Day miles: 890
Trip miles: 5680

I got up early and headed south. The trip was pretty much over, but I was still a long way from home. Given more time I would have taken the Robert Campbell highway out of Carmacks, but it was too tough for the distance I had ahead of me. I had really wanted to go up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, and had considered it earlier in the trip after getting off of the Dalton Highway. Alas, flying out of Talkeetna had won out.

I did want to head south on the Cassiar Highway though. I had skipped it while heading north and taken the entire Alaska Highway out of Dawson Creek, partially because there were reports of delays for forest fires in the northern areas of the Cassiar. A rider in Dawson City who had come up on the Cassiar had told me the road was clear now, but there were a lot of bears. I found this odd, as I had only seen a single bear on my entire trip so far.

I worked my way back to the Alaska Highway and stopped for a late lunch at a familiar joint. There, a couple told me about a motorcyclist who had to be airlifted off the Cassiar a couple of days earlier after hitting a bear. I wasn’t sure what to think now. Right after I turned onto the 543mi highway, there was a large sign that reminded drivers it was illegal in British Columbia to have loaded weapons in your vehicles. This seemed quite odd, but before I could make much sense of it, I started passing bears. I saw three adults and a cub within the first 15 miles.

At this point I started wondering what you do when you’re on a motorcycle and a bear in the road doesn’t want to move. You don’t have any protection. There is no reverse and you couldn’t turn around quickly on this narrow highway. I was tired and stopped for a nap at a rest area. Here I decided it would be best if I rode with some shotgun shells in my jacket pocket and kept the trigger lock off the shotgun, just in case.

I hadn’t had a problem finding fuel so far, and had planned ahead for the stretch of the Dalton Highway where the distance between service stations had required more fuel than my tank would carry. I had been following the rule of filling up whenever possible, so when I found the first town around dusk, I stopped for fuel. Unfortunately they were closed, and the pumps were too old to take credit cards. I continued on, now after dark, to the next town. No joy there either. I looked at my map, did some math, and figured that with my spare fuel I could make it as far as the next service station.

This next stop was a lodge for heli-skiing. Unfortunately, they were also closed. I couldn’t go any further, and it was only a few hours until morning now. I wandered around the lodge looking for a good place to lay down. Behind the lodge was a shack where the returnables were stored, and the door was covered with large spikes to deter the bears. This didn’t make me particularly comfortable, so I ended up unrolling my sleeping bag in front of the lodge and setting my alarm for 30 minutes before they opened and I slept with my shotgun that night.

Day miles: 0
Trip miles: 4790

Today was filled with motorcycle stories, drinking, and games. The D2D isn’t a rally, it’s a gathering; mostly of adventure motorcycles. A small group started having a regular ride, and it grew and grew. The ride still happens, but just being in the city with everyone is really the main event.

The saloon had wireless internet and beer, and I spent the whole day nearby. Occasionally I chatted with other riders, but mostly I read while uploading photos in the morning. The main entertainment is when they shut down the street outside the saloon, everyone lines up their bikes and we watch the games. How far can you ride your motorcycle while blindfolded? Can your passenger throw two water balloons over an overhead line and catch them or take a bite out of a hanging hotdog without you stopping? How slow can you ride, or how tight of a slalom can you do? It was all in good fun.

I spent some time wandering around inspecting the different bikes and their kit. I tried to get a ride on a riverboat but it wasn’t a convenient schedule, so mostly it was a recovery day.

Day miles: 2
Trip miles: 4788

I was a day early for the Dust to Dawson events. There were plenty of bikes already in town, including a few people I had met or seen over the last week in Alaska. Everyone was arriving though.

I spent most of the day wandering around, exploring, and reading. Dawson City is sandwiched between the Yukon River and the hills. There are trails up the hillside and there I went with by bear spray at the ready. You always have to assume the locals laugh at people who have any concern about bears, but these trails had no shortage of signs warning you about bears and providing recommendations for proper caution. I wandered around the communication towers at the top, and down another road where I found old cemeteries.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had other names prior, such as the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP). They had been sent up here during lawless days of the gold rush to create order, at a time where the really wasn’t anything in the Yukon. The river had brought riverboats full of people in search of gold and now someone had to make order out of it. The gravestones represented the RCMP’s long history here, which I found quite interesting. Also, there was a habit of planting trees on graves that seemed to have gotten eventually out of hand; some of the older sections of the cemeteries had large trees that had fallen down and broken many gravestones. I also found it interesting that many of the newer graves had many personal items around them. A bit eerie under the circumstances, but I felt compelled to completely explore the cemeteries there.

I wandered the city and saw a small museum of its history. I found historic cabins that belonged to Jack London and Robert Service. Eventually I settled down by the river and spent the rest of the day reading. I finished “Double or Nothing: The Flying Fur Buyer of Anahim Lake,” a book I had picked up at a restaurant near Cache Creek, BC. The book was a collection of tales written by a man who had done many things in remote areas of Canada, including many flying tales. I started reading “Wager With the Wind,” a book about Don Sheldon, who was infamous for his flying around Denali and landing on glaciers there. Flying, of course, was a theme on this trip, as I spent a lot of time thinking about my father’s career as a airline pilot and the recreational flying we did.

Day miles: 112
Trip miles: 4788

Its been 17 months since my trip ended. Far too long to not have finished these entries. I’ve also fixed the mileages by using a computer to correctly do arithmetic.

There were other motorcycle riders camped out in Chicken; most of us were headed to Dawson City, Yukon for the Dust To Dawson “gathering.” After getting some breakfast I headed over to wait for the tiny post office to open as I had a few postcards that I wanted to mail out. Mail didn’t seem to move to frequently here. There were a couple of radio towers around the post office that indicated there wasn’t much for modern communication either. In the winter the highway isn’t maintained, so mail can only come through by plane. I chatted with the postmaster for a bit after opening and letting an older couple do their business. It turned out she was driving the ambulance I followed into Chicken from an accident the day before. Small town. Accidents are common out there it turns out, everyone goes too fast and the road isn’t all that good. Wikipedia says the road isn’t even safe enough for snowmobiles in the winter.

The ‘Top of the World Highway’ isn’t just one of the most northerly highways in the world, it also runs along the tops of mountains east into Canada. Supposedly this is what it is named for, and it is simply visually stunning. All of Alaska was remote and full of vistas, but this was one of my favorite sections.

Eventually I reached the customs station. It isn’t near any population centers and is a bit of a tiny village of its own. There are not any services of any kind, just enough facilities to support those that work there. It’s so small that the US and Canadian customs is in the same building. I sat on my bike and chatted with the Canadian customs officer outside for a bit. I declared the shotgun and showed him the associated paperwork. He asked me a couple questions about my ammunition location but wasn’t much interested otherwise.

During the course of the conversation, I told him all about my trip and what had lead up to it. Before I left he said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

That immediately vibrated with me; not just the words but the sincerity with which he had said it. I had plenty of miles to think about it and I really felt like I was coming to a point in the trip where I had been out of the world for a spell, had shed enough baggage along the miles that what came next become much more clear.

Just before reaching Dawson City you come to the Yukon River and must cross it on a ferry. This ferry runs constantly, back and forth across the river. As neat as it was, I had to wonder if Canada hadn’t heard of bridges yet. Though, perhaps we’re all to eager to spend money on roads and bridges in America and we should take a play out of their book.

Dawson City really came to be in the midst of the Klondike Gold Rush. It maintains wooden sidewalks and old “wild west” looking buildings to this day. It would be a tourist town if not really so far away, but I don’t know what else supports it. I found the information center, some food, and headed back across the river to a park on the other side with camping sites. Naturally all the river-front sites had been taken already. Besides the obvious view, the other benefit to these sites is the wind off the water helping to disperse the flies. I fought them and set up in the walk-in sites in the middle, trying to get as much space between myself and tents.