Home Sweet Home

In case anyone was worried that the lack of blog updates was a bad sign...

We've both arrived safe and sound at our homes, me in Vermont on Friday night and Dad in New Brunswick on Saturday night.  We both had a couple of days off to relax and recuperate before returning to work this week.  I plan on going back and making updates for the last several weeks of this trip, so they'll be more pictures and some stories if you check back in a while.

Raucus Night at the Holiday Inn Missoula

Last night Dad and I walked about an hour to a theatre to catch the late showing of "Inception".  The movie got out at 00:30, so we got back to the hotel around 01:30.  Around 02:30, we were woken up by thumping of feet (or was that bowling balls?) and slamming of doors.  This had happened around the same time the night before as well.  This time I called down to the front desk, and in about 20 minutes the noise stopped.

It took a while to fall back asleep again, soon after which we were woken by the fire alarm.  We had a balcony that overlooked an indoor courtyard in the middle of the building, so I watched for a while to see what was happening instead of immediately evacuating.  The alarm stopped after a while, and instead of going outside I saw other guests just sitting around the courtyard.  We went back to sleep.

In the morning there was a letter slid under our door apologizing for the noise from the guests upstairs, and promising us free breakfast at the hotel's restaurant.  All I wanted was sleep, but I'll take food as well.

While at breakfast we got some more of the story of last night.  The thumping was drunk kids coming home from the bars.  They were disturbing the whole 4th floor, not just us below them on the 3rd floor.  They got kicked out.  Sometime after that EMTs were called in when a guest collapsed as he exited the elevator on the 4th floor.  Apparently he fell right out of his own shoes.  Sometime after that someone pulled the fire alarm.  Not only did that wake up the whole hotel, it also resulted in some other teens getting busted for smoking pot when the fire department came and swept for smoke.  They hadn't set off the alarm, but they got caught because of it.

The motorcycle is expected to be repaired late today, so instead of getting an hour or two down the road and having to setup camp, then break it down again in the morning before riding, we've decided to stay one last night in Missoula and get going early Sunday morning.  That is, of course, if we get some sleep.

We're staying in a different hotel tonight, but not because of anything I've mentioned.  I originally booked two nights via Hotwire and I'm not able to extend our stay at the same rate, which was about 40% of tonight's regular rate.  I found another good deal on Travelocity, so we're off to another hotel.  It's a bit of a hassle, but we've nothing better to do today.

Repair Estimate: $2600

Well, the techs at Big Sky BMW-Kawasaki in Missoula MT had a look at my bike this morning, and the front u-joint on the drive shaft is definitely dead.  No ideas on why that happened.  The kicker is that the failing u-joint thrashed around inside the swing arm enough to ruin it as well.  The swing arm alone is about $1000.  The total estimate is $2600.

At first I asked them just to replace the drive shaft and get it running again; I'd ride home with the swing arm beat up and patch it up myself.  Then we rode to the dealership to have a look.  The swing arm is structurally sound, but the beat up portion won't allow a rubber boot to seal properly, which could allow water and debris to get in and possibly cause another failure in time.  The inside of the swing arm is hardly a clean environment, so I didn't think anything serious could happen in a week of riding even if the boot didn't seal perfectly.  I wanted to just ride home with the damaged swing arm and try to complete the seal with JB Weld or some other filler, but Dad thought that could be risky because debris might get in during the week's ride home.  The tech who was working on my bike seemed willing to discuss doing my JB Weld idea, but noted it'd take time to clean up the beat up swing arm and get the JB Weld set with the proper clip and rubber boot.  Even if he'd try it, we wouldn't be rolling until Monday.  The service manager didn't like the JB Weld idea at all, so I'm not sure if it was really an option.  I really didn't like the idea of replacing a $1000 swing arm that is still structurally OK, but a failed u-joint can be pretty dangerous, potentially causing a rear wheel lock up.  It was a tough decision, and I only had a few minutes to consider it because it was right at the deadline for ordering parts overnight.  In the end I decided to go with a new swing arm, at the cost of what Jess and I usually spend on a week's vacation per person.  No vacation in 2011, or rather, Jess will have to go by herself.

It may have been the fact that we hadn't eaten yet, but when I got the $2600 estimate around 13:30, I felt sick to my stomach.  I've never paid that much to repair any vehicle before.  I don't think I've spend that much on repairs in total for my 2001 Honda VF750 Magna with about 55,000 miles on it.  I'm not feeling any love for my Beemer right now.

The good news is that parts should arrive by tomorrow, and they'll do whatever is necessary to have it running by the end of the day.  They have two other bikes that are broken down right now, so they've got their hands full with emergency jobs.  I'm happy with Big Sky's service, but not my motorcycle or the situation.


Ug.

Stranded - again

I'm still behind by a couple weeks on my full updates, but I've unexpectedly found myself with some "free time" so I'll be working on rectifying that today. I am, you see, stranded once again by my BMW.

Yesterday we were cruising at about 120 km/h (75 mph; the speed limits are reasonable in MT and was 70 mph) south down highway 287 just south of Townsend Montana. Just as the cross wind really started to pick up, my bike started to get a funny vibration. I downshifted, and it seemed to get worse. I shifted back up, and it seems to get better... for a few seconds. It then went from "funny vibration" to "I must pull over NOW", which I did.

The short of it is, I was eventually towed 260 km (160 miles) west (wrong direction!) to the closest BMW Mottorad dealership. It seemed that the problem could be the gear box, so I figured my best bet for a speedy and proper repair would be at a dealer. My AAA membership covered the first 100 miles of the tow, but it cost me about $230 for the remainder. The tow truck driver was awesome and did everything he could to get AAA to cover the entire thing, but none of our schemes worked out in the end.

On the tow again

View Larger Map

Joe, from the service department at Big Sky BMW-Kawasaki in Missoula MT, was kind enough to come back to work an hour after closing to let us bring the bike inside for the night. (He lives across the street, but it's still working on his personal time.) He and a service tech whose name I didn't get had a quick look over the bike and found a disintegrated u-joint at the front end of the drive shaft. Hopefully nothing else died along with it. I smelled burning clutch plate and am concerned there is clutch or, worse yet, gearbox damage due to the resistance of the failed u-joint. We're waiting to hear back from the service department with an estimate right now.

I Hotwired us a hotel while sitting in the ally behind Big Sky BMW after the bike was put away, so we're staying in a cushy Holiday Inn with beds! electricity! internet! shower! and even a pool! I've nothing planned today except internetting, waiting to hear about the bike, and maybe seeing a movie tonight. I think Dad is going for a swim at some point.

The best I can hope for right now is to be back on the road Saturday afternoon, with some money left after the repair work to buy food. ; If that doesn't happen, it'll probably be Monday. Monday would mean really pushing hard to get back in time for a day's recovery before I have to be back at work, skipping all nice highways and just flying down the interstate almost all the way across the continent. Ug.

Quick Update

I know, I know - it's been a long time since I've updated.  Even when I've had internet access, there just hasn't been time to make any posts.   Things have been go go go, which is great from one point of view, but isn't really conducive to maintaining a blog.

Dad and I are still both alive and well, and having a great trip.  We're staying with an old childhood friend of my Dad's in Blind Bay BC tonight, and are going as far as his cousin's in Fruitvale BC tomorrow.

We only have 2 weeks left for the trip, but that should be plenty of time to work our way back across North America.  I might even find some time for a few more updates!  I'm almost 2 weeks behind on my full entries, but I'm going to try and make an update or two for back around Aug 3 right now.

No "Top of the World" for you!

Well, it looks like The Top of the World Highway will be closed for the next several days.  We don't have time to wait for it to re-open, so we've turned around and headed south from Dawson City.  Our first alternative was to ride a highly recommended scenic loop between Haines Junction YT, Haines AK, and Skagway AK.  It would be tight on time, but at least we'd get some riding done in Alaska and see some wonderful mountain views.  Unfortunately, we discovered the ferry schedule between Haines and Skagway wasn't going to work for us at all, so that side trip is out.

We stopped in Whitehorse to nab some wifi

The Beard Shame continues

Having cut out the Haines/Skagway route we should now have time to ride out to Telegraph Creek BC off the Stewart Cassiar Highway, that is, if the Stewart Cassiar isn't closed due to forest fires.  That latest news is that they're piloting groups through the fire area, so we'll show up in the morning and see what we see.  We've ridden as far south as we can today, and we're still a couple hours north of the start of the Stewart Cassiar.

Tonight we've just setup camp down a trail on the side of the Alaska Highway.  The first trail we tried  tonight started with a climb up a rough hill with some large rocks.  I bounced up the trial OK, but Dad hit one of the rocks dead on, and when the back end came up I think he accidentally twisted the throttle.  The back tire landed and immediately whipped out counterclockwise a full 180 degrees, leaving the bike on the ground pointing downhill.  I didn't see it happen, but the bike is fine and Dad swears he's OK.  We rode a bit further down the road and found a gentler trail to camp along.  We're not far from the highway so the trucks are still pretty loud, but I'm sure we'll have no problem sleeping.

Layover in Dawson City YT

Today we were supposed to ride the Top of the World Highway from Dawson City YT into Alaska, including a stop at the curiously named village of Chicken.  Much to our disappointment, we awoke to discover the highway was closed for the second time in as many weeks due to a washout.  It had rained pretty steadily in Dawson City over night, and apparently the TotWH got much, much more rain than we had.

There was no way we'd get to Alaska today, so we took advantage of a break in the rain to cut some wood for the bath house I complained about in the last post.  There was no chopping block, and I didn't want to abuse my hatchet so we used the unbelievably dull one (hereto referred to as a "mallet") provided by Dawson City River Hostel, as well as a buck saw we found that was in good shape.  We sawed logs into lengths with one of us on either end of the saw, and split them with the mallet.    We started a fire using our own matches, and continued to cut more wood for the next weary travelers.  I did my best to cut up some of the shipping palettes using the mallet, but it mostly just bashed them into splinters.  I cut up one ankle when one particularly bothersome board finally exploded.  While Dad enjoyed the bath house, I kept at the wood.  When we were done we had a pretty good pile, nicely stacked in a dry section of the wood shelter.  We also stacked wood and kindling neatly under a bench in the bathhouse.

If there is dry wood available, you've got your own sharp hatchet, time to cut wood (including sawing the tree, not just splitting logs), your own matches, and time for the water and bath house to heat up, then the bath house is a great way to get clean!  The sauna aspect was very relaxing, and it felt great to pour that hot water over myself and finally wash that Dempster mud off and out of my hair.  Unfortunately, the bath house is not a reasonable way for a tired traveler to get clean at the end of a long day, if it's after dark, or if it's late enough that chopping wood would wake up other guests.  It's a novelty, not an amenity.

We took the ferry across the Yukon River into town, and stopped by the visitor's centre for news on the wash out.  The repairs wouldn't start until the rain stopped, and the rain wouldn't stop for a day or two.  We'd heard stories of motorcyclist being let through previous wash outs, so we decided to stay around one extra night and see what news came from other travelers.

We went to the Dawson City Hotel for some food and to look for the previous owner, now employee, Dick.  The adv riding couple we'd met while at Liard Hot Springs knew Dick, and said we should look him up if we had time.  We definitely had time now.

Dick is one of the founding riders of the Dusk to Dawson ride, which now attracts hundreds of riders to Dawson City each year.  He knows all about traveling by motorcycle in the north west (as well as other locals, I'm sure), and is The Guy to Know if you've got motorcycle problems while in the area.  He's got a collection of used tires that can help you get by if you've a flat or need help changing a tire, he let us use his wash station with a pressure washer out behind the hotel, and is a great guy to have lunch with on a rainy Yukon day.

I stayed in the hotel's restaurant, The Jack London Grill, all afternoon catching up on blog posts, while Dad went out and played tourist for a while in the rain.  I washed my bike up, in the rain, which might sound funny unless you saw how muddy it was after the Dempster Highway in the rain.  We were still sitting at the restaurant come dinner time, so we had dinner there too before heading back to our tents.

Even though I'd already used the bath house in the morning, I thought I'd do so again before heading to bed.  After all, we'd cut, split, and stacked a bunch of dry wood up that morning, so it should be pretty easy to get hot water this time.  We discovered that the wood we'd stacked under the bench in the bath house was taken and scattered in front of the wood shelter, getting soaked on the ground in the rain all day.  Much of the wood we'd stacked in the shelter was missing too.  Dad gathered enough wood to get the small bath house warm again, and I went to ask the camp owner if he knew what'd happened to our wood.

He told me it was very dangerous where we'd stacked the wood under the bench.  The sharp splintery bits (because we smashed the wood with a mallet instead of having a proper ax) could poke people.  I agreed that made some sense, but wondered why the wood was scattered on the ground instead of being moved as a stack to a dry place.  "Look, it's not my job to cut and stack wood."  He was quite upset.  I wanted to complain about his false advertising of a "hot bath", but decided to just walk away.

The next morning, as we were getting ready to leave we struck up a conversation with a fellow motorcyclist.  Like us, he was turning back because the Top of the World Highway was still closed.  At one point he asked if we'd had any problems with the camp owner, noting that he'd found him to be odd and in a really bad mood yesterday and this morning.  The camp owner had even gotten angry at him for shaving after dark!

This happy HD rider from Michigan also found the owner of Dawson City River Hostel to be a angry oddball!

Method to my Madness

I just wanted to clarify why things don't always seem in order here.  I sometimes don't have much time to post, like if I find wifi at a restaurant during lunch, so I just fire off a quick update to let people know where we are.  Then, when I find some time I try and make longer posts about how each day has gone.  I'm trying to keep the posts in chronological order, so you might actually have to scroll back past what you've already read to see the longer post I've recently made.  I post quite a few pictures, so just scroll back and look for pictures you don't recognize.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain

Well, I've got several amazing days to post about, but not enough time to type about them all.

For now we're laid over in Dawson City, YT.  Our dreams of riding the Top of the World Highway between Dawson City, YT and Chicken, AK having been dashed by rains that have washed out the highway.  Road repairs won't begin until the rain stops, and the rain isn't stopping until at least tomorrow.  No one knows how many days it'll take for repairs, and we don't have time to wait and find out.  We're going to stay one extra night here in hopes of hearing news that motorcycles might find their way through the construction zone, but the rain is pretty heavy, so that seems impossible now.

Tomorrow, we'll probably ride south back to Whitehorse, then maybe over to ride a scenic loop around Haines Junction, Skagway, and Haines.   The day after that we'd like to start our ride down the Stewart Cassiar Highway but it's been closed on-and-off for the past 10 days due to wildfires.  We'll be lucky if we get through.  Watson Lake, YT, near the north end of the highway, was thick with smoke when we went through about a week ago.  If the fire gets really bad at Watson Lake, then we might be stranded north for a bit because the only two roads south (Stewart Cassiar and the Alaska Highway) junction there.

If we could only move this rain down to the fires...

Inuvik to Dawson City

Today we woke up early intent on riding the entire Dempster Highway (plus a tad more to Dawson City) in one day.  The weather was forecast to be good until late in the day, so the sooner we got to the bottom the better.

The first ferry south arrived just as we did.  The young guy running the deck invited us to go up top to take some pictures and have a look around.  We talked with the older guy piloting (?) the ship for a while, and discovered the ship's engineer was from the same small city my Mom grew up in, about 10 minutes from the tiny village my Dad grew up in.  Dad disappeared to go talk to the engineer for the rest of the short ride, come back out only after we'd landed (?).  I'm using flying terms for boating, but somehow it seems correct.

View from down low

View from up high

The riding was pretty easy, although there was a bit more truck traffic today than two days ago.  I'd been trying not to think too much about having to ride back through the section north of the Yukon-NWT border that I'd had trouble with on the way up.  When the time came, I didn't find it nearly as bad as before.  I was much more aggressive this time, with throttle, body position, and attitude.  I was saying things to that road about it and it's mother that an abusive sailor wouldn't say to the cabin boy.  I figured it was my new madd ridin' skillz that made the difference, but Dad figures it was the fact that two days worth of truck traffic can make a big difference on a road of loose gravel.  He, uh, may have a point there.

Having survived the fresh gravel north of the Yukon border, again.

We stopped at Eagle Plains for lunch again, and the waitress remembered us, welcomed us back, and congratulated us on surviving thus far.  I made an Anniversary Post for my wonderful wife, and Dad video Skyped Mom while other restaurant patrons looked on in amazement.

With about an hour left on the Dempster we met up with rain.  It wasn't extremely heaving, but it was enough to make the road messy and a little tricky.

Oncoming rain

Rain falling just north of Tombstone Park

A little south of Tombstone campground we rounded a corner to find a minivan with a camper pulled off to the side.  There was gear piled up on the side of the road, some legs sticking out from under the minivan, and a concerned wife looking on.  We pulled over to see how we could help.  The travelers were a retired couple from Quebec who were touring all over Canada with their minivan and camper.  They had a flat tire and were simply unable to get the spare out from under the back of the minivan.  Seemed simple enough, but the poor guy had already been fighting with it for an hour before we came along.  The spare is held up under the vehicle by one of those cables you have to loosen from inside the van, which should allow the spare to simply drop to the ground.  Unfortunately, they had never needed the spare in the 10 years they'd owned the van and it was completely rusted in place.

They asked if we'd continue south and try and call help for them once we found a phone or cell coverage, and we were more than happy to oblige.  I asked if I could crawl under and have a look before taking off though, noting that it'd be several hours before they'd even know if we'd managed to call anyone.  The rain was really picking up, and the road was slick with a fine, greasy mud.  They put down a rain poncho for me to lay on, but my squirming around quickly had me off of it and onto the mud.  I fought with the spare for a while, but had no luck.  We tried several things including WD-40 and a few methods of pry bars, but it was on there pretty solid.  The most luck I had was with a small hack saw the driver had with him, but I found it very had to get a sawing motion with the room available.  The driver offered his chainsaw, and I laughed thinking it was a joke.  I came out for a breather, and while trying to clean the mud out of my hair I noticed he really did have a big chainsaw packed away in the back of the van.  This guy had one of everything packed away in the back of that van.

Rejuvenated by our efforts, the driver got back under with the hack saw and went at it like a desperate man on the side of a remote road with a flat tire in the rain.  He sawed that damn support column clean off.  The spare fell right on him, but thankfully it didn't have far to go so it didn't hurt him.  We pulled him and the tire out, and celebrated with applause and pats on the back.  The spare wheel rim was full of several pounds of gravel, likely a collection from all around Canada.  We dumped the collection onto the Dempster, and had the tire changed in a few minutes.

Helping some fellow travelers with a flat tire on the Dempster Highway

The couple was extremely thankful for our "help", and tried to give me a $50.  I explained I didn't want their money, and that we actually hadn't accomplished anything that helped them - he'd done all the work. They were insistent, but we were slightly more so and eventually they seemed OK with us just being happy to have helped.  Then the wife's face brightened, and she whispered something to her husband in french.  He got a big smile, and started nodding in agreement.  He told us he had something we just couldn't refuse, and came back from their minivan with a bottle of wine!  They explained it was a very, very good wine from southern BC and that we needn't worry because they'd bought plenty more for themselves.  He was right, we couldn't refuse the wine, even though neither Dad or I drink.  What can you say when they're so happy with their very generous offer?  We took the wine, exchanged email addresses, put some paper towel over my head so I could put my muddy head back in my helmet, and headed south while they headed north.

We arrived in Dawson City about an hour later.  It was late, and the visitor's centre was closed.  The only campground we saw signs for was Dawson City River Hostel, across the Yukon River by ferry.  All I wanted was a place to put a tent, and a hot shower to get all that Dempster mud out of my hair and off my face.  The sign for the campground said "Hot Bath", which I figured was close enough.  We checked in, and headed back across the river into town for some hot lasagna at Diamond Tooth Gerties while catching the end of their evening show.

Once fed, all I wanted was that hot bath and into my dry sleeping bag.  It turns out the "hot bath" isn't really a bath at all.  There are two sauna/bath houses where you build a fire under a barrel of water, wait for it to heat up, then poor it over yourself while standing on a platform with a drain.  OK, so it takes a little work, but the sauna aspect sounded nice.

Picture taken in the light of the next day of Dawson City River Hostel's bath house.  This is the smaller of the two bath houses, and at least this one has a sawing block for the wood.

Inside the smaller bath house at Dawson City River Hostel

There was no cut wood for a fire.  OK, I'd chop some.  There was a wood shelter, but it was full of wet wood, and mostly-whole shipping palettes.  I found a small hatchet, but it might as well have been a mallet it was so dull.  OK, I have my own hatchet and saw packed on the bike.  I couldn't find a chopping block.  People must chop wood right on the ground.  No wonder the mallet, er, hatchet was so dull.  I stood in the rain and considered my options.  It was well after dark, and all I had for light was my head lamp.  The bath house doesn't have any lights, but I thought I could prop my headlamp up somewhere enough to see in the bath house.  I realized it was near midnight, and I didn't want to wake the entire camp up by chopping or sawing wood, even if I went and got my own hatchet and saw.  I went to bed wet, cold, muddy, and pissed off.  "Hot bath" indeed.  Dawson City River Hostel, you should be ashamed of yourself!

Cats I've Met While on this Trip

Here, for my wife, are some cats I've met while on this trip, starting with our cat, Neechee. I'd introduce you to each of them, but we've just finished lunch at Eagle Plains on our way south on the Dempster Highway and we've 6 more hours of riding to go. Got to get rollin'.

Happy Anniversary, Jessica. I love you!

Tuktoyaktuk

One thing we wanted to do on this trip was see the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans.  Unfortunately, there aren't any public roads that go all the way to the Arctic Ocean.  There are two roads in North America that cross into the Arctic Circle.  In the US, you can take the Dalton Highway north from Fairbanks AK to Prudhoe Bay AK.  You can't ride right up to the coast though because the oil companies have it locked down as a secured area.  You have to pay to take a bus tour.  In Canada, you can take the Dempster Highway from near Dawson City YT to Inuvik NT.  Unless the ice road is open in the winter, there is no way to drive from there to the ocean though.  The only choice is to take a boat up the MacKenzie river, or to fly.

We knew we wanted to fly to Tuk, but we didn't even think about booking tickets because we had no way of knowing if or when we'd make it up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik.  When he woke up this morning to find we were actually in Inuvik, Dad started making phone calls (hiding in the bathroom to avoid waking me) to find out how we might get to Tuk, and how much we might pay.

I woke up to find out our only real choice was a $420 scheduled flight with Aklak Air, and we had to be at the airport in 1 hour.  The $420 was steeper than I'd expected, but my wife had been encouraging me to take the flight since before I left on this trip, reminding me that I'd probably never get the chance again.  We decided quickly, and Dad bought the tickets on the phone.  We got dressed, booked our hotel room for another night (no time to move to a local campground), wolfed down some free continental breakfast, and took off for the Inuvik airport.

I met the pilot of our flight while checking in, and he offered to let us store our motorcycle gear in the hanger so we wouldn't have to take it to Tuk with us.  He had coveralls on, and at first I thought he was a baggage handler or something, not our pilot. His accent immediately gave him away as a Newfie, as did the way he asked where we parked our bikes: "Where yer bikes to?"  He was somewhere around my age, from out east, had flown out of every province and territory in Canada, and rode dirt bikes.  We had lots to talk about, but not much time since we had to get flying.

Read the white sign posted behind my Dad

The flight was only about 20 minutes, which gave us just enough time to get a good look at the insanity which is the MacKenzie River Delta.  We also had a decent look at Tuk's pingos during the landing but, as is often the case, my photos didn't really turn out because my camera has little zoom.  We left the airport, stopped for some photos at the greeting sign, and started the short walk into town.

Welcome to Tuk, elevation: 5m!

We were maybe a minute down the road when someone stopped and offered us a ride into town.  We hopped in the bed of the truck, and were taken directly to the main store and gas station.  We hopped out and exchanged introductions with our driver, Chuck Gruben, a local guide and outfitter.  Chuck took the time to describe the town to us, some sites we should see, and to talk about the traditional sod huts that are right beside where we'd stopped.  He gave us the name and number of a tour guide, Joanne, in case we wanted a tour.  He'd have given us one himself, if he weren't so busy that day.  Thanks for the great welcome to Tuk, Chuck!

Dad in the back of Chuck Gruben's truck on the ride into Tuk from the airport

There are two sod houses built in "downtown" Tuk.  Actually, I guess only one is a sod house because the other was left unsoded so the supporting structure would be visible.  The house with the sod is in very good shape inside, and was surprisingly roomy.

After looking at the sod houses, we headed over to the store to call Joanne for a tour.  While waiting for her, we looked around the store and it's shocking prices. 

I knew coke habits were expensive, but this is ridiculous!

It turns out Joanne, our tour guide, is also the only taxi driver in town.  Dad and I ended up getting a driven tour of Tuk, while Joanne also picked up and dropped off other customers going about their day.  After we'd seen most of town, and learned some of the stories behind sites we'd seen, we were taken back to "Million Dollar Beach" at the northern tip of Tuk.  We planned on walking back through town to have a closer look at things, then meet Joanne later for a tour of the communal ice cellar built 30" underground in the permafrost.

The "Million Dollar Beach" is a local nick name for the shore at the northern end of town since a significant amount of time and money has gone into ensuring it doesn't wash away - at least not any more than it already has.  Besides boulders like the one you can see me standing on (below), there was a huge section covered with numerous concrete slabs that were each at least 10"x20".  There we also several substantially constructed picnic tables, one of which we used while eating a packed lunch.  One thing I noticed about Tuk, not just at this "beach", was that I couldn't find any garbage cans.  The streets were awash with litter, but even when I wanted to properly dispose of my trash I couldn't find anywhere to put it.

Dad at the Arctic Ocean

Me at the Arctic Ocean

One of three ends of the Trans Canada Trail

After lunch we walked over to Our Lady of Lourdes, a ship that is now permanently resting in town near the churches.  We learned that the ship used to be used, among other thing, for missionaries to gather children from the surrounding area to bring them to Residential Schools.  It would also be used at the start of the summer to return the children home for a few months, "if they still knew where the parents were."  Of course, there is still a lot of strong emotion around Canada's history of Residential Schools, and we were told many residents of Tuk would be happy if Our Lady of Lourdes had never been preserved.

Our Lady of Lourdes

 

While taking photos of the ship, we were approached by a nun who is visiting Tuk's Catholic rectory for several weeks.  She told us some more about the history of the ship, the churches in Tuk, and a bit about herself.  It turns out she was born in Fredericton NB (where my parent's live), and lives in St. John NB (where I was born).  She's been coming to visit Tuk for several weeks each summer for the past few years.  She ended up inviting us to the rectory to try some Beluga whale flipper they had recently been given.  We met the nun who is a permanent resident there, as well as a visiting priest.  We chatted while the whale flipper was heated up, and had some fresh bread.  The flipper was very tough to cut, especially for hands where were sore and week from all that motorcycle riding.  It was very fatty, the meat itself was very dark, and I thought it was delicious.

Beluga whale flipper.  Left half is cooked, right half is still frozen in plastic wrap, but included to show full flipper size.

After the whale fat we were properly insulated for a dip in the Arctic Ocean (Beaufort Sea, actually).  It wasn't nearly as cold as you might imagine the Arctic Ocean would be, which was somehow a little disappointing.  Still, it was very satisfying to actually go for a swim in The Arctic Freakin' Ocean!

Joanne, our tour guide / taxi driver, had said she'd meet up with us later in the day to take us down into the communal freezer that is dug 30 feet under the town.  Since we hadn't seen her driving around town, we followed the backup plan to meet her at the freezer's entrance at 2pm.  We waited for her for 30 minutes, but unfortunately she never showed.  (We later called her from the airport so we could pay her for the part of tour we had gotten, and found out she'd just forgotten about us.)

We stopped back by the store to mail some postcards from the post office, then continued walking through town.  At Joanne's suggestion, we headed to the RCMP station to check out their swag.  Instead of the normal Mountie on a horse, the RCMP in Tuk have their own logo with a Mountie on a polar bear.  I thought the logo was awesome, but I've got more than enough t-shirts so I didn't buy anything.  Dad was interested in one of their jackets, but they only had women's left.  Apparently it had been a busy tourist season.

Finally we walked over to the radar station that looks out over the town.  The lady at the RCMP office said it was the highest ground around Tuk, besides the pingos, and that it offered a good view of town.  It may have been slightly higher than the rest of town, but I'd hardly call it high ground.  Still, it was cool to visit one of the DEW Line sites and have one last good look at Tuk before heading to the airport.

DEW Line sit at Tuktoyaktuk

We walked back to the airport with almost an hour to spare before our flight.  That gave me time to take my boots of and air out a little.  Joanne came to drop some passengers off, and realized she'd forgotten about us and the freezer.  She stayed around for about 30 minutes to chat though, and did her best to answer Dad's questions about local power generation.  Chuck Gruben came by too, so he was the first and one of the last Tuk residents we saw today.  The Gruben family seems to be prominent in Tuk; besides the mayor being a Gruben, the airport is name after James Roger Gruben, a local charter flight operator who died back in 2001.  There is a cool statue of him in the airport, with his arm appearing to rest on a propeller blade.  The propeller isn't attached to anything though, and is actually hanging from the statue's arm.

James Roger "Havgun" Gruben (Aug 28, 1957 - Apr 13, 2001)

As he'd promised us that morning, the same pilot that flew the flight in came to pick us up for our 7 pm flight out to Inuvik.  The official boarding call was him walking up to us in the airport and asking, "y'buys ready t'go?"

MacKenzie River Delta during flight from Tuk to Inuvik

After landing we went to The Roost again for dinner and to say hi to Fadi before heading to back to the hotel to get cleaned up and hit the sack.  Not much riding today, but a tiring and unforgettable day nonetheless.  I'm thankful for all the people we met today who were eager and happy to help make our day enjoyable and interesting.  I just can't get over how many great people we're crossing paths with on this trip!

Arctic Circle! Inuvik!

Today we woke up at Tombstone Campsite about 70 km up the Dempster Highway.  The weather was good, and we wanted to make the most of it by trying to ride all the way to Inuvik, the end of the road, the furthest north you can drive in Canada.  That's 665 km (412 miles) of dirt and gravel - potentially very nasty dirt, gravel, mud and clay.

Really, my entire reason for this trip was this picture taken at Engineer Creek Campground.  I never told Dad that because I didn't think he'd agree to come.

Although the Dempster was closed last week due to washouts and one of the ferries being shutdown due to high water, the weather had been dry for the last several days.  That made for good riding condition most of the time, although it was very, very dusty.  We could have ridden faster, but we kept it around 90 km/h (55 mph) to protect the tires from the sharp gravel, to help protect us from wiping out, and to conserve gas for the 369 km (229 mile) stretch without any gas stations.

We were trying to make good time, so we didn't stop to take too many scenic pictures, which we could have done constantly.  One of the things that struck me most about the Dempster is how varied it is.  The road condition and type varies constantly, and the landscape even more so.  Sweeping river valleys, ancient mountains, arctic forests, arctic plains, marshes, forested river deltas, and all sorts of geological formations.  I found it amazing that I could see so much in one day's ride.

Looking about 180km across the Ogilvie River Valley

Dad looking across the Ogilvie River Valley

We arrived at Eagle Plains Lodge, dusty and hungry.  The lodge felt very much like "An Oasis in the Wilderness", as it claims to be.  We got good food with good service, cleaned up our faces and motorcycle lights, and filled up on gas.  We even managed to email our wives using their free wifi!  The break left us both feeling re-energized, which was good because we weren't even half way done the day.

Our friend that took us for the acrobatic plane ride earlier in this trip had recently flown to Tuktoyaktuk with two students.  He made a great 15 minute video of their trip, which included some video and shots of them landing on the Dempster highway.  We promised we'd take some shots of us at the same air strip, and as you can see it was pretty windy.

The Arctic Circle, if I may remind you, is defined by the southernmost latitude that experiences 24 hours of sunlight during the summer solstice, and 24 hours of darkness during the winter solstice.  As far as I could tell, it was defined by some picnic tables, a sign, a nice view, and an abandoned Astro minivan with a blown out rear tire.

Dempster Victim

Sixty km past the Arctic Cirlce we hit the Yukon/North West Territories border.  The road conditions changed at that point from mostly hard packed gravel/dirt to quite a bit of loose, freshly graded gravel.  That might not sound that bad to car drivers, but loose anything is bad news on a motorcycle.  A shallow amount can cause a bit of slipping, which I didn't find too hard to handle.  Any deeper, and the front end can start to wobble dramatically as it tries to plow through the gravel instead of rolling over it.  I'm not very experienced with this type of riding, and found it pretty hair raising at points.  There was a strong cross wind, and a few times it pushed me sideways across the gravel towards steep edges with no guard rails.  As I moved sideways, the gravel would get deeper near the edge, causing the front end to wobble as I moved closer to the edge.

I've been considering how I can explain how I felt, besides the obvious "terror" and "dread".  It was the very overwhelming, whole-body terror that can only come when your brain thinks it's about to cease existing.  Adrenaline surges, and the fear creates an extreme singular focus that can either be just what you need or exactly what you don't want.  If it's a situation you're familiar with, the adrenaline is helpful and the fear not-so overwhelming.  Being unfamiliar with this left me with on the edge of panic, and a very real feeling that if I didn't supress that panic I'd die.

Now, in all likely hood a fall would not have meant death at all. I'd probably just have slid down the road and maybe a ways down a steep embankment.  The bike and I may be damaged some, but likely not fatally in either case.  Still, the ancient instinctual part of my brain didn't know that, so it was very concerned and doing all it could to prepare my body to fight a saber tooth tiger or whatever else it thought I needed the adrenaline for.  Thanks, but I just need to stand up on the footpegs and give it some gas.

After a second's hesitation where I had the normal panicked reaction of letting off the gas (which usually makes the wobble worse), I forced myself to stand up on the pegs (if I wasn't already) and give it some gas again.  We had about 40km of this stuff, and it was exhausting.  I don't think Dad was nearly as freaked out as I was, but it took us a while after the conditions improved to get back to our previous cruising speeds.

The roads improved, and except for some tricks in construction zones (of which there were plenty) the ride was pretty straightforward and enjoyable.  We crossed a couple ferries, and pushed on after the last ferry for a late arrival in Inuvik as some clouds rolled in.  We'd done it - we'd ridden from the Atlantic Ocean to as far north as roads will take you in Canada!

We opted for the first hotel room of the trip, and got a greasy dinner at The Roost.  The Roost, owned and operated by a Lebanese guy and his relatives (serving American, Greek, and Chinese food), has a dining room decorated with a Polar Bear, a musk ox head, antlers, and other northern memorabilia.  We had a good conversation with one of the owner's cousins and employees, Fadi, who moved directly from Lebanon to Inuvik in the winter about two years ago.  Poor bastard.

Attacked by a polar bear at "The Roost" in Inuvik