!? TRY AGAIN AT ELEVEN?!? I’VE BEEN HERE FOR TWO DAYS!! ELEVEN?!?! FUCK THAT!!” He gets in his car, slams the door and screeches off on a long journey back to the only alternate route. Nobody seems terribly upset at his departure.

Weird Fan Man from the ferry and Hyder shows up again. Funny how we keep running into the same people on this road, but I guess when there is only one road, you’re bound to run into the same travelers over and over. We ask if his whirly-gig could support a bike, and offer cash to fly us over the fire. He laughs. A lady walks by and says we should start a Scrabble game.

“Scrabble? Hell, let’s play poker for gasoline!” I reply.

The day progresses, and we sit and wait, without much progress. This random band of refugees starts to resemble a reality show. One guy comes over and says he wants to run the barricade, he just needs a few more people to go with him. A chatterbox corners us and talks at us for what seems like a year. Graciously, we are offered free coffee refills.

Eleven comes and goes, and nothing happens.

Two ladies on motorcycles ride up from the back of the line. They introduce themselves as Maria and Haley, two friends (and fellow bloggers) from Dark Meat’s favorite city of Victoria, traveling together on their first long, epic motorcycling adventure.

Their blog can be found here. Check it out, it’s worth the read.

The four of us pass time telling stories. Abi waxes poetic on his love of Victorian Customs agents. Fiona remarks about how clean their motorcycles are. Parked next to their sparkling motors, our poor machines look like a pile of hot garbage. Maria asks if we’ve taken the Lemon Pledge.

Lemon Pledge? Thinking we might be about to join a secret society, I naively reply, “No. What’s that?”

Maria walks away and comes back with a plastic bag in hand. She shakes it, and out falls a can of Lemon Pledge furniture polish. They tell us they use Pledge on everything from helmet visors to headlights, and it makes them clean and shiny.

Orange X man’s radio crackles and interrupts our fascinating furniture polish conversation. “CRRRZZTTT! Still doesn’t look good. Visibility is very poor. CRRRZZZTTTT! We’ll make the final decision for the day at one.”

Final decision? For the day? As in, we might not get through at all today? Uh oh. I don’t even have enough gas to get back to Jade City now. Great. Another Plan B discussion begins. With my gauge almost on ‘E’ does it make sense to wait one more day to try and get through? We decide to wait until the final decision for the day is made to make our decision.

One disaster at a time.

A couple of Punjabi men that Abi was talking to shrugged and said they’d waited long enough, it was time to turn around and head home. Abi said to them, “Well, maybe next time.”

The older man wisely replied, “Next time? Who knows if there will be a next time? My next breath is not guaranteed.”

At one, the crowd grows around Orange X Man. A guitar wielding man strolls up, strumming and singing, “Don’t be angry, they’re just doing their job.” CRRRZZZTTTT! The radio crackles again, silence, then a huge cheer erupts from the crowd. The winds have shifted enough to blow the smoke off the road. We are on our way outta here!

People run to their cars as we rush to suit up. Without an announcement or any kind of warning, the pilot car suddenly takes off as I struggle to get my riding pants on. Cars, trucks and campers, some of which have been waiting for days gun their way into the gap. Our group of four riders end up squarely in the middle of the pack, racing toward the unknown of the fire.

I glance down at my fuel gauge. It’s flashing, which means there isn’t much fuel in there at all. I guess two disasters at a time is the rule of the moment. I hope that in this case ‘E‘ means Enough, because the idea running out of gas in a forest fire is so absurdly horrifying it’s almost funny.

Things go from not too bad to waay too bad in minutes. Thick, choking smoke quickly fills the air as ash swirls on the road. The land is scorched, and in some places still burning. Acrid smoke rises from the ground, entire stands of trees are torched and mangled. Helicopters keep watch on our convoy from above, ready to warn the pilot car if a flaming tree falls in our path, or some dumb French knucklehead runs out of fuel on the drive through the fire.

In the midst of the smoke and swirling ash, my fuel gauge enters countdown mode. Countdown mode is the fun way the engineers in Japan, guys that will never need or use this exciting feature, came up with to maximize anxiety when you’re dangerously close to running out of go juice. With about twenty miles of fuel left in Rain Cloud Follows, we suddenly take a breath of fresh, smokeless air. Hooray! We’ve made it through the fire!

Reaching the junction of the Cassiar and Alcan feels like a complete victory. Pouring an entire tankful of fresh hydrocarbon molecules into Rain Cloud Follows feels even better. Though we’ve lost a day waiting to get through, the goal of reaching Alaska is still obtainable.

We offer to buy Maria and Haley drinks in Whitehorse if they can find us, then, with a wave we race off to our next stop, and the continuation of our Alaskan Adventure.

Alaska! Finally! Click here to read more.

Underway at last in Super Natural British Columbia! Took long enough to get to this point, didn’t it? Yes. It did. But we’re here now, and that’s all that matters.

The scenery right away is stunning, with soaring mountains surrounding our little party of explorers.

We bob and weave around Lower Middle B.C. for a while, finally reaching the gas station town of Kitwanga, which is the junction with Route 37, better known as the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, best known as our planned ingress path into the Great White North. Our motorcycles pose in front of the first real sign that proves that the Alaskan Adventure is, in fact, going to Alaska.

Another sign, perched at the beginning of Route 37, says differently.

The sign blinks with even worse news.

Oh shit. This is bad. Really bad. The Alaskan Adventure may not, in fact, be going to Alaska at all.

I consult my Map-kin, and it looks bad. Though it isn’t to scale, or even close to geographically correct, my hand drawn cartographic masterpiece shows only two ways to drive to Alaska: The Stewart-Cassiar Highway, which we are now parked at the beginning of, or the Alcan Highway, which lies approximately 500 Killer-Meters to our east. And one of those, as we’ve just learned, is not open.

We sit in the Petro Canada parking lot and start coming up with a Plan B. Most good riders have a Plan B handy. Most good riders would also probably find out about such trip-threatening road conditions ahead of time. We are not that type. So, fueled with fear and a shot of 5 Hour Energy™, we strategize. Do we hammer for the far off Alcan and drastically change our entire plan? Do we risk riding up the Cassiar to the closure point, in hopes that by the time we get there they will have put out the fire? Should we skip Alaska altogether and head for Banff?

Or should we have just done what the sign back in Olympia implored us to do in the first place?

It’s agonizing.

After some debate, our merry band of Alaskan Adventurers decides Plan B be damned, we’ll gladly take our chances and stick with Plan A. We head north for Hyder, which will mean at least we technically made it into Alaska.

Once on the Cassiar highway, we switch into Fuel Hog mode, which means filling up at every gas station whether we need it or not. Gasoline can become a problem on roads such as this, because while there are technically enough stations to keep machines fueled to the next stop, sometimes those stations run out of gas or go out of business. As an added measure of protection, Dark Meat fills the little red Jug-o-Gas kindly donated a few days ago by Barb and Vic, who I’ve since learned are the creators of the world-famous Sheepskin Buttpad and owners of the excellent motorcycling store Alaska Leather.

Decision made, we set sights on Hyder, Alaska. We enjoy the nearly deserted, supposedly closed and at-some-point-far-ahead probably burning road.

Then, on the road to Hyder, we glimpse a wee bit of the white that the Great White North is so famous for.

The Bear Glacier

Up Close

The road winds us to our ultimate goal, the town of Hyder, Alaska. Just before we cross from the well paved streets of British Columbia to the gravelly frontier town of Hyder, Fiona, glimpsing the town for the first time, asks me, “Is this place real?”

Oh yeah, it’s real all right. We find a room at the Sealaska Inn, and walk down to the bar to get properly familiarized with the town, through a frightening process called getting ‘Hyderized.’

Nervously, we line up at the bar, and the bartendress pours three shots from a bottle in a paper bag. “The rule is you have to finish in one swig. Anyone that doesn’t finish or pukes has to buy the whole bar a round.”

And right after:

The bartendress takes one of the empty glasses, pours out what little liquid remains, then proceeds to light it on fire on the bar top. “That’s what is happening to your insides right now. Congratulations, you’ve been Hyderized!”

She hands us official certificates, explaining that now it is official, we’ll never have to do that again.

We strike up a conversation with JD, a biker that witnessed our painful Hyderization. He tells us he rode down Route 37 that morning, and gives us the tremendous news that the road is open, with pilot cars ferrying cars through the fire area.

“How bad is the fire?”

“Oh, it’s bad,” he replies with a smile, “but you’ll get through all right.”

With that we pose for a quick snapshot with our new friend, and head home for the night. In the parking lot, we are stunned to see the weird car from the ferry, the one with the huge fan on it.

The Fan Behind The Dark Meat

The driver explains the fan is part of a para-sailing contraption he learned how to fly and is now taking home. Alaska, even this little part of it is full of characters. I wish we’d gotten a better picture of his contraption, it was pretty funny, but in our Hyderized state it probably wouldn’t have come out too clearly anyway.

Before retiring for the night, we stop off in Dark Meat’s room, and use his license to chop up and snort fat lines of cocaine to celebrate the Best Day ever.

Just kidding.

The next morning we roll from the US back into BC early, secure in the knowledge that the road is open; we’ll get through the fires. We continue in Fuel Hog mode, stopping off at every station along the way to fill our tanks.

And, for those that have them, call and check in with the wife.

The day goes by, and by 4 PM we reach the town of Dease Lake, where we are instantly confused.

The sign says the road is closed, but a very un-photogenic construction sign right next to the evil closure sign said that the road might in fact be open, with pilot cars running between 8 AM and 6 PM.

6PM? It’s 4 PM now, and we are exactly two hours away from the closure. Decision time once again.

We decide to go for it, and turn Route 37 into our very own Stewart-Cassiar International Speedway.

Mother Nature chooses this moment to cue the clouds, and the rains come down for the first time on our trip.

I think to myself that the rain can only help our cause, and imagine the huge parade for Rain Cloud Follows that will be thrown for single-handedly putting out the fires. That pipe dream goes up in smoke, as the rain ends well before the road does.

We pass a gas station with two motorcycles filling up. I notice that I have quite a bit less than a quarter tank of gas, but break the Fuel Hog rule anyway and speed past with a quick wave. No time to stop! We need to get through!

At 5:45 PM, 640 KM from the start of the road, 200 KM from the nearest town with accommodations, we reach the dreaded closure point. Noticing people camping in the rest area, I trepidatiously ride up to the blockade and inquire when we can go through.

With arms firmly crossed, the dude ruins our trip by saying, “Not today. Fire got worse. No visibility. Road’s closed for the night. We’re going to try to go through tomorrow around 7:30 AM. Come back then.”

Umm… shit. This is bad. We confer, and decide that even though it is far away, we’re going to have to ride the 124.27 miles back to Dease Lake. Abi pours the contents of his Jug-o-Gas into his tank, as I plan to fill up at the last station we passed.

Just then the two bikers we saw filling up pull up with more fantastic news. “There’s no gas at that station.”

Without enough gas to get back to the only lodging we’ve seen, without a tent, without anything that can reasonably be called food, and with night quickly approaching, I realize that for once, right now, we are well and truly fucked.

What will happen next? Click here to find out!

It’s dark. It’s cold. We’re groggy, but awake. After yesterday’s blitz ride through the northern bits of Vancouver Rhode Island to Port Hardy, it’s finally time to get this trip started.

Almost.

When I had my pre-ride Map-kin strategizing session, which admittedly lasted about ten minutes, I noticed there were two choices to reach Alaska from Vancouver Rhode Island. One was to take a ferry from the town of Nanaimo to the city of Vancouver and ride north. Not a bad way to go, if you want to be honest when you say you ‘rode to Alaska’ because that would involve the most actual roads. The second, more appealing option was to take a ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert in British Columbia. This would avoid a lot of boring roads, let us cross an ‘Inside Passage’ cruise off the bucket list, and plop us right down at the start of all the really good stuff.

The choice is clear. Pure honesty is out, and we’re still ‘Riding to Alaska’ just some of it is riding on a boat. Whatever.

M.V. Northern Expedition

It’s 6 AM, and faced with a full day to do nothing but float around looking at scenery, read my book, and goof off hanging out with my beautiful girlfriend (and of course Dark Meat Snack) it’s already the Best Day Ever. To sweeten the deal even further, we pool all our Loonies and rent a private cabin, complete with a shower, beds and a TV.

Speaking of Loonies, we’ve only been in Canada for a day, and already I have a pocket full of change that weighs several metric tons.

This is Canadian money, which is similar to real money. However, instead of bills, these crafty Canadians use coins for dollars. The gold coins, worth a dollar, are called Loonies. The two-toned coins, worth, you guessed it… two dollars, are called… wait for it… Twonies!! Ha! I guarantee there are Canadians that have change jars worth several million dollars. On board the M.V. Frenchy Expedition, we spend the rest of our loose Loonies and Twonies on beer and sandwiches.

And the scenery? Well, I have to say it’s probably the best value for the Loonie, and we all agree taking the ship beat riding, at least for that day.

And on and on and on it goes. We relax. We smoke cigars. We watch things jumping out of the ocean.

We cheer for little boats pulling big things behind them.

We nap. We laugh. We eat.

We do a whole lot of nothing, and completely enjoy all there is to enjoy on this restful interlude.

At 10:30 PM the ship shudders, slows, and the announcement crackles throughout the cabin. “Ahoy, maties! Please prepare to disembark. Drivers, report to your vehicles at this time.”

First View of Prince Rupert

The race is on, and I want to win. Rain Cloud Follows deboats the ferry right behind a BMW F800 and before a car with a gigantic, weird looking fan attached to the back of it. Not bad really, since in my book second place isn’t first loser, it’s the vice-winner!

Exhausted from his long day of resting, lounging and relaxing, Dark Meat Snack immediately disappears to his hotel room to call the wife, while Sleeping Beauty and I enjoy the finest nightlife that Prince Rupert has to offer; watching the locals tear up the dance floor while a Canadian power trio band plays all my favorite hits from the Eighties. I consult the rulebook to see if it is permissible to toast the Best Day Ever twice.

Hooray! It is not only permissible, it is encouraged!

Fiona and I hang with the dancing locals as long as we can, blissfully unaware that the very next day the entire ride is about to go up in flames.

Flames?!?! Click here to read on!