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Yet, it wasn’ t the same, I felt like I was flirting with a cheap hooker when my love was at home.
“ Looks good,” said the girl working the checkout.“ Fits well, suits you.” I smiled, the way you do when you know someone is lying. I have a head like a bruised potato, nothing looks good on it … well, maybe my well-worn canvas cap.
The road had dried more, and the dust was now thick, which apparently in Dempster terms means it was only mildly terrifying instead of outright malicious. We rode like we were on a well-formed highway, to be honest the Dempster wasn’ t living up to its reputation, and that mattered little as we had time to take in the vistas of the surrounding nature. We were gliding through the terrain north of Eagle Plains, when I spotted something in the gravel shoulder. Something familiar. There it was. A slightly flattened, unreasonably filthy, clearly trampled piece of canvas glory. My cap. I braked so hard the Tenere farted gravel in all directions. I leapt from the bike, sprinted across the road like a man rescuing a baby from traffic, and dropped to my knees. It was mangled. The brim had a tread mark across it— possibly from a converted school bus now acting as someone’ s home on wheels. One side looked as though it had been chewed by something with large teeth and questionable taste. There was a dead mosquito embedded in the fabric like a war medal.
But it was intact … if you could count a missing clasp as being insignificant. Yes. The strap at the back dangled like a limp lettuce leaf.
I stared at it, overcome with emotion. I picked it up gently, as one might cradle a wounded bird, or a dropped ice cream cone. I could almost hear orchestral music in the distance. The cap had survived the
Dempster. Four days, lost in the wilderness, and yet defiantly waiting for its wayward owner. It seemed more resilient than those that complain about this epic stretch of gravel.
My rediscovered friend was now not leaving me, as I tucked it lovingly into my jacket, close to my heart.
The return to Dawson City felt like a homecoming. The Ténéré was caked in layers of northern grime, my boots made squelching sounds when I walked, and I smelled like an unbathed lumberjack who’ d been living in a bucket of gear oil. But I was happy. When I walked into the bar at the Downtown Hotel wearing that cap- dented, chewed, seasoned by wind and fate— no one said a word. They just nodded in that northern way people do when they know you’ ve been somewhere hard and come back stronger for it.
The Dempster doesn’ t just take you to the Arctic Ocean. It takes your patience, your suspension, your sense of linear time. But sometimes, just sometimes, if you’ re very lucky and a bit stupid, it gives something back. Like a cap that refused to die. And really, what more could you ask from a road? LW
TRAVERSE was invited to ride Canada ' s Dempster Highway with Arctic Moto Adventures. The Dempster itself was an easy gravel road, we had perfect conditions most of the way, the challenge of the road was little, the challenge and splendour of the environment was epic. If an an overland adventure is your thing then a ride with Arctic Moto Adventures to the top of the world is just the thing for you.
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