plunge off the cliff from below, he
was found dead under the pile of
carcasses with his head smashed in,
he would surely qualify for a Darwin
Award.
Absolutely knackered by the time
I reached Calgary, riding across the
plains with a very strong cross wind,
on an extremely hot day, was tiring.
Staying with a Polish couple
Maya and Michael, one of the
disadvantages of couch-surfing is
having to be sociable when all you
want to do is get into your sleeping
bag and crash. It’s amazing, however
I felt in the morning as soon as I got
on the bike a big smile would come
and the prospect of the open road
was invigorating.
Edmonton beckoned and a nice
new set of knobbly tyres ready for the
Yukon and Alaska. I had assumed
you could get the tyres on the spot,
but the reality was that they had to
be shipped from Toronto, the other
side of Canada. Bumbling along
and dealing with each problem as it
comes is the best way forward and
Davor, a Croatian working to get his
Permanent Residency for Canada
solved this problem, “stay as long as
you like” and as an upshot we took
off in his car and went camping up in
Banff. Sweet!
The next stop I had planned as I
reckoned that by now I would need
to take a break from moving and this
was with Laura. She lived off grid up
in the Rockies next to The Willmore
Wilderness. The nearest town being
Hinton reached by 70 kilometres of
dirt roads.
She had three log cabins renting
them out to visitors, no electricity,
the water from the well undrinkable
as it came through a coal seam and
was extremely sulphurous not even
pleasant to wash in. We would get
drinking water from a spring.
The deal for my keep was chores.
Three to four hours a day helping in
the cook house, cleaning cabins and
keeping the wood piles stocked. This
was a sweet deal, in the afternoon
I would go hiking and canoeing
with Laura and the visitors. I soon
learnt the trails and was promoted
to a hiking and canoeing guide, the
guests never realising when we went
bush whacking, lost, as we always got
home. I stayed a month and would
have stayed for the whole summer
but such a narrow window to get to
the top of Alaska precluded this.
Travelling the road is symbiotic,
there is a rhythm to the road
seeming to become one as mile
after mile passes. Random thoughts
materialising, enveloped in your own
microcosm then, bang you arrive at
your destination and meet yet more
amazing people, get to know your
way around and then it’s time to
leave. As you leave it is with a tinge
of sadness that you hit the road, this
sadness is soon replaced by a big
smile as the rhythm reaches inside
and you again become one with the
road contemplating what and who is
around the next corner, this time the
Alaskan Highway a mecca for bikers
and a challenge I was excited about.
The Alcan, 1387 miles long, was
constructed by the army in the
Second World War for the purpose
of connecting the contiguous United
States to Alaska through Canada.
The Americans supplied Russia with
aircraft, shipping them up to Alaska
and over to Russia. More than 14,000
U.S. airplanes, 8,000 of which came
TRAVERSE 72