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Just north of Vines Lake, Jade City, population 12, is named
for the large amounts of jade found in the hills surrounding the tiny town.
There are huge jade boulders being cut up that come from the nearby Princess
Jade Mine, 82 miles to the east. The mine is one of the largest jade claims in
the world. It’s amazing what you can learn when you leave the house. I never
would have thought that out here in the middle of nowhere, that I’d be
surrounded by jade. I wonder if all 12 people slave away in the mines like in Indiana
Jones. Probably not.
A few miles later the massive sprawling metropolis of
Centerville, population 2, comes along. It’s an old gold rush town where the
largest nugget of gold was found in all of British Columbia in 1877 weighing 72
ounces. If 16 ounces equals one pound, then that would be a four and half pound
nugget, not a bad day’s work. Two people?
Later, I pop over a hill and a scene of mass proportion
unfolds. Construction crews stand holding signs, others rest for noonday’s
lunch munching on ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and sucking down
water from coolers. I wave to them as I ride by and onto a narrow one-lane wood
bridge. I have passed over several of these one-lane bridges over the last few
hours. Aside this one now looms a massive modern looking concrete two-lane
bridge. It dwarfs the one lane and robs the land of innocence. Ah, progress.
After 375 miles and at one in the
afternoon- I’m here, finally, no more gravel. I reach
the intersection of Hwy 37 and Hwy 1- the Alcan Highway. Now it is westward to
Whitehorse from here and across southern Yukon Territory. The Yukon. It even
sounds far north. It was then that I realize I’ve forgotten to eat anything
all day again. Sometimes this happens to me, I hop on the bike and just start
riding forgetting about all else except the ride itself.
As I fill the tank and jerry cans at the intersection, an old
Harley Springer pulls up next to me. It reeks of mystique. A leathered rider
lifts himself from the low bucket seat like a dirty hinge needing oil. The
chromed chopper forks sparkle through the gravel dust. The exposed fork springs
show their age with tiny spots of rust. A weathered steel-toe work boot flips out
the sidestand and the bike leans to the left side. The guy stands erect on two
feet, puts his hands on his hips, leans back, and cracks his back, groaning as
he does. Rawhide leather cowboy chaps cling to his legs, held on with extra
strips of leather tied in knots. They look like something out of an old western
TV show. His left work boot is wrapped in silver duct tape, holding on the sole.
The right boot has the front leather part ripped away exposing the silver steel
toe underneath.
Dark hair that hasn’t been touched by comb, pick, or brush
in days emerges from his half helmet. The front forehead of the helmet is
encrusted in mud as if he stuck his head in a mud puddle. Underneath that is an
oily brown baseball cap on backwards.
He strolls over to me and his face is a cragged affair. Dark
circles underline his eyes and wrinkles fan across the sides of his face. He
cracks a smile and just starts talking.
He tells a tale of one time he and a buddy did the ride up
the Cassiar in the middle on a driving rainstorm; both on chopper style Harley’s.
No windshield, hand warmers or cruise control on this bike. During the ride, he
did notice that if he mounted his sleeping roll above the headlight and strapped
it to the ape hangers, it provided ample protection from the mud shooting off
the front tire. Been there ever since he adds. Which explains the mud on the
helmet. That’s right where the flow over the sleeping roll hits him, right
smack dab in the forehead.
He excitedly tells a tale with a glint in his sunken eyes of
a biker rally up in Whitehorse. When he says it, his weather beaten face can’t
keep from smiling. He also says ‘eh’ a lot. He says I should go- it’s
going to be a really wild weekend! Then he pays for his gas and walks back to
the iron steed. He swings a leg over and fires up the bike fondling the
accelerator as if he was a three-year-old and it was his first toy. It is a
beautiful sound. Up flips the sidestand, the bike stands up right, the front
tire points west and off he goes.
A cafe sits besides the gas station and invites me to grab a
bite to eat. I retire to a table lugging in my maps. The best sounding thing on
the menu is the Chicken on Cord sandwich. I chow into it as it drips and drips,
oh how yummy good! About 4 in the afternoon I finally reunite with the bike and
motor on.
The 300 miles to Whitehorse from Junction 37 becomes a quiet
relaxing ride as the road is actually paved. As soon as I leave the junction,
there are messages written with rocks alongside the road. My waitress back at
Junction 37 said to look for this. The messages run for some miles and most are
even dated. The messages began in 1990 by a Fort Nelson
swim team. It looks as though the trend has caught on and there is even a car
parked with little kids running around grabbing rocks.
The road winds its way through the low mountains and into
the Rancheria River Valley. The river was named in 1875 by local miners who
found gold in the nearby Sayyea Creek. The edges of the river are a brilliant
summer green and the mountains gently slope upward. I pull over at a turnout to
stretch my legs and the sign reads that I am standing on the Continental Divide.
To the north, all rivers drain into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River
system. Those to the south of here continue on and flow into the Pacific Ocean
via the Yukon River. All the way to Fairbanks, the rivers and streams drain into
the Yukon River and then into the Pacific. Neat. On the road again.
An hour later I am riding over a very long bridge, about a
half-mile long. The map says I am riding over the Nisutlin River, which flows
into Teslin Lake. It is the longest bridge on the entire Alcan Highway.
The town of Teslin to the west of the highway comes and goes.
It is situated right on the edge of Teslin Lake and the Nisutlin River. It is
supposed to have one of the largest native populations in the Yukon Territory
but I don’t stop. I am on my way to Alaska.
Chilkoot Pass is just to the south of me outside of
Skagway. It reminds me of the Jack London story made into that movie White
Fang, with Ethan Hawke. All those gold seekers climbing the golden stairway.
Good movie. I am very close to the Pacific again, but you would never know.
Mountains and lakes, that’s pretty much it. I have noticed that the shape of a
great majority of the lakes around here is unique. All the lakes are narrow and
long. Marsh Lake, for example is not very wide, but 20 miles long. The lakes of
Atlin, Tagish, and Teslin are all very long and narrow. I suppose everything
must sit between ripples in the earth’s crust.
A few miles later, I arrive at an intersection at Johnson
Crossing. The road to my right heads north and is called the Canol Road. The
road was built in 1942 to reach the oil fields in Norman Wells on the Mackenzie
River 513 miles to the north. During the early stages of the war after Japan
attacked Pearl Harbor, fear was high that the Japanese might next invade Alaska.
In addition, it was felt there weren’t enough ships in the Pacific Fleet to
ward of such an attack. It was known at the time, that the Yukon and Alaska
contained reserves of oil. The problem was just how to gain access to it. If the
Japanese invaded, it might prevent U.S. access to the oil and the ability to get
it south to the coast to supply the war effort.
Vihhjalmur Stefansson, a long time Arctic explorer, suggested
a pipeline could be built and the oil piped to Whitehorse to a refinery. Within
months, a 134 million dollar 2 year project began in conjunction with building
the Alcan Highway to build the pipeline. It was supposed to run all to the coast
and meet up with Skagway. With all that effort, a mere 1 million gallons of oil
ever made it to Whitehorse via a four-inch pipe and the project was abandoned at
the end of the war. Oil Wells, tank farms, pump stations, airfields, and WWII
vehicle dumps all remain as relics untouched since the war along the road.
At Jake’s Corner, I stop for a breather. There are old
vehicles everywhere, sort of like a museum or maybe you’d call this just a
plain old dump. I’m not sure which. Many relics of the Canol Road project and
the building of the Alcan Highway sit here along with some old logging equipment
and gold rush stuff. If I were a kid pent up in a camper on this trip, I would
be begging my dad to stop here so I could climb all over these things. A little
boy’s paradise.
The road passes by a stream; a mountain, another stream,
another mountain, and I finally reach Whitehorse, the capital city of the Yukon
Territory. I don’t really have a reason to stop at 11 in the evening. The
daylight is deceiving. It makes your brain think the day is alive and well. Yet
my body tells a different story.
I veer off the main road and ride slowly into the town. The
road falls down a hill and plops into the cityscape in the valley below where a
town of 20,000 people resides. We Americans probably think that’s not very
many people but two thirds of the entire population of the 30,000 strong Yukon
Territory resides here. The territory is only about the size of Idaho. I spot a
Mickey D’s, the eternal symbol of civilization. I just have to stop and eat
something familiar- a quarter pounder with cheese and large fries.
A large group of 30 some kids pull up and walk inside
reminding me of the high school years. Was this all we did back then I wonder to
myself? They create a tremendous noise as only 30 high school kids can. I pour
over some maps and watch Canadian television on the monitors bolted to the wall
above an adjacent booth.
A guy walks in dripping of motorcycle holding a half helmet
under his arm. He spots me and thinks the same thing I am. He plops down in the
booth next to me and the conversation begins. Scott is up from Vancouver,
pronounced Vann-cooo-ver, and for the last 3 days has been shacking up with a
friend of his. I mention Highway 37 and he nods a knowingly grin.
"Buddy and me, were comin’ up that road, an it was
rainin’ and the road was soup. I turned my fork full swing side to side to see
how much traction there was and nothing happened, I was just plowin along!"
His eyes sparkle as the grimace spreads across his face. "My buddy wiped
his bike out, plopped ‘er right down in the mud. An’ then I laid my bike
down too! We just both lay there laughin’ sprawled in the mud in the pouring
rain. It was the middle of nowhere."
"Hurt the bike any?" I asked enjoying the story.
"Ah no," Scott said motioning with his arm,
"we were only doin’ a couple miles an hour. We just picked up the bikes,
fired ‘em up and kept on riding. A short while later, the rain still coming
down in a steady drizzle an’ we came upon a hitchhiker. This guy, he was kinda
older, an’ was just standin’ there in the middle of nowhere, no shoes, no
socks even. So we picked him up." I could see the image more clearly now of
two aging Harley riders, riding along in a rain storm on one of the most
deserted roads in western Canada, add a homeless guy, bare feet, the wilderness,
and two Harley Davidson motorcycles and the story kept getting more colorful. It
reminds me a little of EasyRider, but then Jack Nicholson would’ve had
to be barefoot. And it never rained in that movie.
"Imagine it, Tim, my buddy and I ridin’ up the
Cassiar,
the road you just traveled, three of us covered in mud, rain drippin' from our
hair, the stormy skies and low hangin’ clouds. Well, all three of us rode a
while till the next oasis and we sat down to wait out the storm. Turns out this
guy’s wife had died; his kid was all grown. He tried to get into the US but
couldn’t get across the border because he had no ID an’ no money."
I look at Scott with genuine interest as he tells the story
of this homeless guy they picked. I guess Scott is in his thirties, light skin,
and slowly thinning short black hair. His black leather jacket is well worn with
straps on the shoulders and a belt on the waist of the jacket. His entire face
lights up as he finishes up the story. If I couldn’t see the wrinkles in his
skin, I’d peg him from his voice as 18 and never growing old.
"It’s the vinegar," Scott says. He must have seen
the wince in my face as I eat my fries. "The ketchup is rather heavy on the
vinegar up here." Maybe it’s one of those Canadian cultural things.
A young woman pops her head out of the door to the kitchen
and gives Scott’s shoulder a squeeze. "I’m almost ready," she says
smiling. Scott cracks an 18-year old smile, a sort of silly grin, and winks at
me.
"It’s the bike," he says, "just met ‘er."
The grin exposes the wrinkles in his cheeks but the youthful look doesn’t for
a moment leave him. "She’s a looker, eh?"
Later she joins us as Scott and I stand outside with his
Harley. It looks so tiny parked next to my Venture. Her accent is peculiar to
me. The Canadian accent is different than my own but hers is unique.
"Australian," Heather says. I can’t help but ask.
From Australia to the Yukon? To Whitehorse? I wait for the story of the
boyfriend that dragged her along to here or something like that but she doesn’t
answer.
Scott’s bike is a 1967 Harley Davidson Shovelhead, black,
with flames on the polished tank and matching yellow flames stitched into the
Corbin seat. I comment on the beauty of the machine and Scott launches into this
excited monologue of how he had to replace the front tire, a couple spokes, the
brakes, hot-wire this... Heather starts to get a far away look. It’s like two
guys in a hardware store looking at power tools.
"Hey, you ever come down to Vancouver and need a place
to stay, you call me," Scott says giving me his phone number and donning
the half helmet. He flips the key switch on the side below the tank and fires up
the bike. Heather hops on giving Scott a bear hug as the motor revs a happy tune.
I have to know this nagging question. "What do you
do?" I ask. The Harley revs its sweet sound between us and I can smell
the exhaust.
"Nothing!" Scott shouts with a grin. He slaps it
into gear, revs the motor and rides off onto the highway.
An hour later, I am weaving all over the road in the darkness
of night in the middle of absolute nowhere. My brain has reduced my speed to a
mere 35 miles per hour to decrease my weaving. At least, that’s the idea. It’s
the same sleepy weave down the straightest of roads. Not one car has passed by
going the other way in the last 30 minutes. I check the time and it is well
after midnight. This longitude thing is really wacky. It seems like it just got
dark.
I start looking for a secluded place alongside the road to
stop for the night. There are no campgrounds out here, no side roads, no glimmer of civilization, just scrub forest and straight road. I park the bike alongside the road letting it idle in the
moonlight, the headlight shining off into nothing at a place that looks good. It's within my budget... free.
Walking off the road a short way and finding a small grove of
trees, it looks as though this will work. I kick the bike into gear and ease it
off the road. I roll to a stop just below the level of the road. I’m behind
some trees where I can’t be seen from the road. Out pops the kickstand and I
shut off the motor. This has been a very long day. Nearly 400 miles before lunch, another 300+ miles after lunch. Just riding. Just that bike and me.
Once parked, next comes the sleeping bag on my foam mat and I cover the
bike with the camouflage poncho. I don’t want to be noticed. Even at one in
the morning, the sun will be up soon. After pulling off my boots, they take
their place side by side along the sleeping bag. My tired body clamors in
looking up into the stars, the bike looming in the corner of my eye. I really
like this end of the day thing of staring up into the sky.
I wonder to myself what the rest of the world is doing as a shooting
star goes sailing by.
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