WILD Wild West story and photos by Janick Lemieux and Pierre Bouchard
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PEDAL June 2011
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“Janick, your bike is gone!” My heart stopped, my mind fogged up and a tingly heat crept over my face. This sounded painfully familiar. I saw the blurry mouth of a gigantic psychedelic spiral sucking Pierre and I up and spitting us back to Year 2000. Back then, my faithful mount and my four panniers had vanished during the night from the yard of a private home in Quito’s dodgy northern suburbs. This time, it was taken under the bright midnight sun of Whitehorse’s dinnertime from the front lawn of friends Gilles and Manon’s suburban bungalow. (facing pages) Majestic Ruby Mountain (1,895m), part of the Atlin Volcanic Field in a remote corner of BC; (insets l-r) Pierre’s mount at Watson Lake's world famous www.pedalmag.com
Sign Post Forest; Atlin’s old Court House; Pit stop at a church on the Alaska Highway Historical Mile 642 in Yukon Territory
June 2011 PEDAL
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PEDAL June 2011
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On the quintessential Northern B.C. “adventure road”...we followed wild rivers and slept by pristine lakes surrounded by neon green forest. illes and Pierre set off quickly and patrolled the neighbourhood in hopes of finding my beast of burden and two smaller bicycles also taken by the thieves and belonging to our hosts’ children. I stayed on the front steps of the house, filed a report with a policeman and pondered ways to get my vehicle back. We had been cycling around the Pacific Ring of Fire for almost 10 years, and with less than five months of road ahead of us before the completion of the “ring,” we were not about to give up! Five hours after the kidnapping of my “baby,” Pierre and Gilles arrived back at the house, their body language giving me no hope of retrieving my beloved. Then the sad faces turned into huge grins and four arms with clenched fists flew up in the air! The bikes were back! After hours of a fruitless search, they had given up and headed to Canada’s Superstore to buy bread and milk when one of the three teenage “joyriders” rode by them on one of the kids’ bikes! Helped by a police officer called on the spot, the boy led them to his two accomplices and the other two bikes, including mine, already discarded in a nearby ditch! Obviously it is easier to find something stolen in the Yukon’s capital than in Ecuador’s, where we spent 10 weeks, helped by a television crew (and not the police!), getting my bicycle back. From B.C.’s volcanic Nass River Valley (see Pedal June 2010) to Whitehorse’s pantomime, the obvious choice was the Stewart-Cassiar (Highway 37). An 800-kilometre road winding north from the Yellowhead Highway to the Alaska Highway, Kitwanga to Watson Lake and linking a handful of scattered outposts with paved access to some of the most awe-inspiring scenery on the continent. Europeans first came to the region for the fur trade, with the Hudson Bay Company establishing a post in Dease Lake as early as 1833. Gold rushes in the late 1800s attracted more people to these traditional Tahltan and Kaska territories. Stretches of road were built during World War Two and after 1950, when asbestos was discovered in the Cassiar region. By 1978, the Stewart-Cassiar Highway was complete. Now on the quintessential Northern B.C. “adventure road,” we followed wild rivers and slept by pristine lakes surrounded by neongreen forest. Next to the highway, Ursus Americanus — the ubiquitous black bear — munched noisily on skunk cabbage roots, a choice springtime laxative! Many days, we would see one per hour starting a frantic season of calorie-loading. Riding long days across this stupendous mountain country readily explained our ravishing appetites as if we’d also been in hibernation. Meanwhile at Mama Z Restaurant in Dease Lake, we descended deeper into the fruit-pie addiction we’d been developing since leaving Vancouver! For two weeks now, we were an unexpected yet agreeable foursome. Nick and Sabine from Zurich were roaming B.C.’s roads in a rough-looking Dodge Ram camper van and mildly stalking us from Port Hardy to Telegraph Creek — tucked in by the tumultuous Stikine at the end of a
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(facing pages) Northbound on the Stewart-Cassiar, a 750km long silky highway in northern B.C.; (insets l-r) A northern pike breakfast courtesy of our Shimano compact fishing rod
at Little Atlin Lake, B.C.; another migratory bird-on-wheels on the Stewart-Cassiar highway; giant mosquito trap and helpful signs at Tattoga Lake Resort June 2011 PEDAL
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A room with a view on the Alaska Highway near Dry Creek, Yukon Territory
Whitehorse feels like Canada must have been one hundred years ago... things seem less contrived, friendlier. 150-kilometre rough, steep (no guardrails!) gravel dead-end, west of Dease Lake. Much of Nick’s motivation to “follow” us was surely the epic walk into Mount Edziza Provincial Park that Pierre had planned. One sunny morning, Sabine and I dropped the boys off at a float-plane and watched them fly away. They walked for five days back to Telegraph Creek, skirting Mount Edziza, a dormant volcano (2,781 metres) and Canada’s highest with views of the icy Coastal Range. Mountain sheep and beaver dams alternated, making the crossing both magical and hellish! Sabine and I busied ourselves while waiting for them by accompanying a Tahltan family emptying salmon traps on the Stikine. Cooked over a campfire, we ate some of the best specimens. We also worked on our tan on the many beaches lining the raging river, took the opportunity to go speed-boating on the Stikine’s Grand Canyon . . . and to eat pie at the local cafe everyday! Some five days later, Nick and Pierre re-emerged, looking rundown, emaciated and smelling rotten. After showers, coffee and pie (Nick is still known in Telegraph Creek as “three-pie guy” because he could not choose between cherry, apple or pecan, instead settling for a slice of each!), stories of their journey started to unfold. The pictures they painted spoke of this high plateau littered with cinder cones, glaciers, lava flows, wind and silence. We talked into the night around the fire pit, knowing full well our small posse was about to dissolve. Our Swiss compadres and their van disappeared on the horizon as we hit the pedals through Jade City — a jade store, post office, highway-maintenance camp and RV campground — and beyond. Most of the adventurers found on the highway so far had been at the helm of 38
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gargantuan recreational vehicles, which were like furnished one-bedroom apartments on wheels. At Tattoga Lake’s gas station, we waited in line next to one. Its fuel pump stopped at $404! For our part, we “filled ‘er up” for $3.16 — fuel to cook enough oatmeal, pasta and rice to reach the Yukon and the ALCAN Highway, a few kilometres west of Watson Lake. Even though the ALCAN runs almost totally within Canada, it is known as the Alaska Highway. There’s no point getting bent out of shape over the appellation since it was built by the U.S. Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor to entirely protect Alaska from a foreseen sea invasion by the Japanese. The nowsmooth wide-shouldered road is a touring dream and cyclists from around the world make their way up and down its 2,200 kilometres from Dawson Creek, B.C. to Delta Junction, Alaska every summer. At Historic Mile 866 (Jake’s Corner), a 100-kilometre dead-end road leads us back south into B.C. and the foot of Ruby Mountain (1,895 metres), the largest feature within the Atlin Volcanic Field. The volcano received its name from the coloured tephra deposits found on its summit. The mineral-rich region first attracted newcomers during its gold rush of 1898. Over a century later, we were riding up Ruby Creek on a new road built for the soon-to-start open-pit molybdenum-mining operation. The small (population 400), little-known community of Atlin is striking. A huddle of Gold-Rush-era buildings nestled on the east shore of Atlin Lake, itself B.C.’s largest natural lake, lined the bottom of a wide wilderness valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Leaving the hot springs of Warm Bay behind and backtracking to the ALCAN along glacial-fed Atlin Lake on a most enchanting cul-de-sac, we came face to face with a loaded cyclist. Suzan from Whitehorse is 50 years old and takes a week off as often as possible to come visit her daughter in Atlin on her bike, and who could blame her! Jake’s Corner Truck Stop is the official provider of head-sized cinnamon buns and $5 showers until we arrive at our destination on Copper Road in Whitehorse: the Yukon Brewing Company! Its slogan of “Beer worth freezin’ for!” was fitting for two shivering, soggy cyclists — as far back as the elders could remember, it had been the worst summer weather ever in this part of the world. I had to buy a www.pedalmag.com
wool toque in Prince George on July 7! Inside the gift shop, the atmosphere was anything but frosty. A young trigger-happy fellow manned the taps for a crowd of “tasters” who had gathered by the plasma screen to watch Jon Lajoie videos over and over again. “What kind you wanna try?” he asked us, followed by a huge lazy smile. There were many to try. Soon we were swaying to “Show me your genitals,” a pint of Midnight Sun, Lead Dog or Yukon Gold in hand! Yukoners were walking in to have half-gallon growlers refilled by the zealous inebriated employee or to buy a case of their favourite ale. “Hey! You guys came from Vancouver on them bikes! Here, have a couple cold ones! Welcome to the Yukon!” Whitehorse feels like Canada must have 100 years ago: a small developing community in a vast land. Things seem less contrived, friendlier. The Territory’s capital holds threequarters of Yukoners, many of them outdoor enthusiasts who have moved here from elsewhere to access a true wilderness. Paddling, skiing, climbing and mountain biking are a huge part of life here and attract the inevitable: shaggy mutts, strong coffee culture and a thriving music scene. A few days after retrieving my bike from a downtown ditch, we got back out on the Alaska Highway. There are different roads one can take from Whitehorse. The South and North Klondike Highways lead respectively to the Alaskan coastal town of Skagway and Dawson City, from where it is possible to go beyond the Arctic Circle on the Dempster to Inuvik or to follow the Top of the World Highway to Chicken in Alaska. The shrivelled fireweed — Yukon’s floral emblem — and golden fall foliage dictated the quickest route to Alaska and its Aleutian Islands, our ultimate destination. The formidable rain barrier of the St. Elias and Coastal mountains worked their magic as the landscape became drier closer to Haines Junction at the entrance to Kluane National Park. All of the recreational vehicles parked for the night at Kluane R.V. Kampground were on their way south to warmer climes. Over a piece of blueberry pie at the local co-op, we listened to stories of brushes with death: wolves, coyotes, grizzlies — the list went on. Turns out we too had been attacked during the cold night. My front pannier had been burglarized — goodbye vege-pate and trail mix! — ripped open by . . . a squirrel! Over the undulating road in a vast landscape with few trees, we ducked down into a headwind toward the white giants in the distance. Alaska’s volcanoes stood on the horizon, dense clouds looming over them. À suivre . . . . www.pedalmag.com
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June 2011 PEDAL
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