The great not so white North

I’ve set the site on autopilot for the past few days, having the website automatically fire out posts  that I had already written. It’s been 3 days away from the Pacific Ocean so far and there is little missing so far. In fact, I haven’t thought once about it until now! I was feeling pretty wiped over my last few days in Haida Gwaii, weather testing my stamina and sanity – and considered doing the hostel thing in Prince Rupert. I found a reasonable rate for $25, but at the last minute saw a bunch of people with backpacks roaming around and just knew I’d be sharing the room with ‘em. I just wanted alone time, to myself to plan my next month and the actual direction. Instead of the $25 I spent that the next two days on buffet lunch and opted for a room in the Prince Rupert dump. A few deer came to visit me and were fairly perplexed why someone would want to set up their tent there, but it worked out, and I was on the road making it little more than 1km before finding a Safeway, which offers Free Wifi for those who aren’t aware, and a sale on Apple Fritters. (I had 4).

I spent the morning uploading photos, video, and doing some preparations for the next 25 days, to see if I could cover the majority of BC in that time – It’ll be tight, but I think I’ve got a good solid plan worked out – with 4 days to spare giving me room if I need to chill out – or just stop for the day. My routine for the past week has been bizarre – I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I’m certainly going with it. It seems that I’ll either sleep in until 1:30pm, and start riding at 2:30pm ending at 8 or 9, getting up the next morning bright and early and finishing by 3, and so on in that very loop. I’m still making excellent progress, and with the sun not setting until quite late (It is still showing signs of light as I speak 10:09pm) it make for later days. I don’t have any appointments to be met, so why should I care I suppose?

The past few days everything has felt moist. Sleeping bag, mat, tent, pillow, panniers all have a weird condensation happening. Big daily temperature changes are causing a bit of weirdness and I have to make sure this doesn’t progress into any mold / mildew conditions. It looks as if tonight is going to be my coldest night, at least for the next 4-5 months. In Kitwanga, with an elevation of about 600ft above sea level – it’s going to dip down to -2 tonight. I’m ready – I have a good bag more than capable of handling that with minimal clothes on underneath, and of course can always layer and use a silk liner. My bike has enough lubrication to handle cold, and all of my cooking supplies are certainly made for blizzard conditions. I’ll see nothing of the sort, just my breath in the morning and perhaps some frost on the handlebars.

The past 3 days have been absolutely legendary in my mind for riding. I can truly say I have never seen anything quite so breathtaking and beautiful in my life. Following the Skeena river, parallel to the CN rail tracks, the 100km I rode from Prince Rupert to a closed down BC Park at the Exchamisks River offered me picture like landscapes of snow capped mountains, petroglyphs in rock faces, water dropping hundreds of feet, tonnes of trees, and bears! I saw 2 bears my first day, from very far (300ft) – Once they caught wind of me both times they turned around and ran as fast as possible. The next morning, while I was having breakfast, I saw one head over to the River beside me, as soon as I made a bit of noise it realized that it was an unsafe area to be and again hightailed it out. I had to laugh – they are pretty dopey when left to their lonesome . Later on that morning while riding over to Terrace I could hear trees snapping beside the highway. A BIG Black bear was lumbering through it. I tried to keep following it on the road – but it went in deeper and I couldn’t snap any photos. It wasn’t long before I saw all sorts of other bears, this time as painted statues in the quaint town of Terrace, BC.

With 16,000 some odd people, it seems to be a fairly matured town, if you could compare to say Prince Rupert. It has a campus of UNBC – that only deals with 3 programs however, lots of bigger stores usually seen in cities (2 competing supermarkets and a Wal-Mart!) and they’ve done a real good job on leaving signs and placards in different places for tourists. I stayed with someone from the Warmshowers website last night, who teaches at the local University, who told me that Terrace does in fact struggle with longevity – Industries are changing yet again, and they are wondering what is next for them to sustain growth and convince people to stay. I was impressed by the fact they had a Bike Lane – and even the local newspaper was focusing on one cyclist per week to promote sustainable transportation methods. As per usual, my Warmshowers host was nothing short of awesome, very positive experience again, being able to discuss and share common interests.

I had a difficult time sleeping last night, as I had a few projects on the go that I was determined to finish, which made for a 2am lights out. Still, I got up at 8:30 after a few snooze buttons and started my day – if you can call drinking coffee for 3 hours starting. Hitting the road, I couldn’t help but load up on an Energy drink, my first of the tour, a handful of discounted easter eggs, and 2 apple fritters – Sugar Overload!. I didn’t know there was a Wal Mart right till leaving so had to stop there, still dawdling, picking up cheap canned fish, and poking around the electronics section. I picked up a USB Rechargeable battery – and will write a review on it after I’ve put it through 10 charges and discharges. For now it seems like a great idea, being able to recharge components that have low batteries and recharge via USB as well. It also sounds like I need to dismantle it, find out the batteries its using, and frankenstein the components to create a larger battery array, one that is waterproof and holds a serious amount of Amp-hours. I picked up some Sunglasses, that are going to go straight back once I hit another bigger city – they fog up, don’t fit right, just plain out perform terribly. They will do in a pinch until I have a chance to pick up gear that was shipped to me via MEC.

At 2 I finally was cycling, heading east with a goal of 90km. Lots of small climbs, helped by showers every 15-20 minutes with decent shoulders. In fact even though I took the shoulders, everyone still moved far into the oncoming lane of traffic to give me room – Very courteous of the drivers here. I stopped for a bite to eat at about 5pm, and chuckled at the pair of ravens communicating back and forth to each other(“do you see him?” “ya I see him what do you suppose he has?” “i bet he has cheese, granola bars and maybe some fruit!” “should we just go poke his eyes out or wait until he leaves to get the scraps”) – and so on. I played with them a bit throwing bits of food in different directions watching them jump around from position to position finally coming to grab the goods. I am very glad that I took this 30 minute break.

The next part was all downhill, and thankfully I have good brakes, Out of the corner of my eye I spotted something wondering if it was really true – It was… I found a Kermode bear! Now, these are bears localized to this one area in the world, with a rare genetic change forcing their hair to go completely white, even though they are actually Black bears!. Everyone who I have spoken to in the past 2 days about if they ever had a chance to see one replied with dismay, some saying they had been searching for 30 years. This one was less than 25 ft away from me, going along a grassy bath eating berries, stopping to look at me, and then carrying on. I followed it for a bit, snapping a serious amount of photos. A car stopped, and told me it was a very big deal that we were able to see this. Needless to say, I’m stil smiling over the event. It gave me good energy and stamina to continue climbing, eventually finding a rest stop which contained a wonderful instructional placard showing drivers how to stretch, and to chill out. Further investigation into the area revealed that directly behind me was the 7 sisters, a famous mountain range of 7 pointed mountain caps. The clouds were getting in the way but it didn’t stop me from admiring the beauty.

Eventually I saw a gas station ahead, and a fork in the road. Stopping, I realized this was the path to head to the Alaskan Highway, heading directly to the Yukon. I stopped and chatted with the attendant, some guys from Utah who were heading north to go drive tour buses in Skagway for the summer, and some of the locals of the terrain, temperature, and how far they had taken the road – seriously being pulled in that direction. Knowing I should go east and continue with my plans is what people are expecting, but my brain started going in overdrive trying to map out different alternative dates, and meetup points with people. Wth that, I decided to take it and go north. I’ve got a night to think about it if I really will do this as not long after, I found a tiny little town called Kitwanga. A reserve is close to the highway with many totem poles, and I’m glad that I went in further on the 37 as a whole town existed 5 km in with a coffee shop, a small grocery store, and an overall feel good vibe. I even found there is a Canadian National Heritage site here named Battle Hill, dating back to the 1700s of the Gitwangak people meaning “People at the place of rabbit”.

Battle Hill was neat – The warrior chief ‘Nekt needed a stronghold and built fortifications off a huge bump in the earth. This allowed him to have a panoramic view should enemies be looking to attack. If they did, he built a log palisade complete with ‘crushing logs’ he simply rolled logs down the hill at them, mowing them down. Knowing that his base was strong, he ran succesful raids of Kitimaat, Haida, Tsimshian and Nisga’a tribes until they allied to defeat him. They were unsuccessful, both times. 300 years later ‘Nekt is still held by a member of the Gitwangak community – far out.

I considered camping there, however hauling my bike down flights of stairs didn’t appeal to me and I scoped out many nice woodsy areas and one gravel pit. I tried the pit first, and became frustrated at trying to move on rocks, and went back to a little park like area. It turns out that it is a community run campsite! Even better, it’s free! Piles of wood are provided, picnic tables, fire pits, toilets and you are free to stay here for 3 days at a time. I even found they offer a free wireless access point throughout the city as well. Looking forward to meeting the locals tomorrow and finding out who is in charge of doing these progressive small town nice deeds. I pinned a card to their bulletin board, hoping someone from the town will find this post and comment on it.

Next steps are to head over to Smithers, unfortunately missing a friend by a day, finally making the long trek into Burns Lake, Vanderhoof and then Prince George. Those three stops will be long (140km) days, taking a lot out of me, as they include considerable climbs. I’m ready for it.

I found a way to make my kindle browse any website last night, and for that, I am grateful – as it uses way less battery power, and useful for situations where i don’t have cellular service (I haven’t for 3 days). I’m always interested in weather reports. These next few weeks are going to be tough, but I have the reward of getting to see a few friends, one returning from her car trek across Canada, and someone who is driving out here before heading to the Sasquatch festival. Feeling pretty loved. These are the days you remember the most!

• Heading North.
• $tatus check