Tired of I.T!

I’m happy to report I made it into Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada by Bicycle safe and sound. Some of the most treacherous conditions I have ever experienced equated to a physical and mental test of the most extreme. The bugs, the road conditions and the lack of available resources and services, and threats from wildlife all combined together forced you to be very attentive and in tune with what was going on around you. One wrong move could equate to failure. It’s not about the destination, but the journey, however in this case, there isn’t much more of a journey to be had – I’m at the end of the road pretty much at the final destination.

Yellowknife, a city of 20,000 holds the majority of the population of this vast land expanse in the north. It’s original history is a gold mining town, and has since matured into a very progressive city, one that suffers through the struggles of limited availability of goods, access, and extreme temperatures. I haven’t had a chance to properly explore the city and its nooks and crannies and will hold off from writing too much about it until I’ve had a proper time to digest it. I’m here until June 26th, giving me a well deserved, week long rest, my first long break since Victoria, BC – which I took shortly after starting this tour in April. I’ve got to make this count, tie up loose ends, and get a solid amount of rest, as I am not forecasted for an extended break until early August, a month and a half away.

Since I left the Chan Lake territorial park, weather took a bit of a dive and I was met with rain for 5 hours of the first day. Looking forward to listening to music, I was forced to listen to the sounds of my rain pants rubbing against each other – again suffering through cold spells with my exposed fingers and wet hands. Gloves have now moved to an even higher priority – as shown on the post – Equipment – Wishlist. Once the rain settled down however, I had quite an enjoyable ride, heading into the North Arm territorial park, advertised on road signs as a picnic area, boat launch and camping. It looked under construction, and I didn’t find the washrooms until the next morning – and no sign of water spigots. This park is on the edge of the Great Slave lake, which supplies the water for the locals in the area. It’s incredibly clean, and the local water companies simply perform a safety step of chlorination before it hits the taps.

I arrived early, 6pm, one of the earliest ends to the day in recent weeks and spent time talking to a couple of girls with their dogs, finishing off a book I’ve been reading, and having a few more Rum & Cola’s. The community of Beochoko or what was known as the communities of Edzo and Fort Rae are listed as dry communities, however I kept it low key not to cause any problems. It obviously is fairly commonplace, as at 2:30pm I was awoken by a very loud truck playing country music, a bunch of hollering people, scaring me a bit inside my tent. I quickly put on my clothes, turned on my cameras for audio/video recording should something happen, and waited. They circled my tent by foot, looked at all my stuff and took one of my food bags, while I overheard one of them saying “Is there any alcohol in it”. I figured I was to get robbed, beaten up, or worse – but they left me alone, leaving after 15 minutes, again blaring a hideous country song. Sleep resumed without issue.

Morning brought a whole new set of energy, I was only 105km from Yellowknife! The sun was shining, there was pavement, and I had adequate water, a good breakfast and looked forward to the upcoming break put me on the road, not before talking to a jogger before bringing my average speed up to 18 km/h. I had planned to arrive at 5pm, however circumstances forced me to move a bit faster. In fact, I didn’t even stop for lunch, out of extreme fear that I was going to get eaten alive. Shortly after the 20km mark, the horseflies and hornets came out. In Swarms. Must have been 40 of them circling around me, slowly becoming smarter on each revolution darting at my face. They followed for 30km, without stopping while I was cycling at 40km/h at some points. This worked out great however, as I passed through the parts of the new highway where they have blown out rock pieces to keep the highway at a manageable grade, noticing the cabins on the side of the road, often with small flags alerting people where their homes are. Lots of blue tarps, and sometimes alot of household junk strewn all over the place.

The bugs let me be for the last 30km, as I passed Boundary Creek, but this time I was getting buzzed again – By a Bi-Plane! It was doing aerials and saw me from miles away, came closer and put on a little bit of a show. It was clear enough I could see the pilot and caught a few waves back and forth, putting a big grin on my face, what a northern welcome! As I stopped at the Yellowknife sign, I took a photo of me squirting my water bottle and ended up damaging my bicycle in the process – I bent the chainring, and bent a link of the chain, causing some hanger and pulley issues for a few days. I met a local cyclist named Seth who gave me the Cole’s notes rundown of where to find things in the city before he dropped me off at the Coffee Shop, Javaroma on the main drag, Franklin.

It wasn’t 10 minutes after sitting down before a cute girl came up to me, and gave me a card, massage therapist. I later found out that I was looking mighty rough, after the long stint in the woods.

I’m going to leave it at that, 2 days in to my visit to Yellowknife, and will post again after I’ve had a chance to breathe, relax, and take in some of the fun. I will say that I am having a wonderful time however so far

I’m better now, I washed some of my frustrations away with some rum and chamomile tea after sucking it up, pushing through and getting out of the gravel mess. The roads did get better like Klaus said, and the cruel joke of the 1km of pavement when exiting Route 7 and connecting with Route 1 was enough to give me motivation and reassurance that there is indeed an end in sight, even though it was the halfway point. Conveniently, the area was called Checkpoint, and I hoped to score at least a can of coke from them. Too bad the driveway had a sign across it saying Private. I went under the rope anyways, found they had a wifi connection, posted some previous days entries and filled my water bladder before the dogs came out running after me barking. It was anti-climactic with them eventually wagging their tails and doing basic tricks for me. I recall there being a funeral on that day, so perhaps the owners closed down the gas station, B&B to attend it.

Highway 1 is a bit more travelled, and has way better roads than seen before, and I was able to get some serious speed – my average was 23km/h, something I haven’t seen in a month, really. Second winds really do exist. After the freakout with the bugs, I continued to push forward, finally joining up at the Junction of 3, but not before stopping to lay a big sloppy one on the pavement. Yup – it was bumpy, it had washboards, but it was real honest to god pavement and the lure of only 35km to a real town, Fort Providence.

Before you get to the town however, you cross a ferry – huge beams lay in the water, apparently a bridge is being put in, rendering the ferry useless. Upon hearing stories about this bridge, it actually sounds very negative. Prices will rise due to tolls on the bridge, crime will rise, allowing 24 hour access to communities that previously had a window of 6 hours of downtime, letting the RCMP catch up to them before they are gone in the night, and gone is some of the historical value. In the winter, the ferries can’t run, so they have an ice road connecting both sides – The turnoff is right before the ferry. Downside to the ferry however, is when the ice melts and breaks, there is a 4-6 week period where you are literally trapped on either side. Supplies can only be flown in via air and this poses big problems for perishables, especially groceries like meat, dairy. They’ve managed for years to figure it out, and they’ll continue to figure it out, as apparently the bridge is 2 million over budget, years late, and work has halted on it. The only things I saw around the construction site were BISON.

Fort Providence has a nice warm feel to it. Even warmer after you stop at one of its two stores, the Northern Store, a chain outlet that services many northern communities across Canada, and the Aurora general store, with a much wider selection, and better prices – and spray yourself down with bug spray! Yup, I caved as I said in my last post. I stink, but the bugs aren’t on me, and I’m able to spare the world from seeing me dance. I’m not out of it yet, as the rest of Canada still awaits me, but this will buy me some time to find alternative solutions rather than putting chemicals on my skin – and likely the bugs won’t be as bad the places I am planning to go and the times.

Buying liquor in the north is very regulated, and expensive. I bought a 6 pack of a beer, for $20! I also had to sign my name, print it, with address and phone number. Apparently there is a quota and you cannot buy over 12 a day and it is a criminal offence if you buy for someone else. Communities are also dry around here, apparently there is some substance abuse problems – Gilbert from a few days back made a comment regarding this it being no wonder if you were forced out of your home at a young age, thrown into a school in an attempt to have your history erased by means of “culturification”. Anyways, I tucked the beer in my bags, bought a few things to tide me over for the next few days like cheese and bread and I was off down the road not before getting some stern warnings from a few people to not even enter the city limits of a few upcoming communities due to hostilities, and recent acts of violence resulting in near death experiences.

Pedalling up the Number 3 offers a few bumps but otherwise it is more of the same, trees on either side, dotted with small lakes this time actually offering some look at duck and geese, new to me. You pass through the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary for 100km, where I fearfully ride past clumps of them on the sides of the road, these ones still running away, but always 2 of them stopping and turning around at me defiantly. Hershey Squirt potential indeed.

I’m very close to Yellowknife, and happy to report that I’m going to meet my altered goal to arrive for Summer Solstice (June 21), but not only that – I’m going to arrive 2 days early! This lets me take in more of the festivities of “Raving Mad Daze”, “Solstice Festival” and “National Aboriginal Day”. I’m quite excited to see this northern city of 18,000 that is built entirely on a rock. I met a couple where I am staying tonight, at Chan Lake – a day use area, but we’ve all gotten cozy who have told me things to check out, stop and see, and to pop by to visit them while I am there. I’m going to have lots of time to relax, fix my aching knees, and chill out. Hopefully I can get in contact with some people I have met in the past few months to line up some backyard tenting action, as the campsites could get expensive, and I’m not interested in leaving my goods outside in the bush while I am in the city.

With 220km to go I’m fully charged on all my components, thanks to the generosity of the three people I met from Fort Simpson a community close to the Alberta Border of 3,000. Not only did they let me charge my Mp3 Players, GPS, Speakers, and laptop, but I was fed dinner and beer! I couldn’t thank them enough, as was running dangerously low on juice even to fire up my GPS, integral to me logging my statistics. Every day I think about generating my own power with my wheel.

Speaking of wheels, I finally had to change my rear tire today – it finally ripping open wide on the side of the road. I changed the old Schwalbe Marathon to a Kendra 26×1.90” tire. It’s performed ok so far, it’s gotten me 100km without issues and no flats, so no complaints. I’m wondering if I should change it out to another Marathon when I get access to better components, or just run with it for now and get my moneys worth out of it. Figuring the latter – unless its a puncture magnet.

Pondering once I get there in getting a haircut and shaving the mop off my face. What do you think?

Hairy:

Not so hairy: