Made it to Yellowknife

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