OB's motorcycle travels, projects, ideas

July 5, 2008: 499 miles, from Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada to Wonowon, British Columbia, Canada

View Larger Map

We woke up to a light drizzle, packed up and filled-up with gas at the gas station at the entrance to the campground, before heading East on the Alcan.

It was quite overcast most of the morning, when it wasn’t raining, and quite dark at times, like a thunderstorm was trying to brew, but being held in check by a tussle with the sun trying to break through the heavy clouds. We stayed in our wet gear, for the most part, as it was easier than stopping so often to disrobe and then enrobe at every damp patch.

We past a number of bears on the side of the rode, mostly small black bear, with the very occasional grizzly.

Later, we came upon a small herd of apparently wild horses, grazing next to the highway. One of the horses had clearly been domestic at one time, as it still had a tatty bridal on its head. It didn’t seem bothered by the bridal, or by us, and we were able to get some nice pics of the horses, which all looked to be in fair shape. I s’pose with the amount of rain and lush grass around, they had their fill of food and water at their disposal.

All the rain had caused the Liard River to start flowing quite strongly, and there were an impressive number of stretches that looked like it would be quite fun for a novice white water rafter to navigate. I’m sorry we did not stop to take more pics of the river, but it was getting so dark, that we just wanted to get out of the potential storm and hit some sun to dry out again.

Soon, we arrived at the great little quirky restaurant/store at Toad River (with the thousands of caps nailed to the roof), and we stopped for gas and a bite to eat. We sat down at the bench seat near the window, just as three middle-aged guys in a beat-up old car arrived. The intriguing thing was that they looked like exec types, yet were apparently roughing it in the old car, and we started to chat with them, as much interested in knowing where they were heading, as they were of us. We found out that they were planning to ride through to Alaska via the Alcan, going through Haines Junction and Tok, where we had just come from, so we warned them of the really big frost heaves, that could give their car a really tough time, unless they went very carefully.

The attractive waitress from our earlier visit on the way up north was unfortunately not there this time, but we enjoyed a good meal, including one of their huge cinnamon rolls and a few cups of coffee, to warm up.

We paid up and headed outside, and after we filled up with gas, as we were about to climb on the bikes, I heard a shout, and we saw that Paul Thieme, a friend from my local Ducati motorcycle owners club based in the Detroit area, and a riding buddy, were there, on their BMW GS adventure-touring bikes! How is that for a small world!

They were also heading back home, but had just come from Prudhoe Bay, at the end of the Dalton Highway, the northern-most point of Alaska, and parallel to the Dempster Highway that we had planned to ride, but couldn’t.

They were (excuse the French!)…hauling some serious arse, to get home in 2 or 3 days! Man, those big 1200cc 2-cylinder BMW bikes are just awesome for this type of trip, and made out little 650cc single-cylinder bikes look like toys in comparison. We could only dream of the types of speeds they could maintain on the asphalt, even fully laden down as they were.

We joked that we’d soon pass them on the road, but eventually, we actually left before them, and it was not too long before I saw their headlights in my mirrors, and they were past us in a flash, with a quick wave from both groups.

A couple of hours later, I need to stop to relieve myself of all the coffee we had had in Toad River, so took a stroll down the embankment, and much to Mike’s amusement, did my thing right out there in the open, regardless of any traffic coming past. Hey, when a man’s gotta go, a man’s gotta GO!!!

I took a coupla pics at the stop. You can see how overcast it was.

We rode through Fort Nelson, before turning south and past Prophet River and Pink Mountain, before arriving at the tiny settlement of Wonowon, where we’d stopped for breakfast on our way up, a few days before.

As we were getting tired from the 500 mile ride today, we decided we would use this as our stopover, and asked about a campground, but then thought to ask about the rate for a motel room, that was cojoined to the store/gas-station.

The Chinese guy told us he had a room for us, but his wife was real concerned that all three of us would sleep in one room with two double beds! I explained that Jaryd was my son, and we would be fine sharing a bed, but she took some convincing on that score!

Anyway, once she realized that all we were after was a place to grab some sleep, he showed us a room, and we agreed to the rate and room, and unpacked our bikes.

The room was, shall we say, interesting in terms of cleanliness, but at least the bedding seemed to be clean.

I decided it was time to relax a little, and walked back to the store, and purchased a 6-pack of beers, for Mike and I.The beers soon lifted our spirits after the long, tiring and wet ride, and we had a good laugh while telling various stories and half-truths!

As July 5th is also my wife, Karen’s, birthday, Jaryd and I called her from the pay-phone outside the store, and we wished her Happy Birthday from thousands of miles away. I will say that both Jaryd and myself were looking forward to seeing our wife/Mom again, and also tasting her fantastic cooking again………BUT, we were also enjoying this huge adventure and I was simultaneously a little sad that we were now well and truly heading home, and back to our daily routine.

I’ve decided that I really do enjoy these long-distance travels, and am already scheming that perhaps we should take a look-see up the East coast of Canada. What is there up there? Labrador!!!!! Now that sounds like a fun trip, eh!

Tomorrow, we will be diverting from our route that we took on the way up, as we turn onto the 40 near Grand Prairie, instead of continuing East to Edmonton, and then follow the 16 to Jasper, in the stunning Jasper National Park, of the Canadian Northern Rockies.

With these thoughts in mind, we said goodnight and had a good sleep.

<Next Page> <Previous Page>