The Kooteney's are bear/bare country

I'm taking a day off after 4 days of cycling, giving the body a chance to recouperate and enjoying a day in Fernie. I should be in Alberta tomorrow.


Yep, BC sure is Bear Country, as they say. The other day a black bear ran across the highway about 40m in front of me. Then when it's cub didn't make it across, it dodged some traffic to go back. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a picture, I was too busy not wetting myself. I was pretty tired at that point, but I decided to bike another 30 km, for no particular reason.




And yes, BC sure is Bare Country, as I say. I hung out in Nelson (see picture below) for a day with a lovely girly I met on the bus to Whitehorse (see picture above). What a great town. Although she was busy, I met one of her friends and she took me to the two places that I needed to go in Nelson - the Gyro Park (a lookout of Nelson) and Red Sands Beach, the nude beach. Mmmm mmm, what a view... from Gyro I mean. The nude beach was me, my new friend, and about 7 old guys sitting around drinking beer and suntanning... *shudder*.





Since Nelson I've been biking for the last four days. Between 60 and 100 km a day. I have squatted two nights, and spent 2 nights in Provincial parks. Below is "trash can beach" where I squatted the first night. Basically, I got tired, and saw this beautiful rock beach so I setup my tent. Another person ended up coming to the beach, and we shared some laughs while she fished and I cooked dinner over a make-shift heated-rock-grill over an open fire on the beach, since my stove had stopped working. She gave me a beer, which tasted particularly delicious.



The view from Trash Can Beach.

The colour/white balance in my camera is messed up. My pictures are going to be bleached for the rest of my life, until I get a new camera. Sorry about that. If you really care, you can forward camera money into my account and I'll buy a new camera. Email me for details ;)


Typical scenery along the highway, highway #3. This pic was taken between Cranbrook and Fernie.

Solo cycling

Heya folks, I'm in Cranbrook now. My body is adjusting and responding really well to the abuse that I'm dolling it. I went over a truck stop today and it said I and my bike weighed 110 kg, but it only goes in 10 kg increments. That's probably a little heavier than usual as I feel like I'm carrying a bucketfull of water in my tent (it rained like mad last night).

I almost got my pic taken with the Stanley Cup today. Buuuut, even though I arrived before it closed, the line was so long that they weren't admitting anybody else. Tomorrow it's in Fernie, 100km from here, but I'm not going to make it there before it's gone again. I must be Canadian, the Stanley Cup is eluding me.

This is my first solo cycling trip. I've done a few group trips before, but this is a completely new experience. There are lots of pros and cons:

Cons:

• You don't have anybody else to share the weight with (stove, cookware, tent, food), which adds about a thousand calories per day of required input, which just makes you have to carry more weight, oh it's a nasty cycle
• You don't have anybody to draft (cycle closely behind and use their suction and wind-cutting) -- this is a biggie, I'd say that it makes at least a 20% difference, although this is just my own completely not based on anything except how much less I am travelling per day (and the effort required to get there)
• In the end, there won't be anybody else who I can turn to and say, "hey, do you remember that time when I was learning how to shit in the woods and you guys kept video camera-ing me and I nearly lost my mind?" (Sorry Drock).. Nope, just me. Sharing a trip like this with somebody or somebodies is really nice, for those special moments.
• You have to do everything yourself -- when you're dog tired and soaked and just want to sleep, you've still gotta pitch tent and cook food, etc etc. And you've gotta fix everything that goes wrong. Nobody to lean on at all.

Pros:

• You don't have anybody else to share the weight with. Your body is made of steel (yet somehow still coated in that really cute layer of belly fat). Also helps drive home the point that the point is the journey, not the destination. Cause sometimes, you're just not going to make it.
• You do what you want, when you want. You don't have to wait for anybody, and don't have to deal with any feelings of anxiety caused by having to wait, or hurry, or do things you don't want to, or not to things you do want to, etc. Eating when you're hungry and sleeping when you're tired is fantastic.
• You meet a tonne of people, more than if you were with somebody. And you can do spontaneous things more easily, often involving these people.
• You have to do everything yourself. Sure this is tough, but it makes you tough.
• Meditation.

Right, so that's that.

Sorry about the lack of pics lately, but I haven't had much internet access. I'm sure there will be some later on... I may add them to these picless posts, so keep your eyes peeled.

Hope all is well!

Critique of my training regime after 2 days on the road

During my previous post, I let you in on my top-secret training regime. After spending the last two days riding, I would like to revisit my previously prevailing wisdom:

1. Riding a bus does not help you prepare for a bike trip, from a physical standpoint. Just because you're sitting on the bus, doesn't mean that you can handle sitting on a bike seat, whilst peddling. For future trips, if you're planning on using the 'bus-bike' translation, I would suggest taking a very small object and sitting on it with the little bit between your butt and your, well, you know. For the entire duration of the trip. This will be better prepration. Oh, and the hair on your chest actually comes in handy when you wake up in sub-zero temperatures at the top of a mountain where you decided to stop for the day.
2. Drinking beer and wine on the dock does not prepare you for a cycling trip. Although it's good to know what a mid-day buzz feels like, so that you're not completely freaked out when you're mentally and physically exhausted and start whigging out half way up the mountain pass.
   
3. Although it seemed like a good idea to not tire out my cycling muscles by waterskiing, it appears this was faulty logic. I should have biked.
4. Staying longer at the cottage, was a good idea.
5. It turns out that fatness does actually directly translate into km/hr. However, I what I failed to previously understand that it's a negative correlation. Carrying extra weight, on your body or elsewhere, just means you have more to drag up the hills.

The first day of my trip was the hardest 55 km I've ever biked. When I said the hill was 20 km, I was misguided, probably because those that told me had never RIDDEN A BIKE. It was 20 km, before the 500m flat stretch, which was directly before the next 12 km climb. Insert a km of flat again, and then climb another 4 km. At about the 30km mark of my trip, all of the ditches and gullies were starting to look like 5 star hotels. I could've slept anywhere. And I did, a few times, pulling over to sleep on the side of the road, in the ditch. By the time I'd reached the top of this climb I was mentally and physically exhausted, and couldn't wait to critique my training regime, for the good of future cyclists that may be reading this.

I had a few good laughs on my trip. The painful irony of watching the "SLOW" signs go by, at 7 km/hr provided me with some comic relief. Also, making my best "oh please just kill me now" faces at the cars going by, and watching their reactions gave me some reprieve also.

Despite my best efforts, I have not set any land speed records. I have not yet given up hope.

Today I'm in Nelson (it was a quick 73 km, with the first 27 km all downhill!). I'll be here for a day of rest (tomorrow) to give my buttocks a chance to recover and stare at all the beautiful hippies that populate this town. I think I'll go to the beach.

Smile on brave soldiers.

Hard to leave paradise

I will now be attempting to catch up to where I am now, leaving out most juicy details and death-defying stories for brevity's sake. I'll probably spell things incorrectly too, out of a newly developed detestation of scrabble. I'd try and use that word too, out of spite, "detestation." Probably get called on it and lose my turn.

Allow me to enlighten you on my current training regimine:

1. Ride a bus for 55 hours from Whitehorse. Make sure to sleep as little as possible just to put some hair on your chest.
2. Drink lots of beer and wine on the dock. This is always good practise for a cycling trip.
   
3. Waterski -- apparently this uses a completely different set of muscles than cycling. This is good because you don't want to tire out your cycling muscles before you start.
   
4. Do a quick training run to make sure your bike is in order after shipping it from Whitehorse. Make sure you fall off when your chain gets caught between gears while going up a hill. Make sure you're solidly clipped in when this happens, so that when you fall sideways, you tweak your knee. Hopefully it will swell up so that you can convince your family of your need to stay just a few more days to heal sufficiently.
   
5. Think lots about your impnding departure on cycle, without actually doing it. Instead, eat ridiculously large poritons of food, and convince yourself that the fatness you're gaining now translates directly into km/hr later.
6. Waterproof your stuff. Lesson learned from a 3 day training ride which kicked your ass and water-logged your feet.

So as I said, I'm in southern BC, visiting with family. I've been here for just over a week, and Katherine left for her cycling tour a few days ago. Now I find myself getting some last minute supplies (including a re-psyching up for cycling), and getting ready to hit the road. The climb out of this place is the hardest one on the trip, it starts on a mountain, and the first hill is 20 km long. It's possible I'll expire on the way to the top. Look at the pic below, see the never ending slope going off to the left toward Heaven, disappearing behind the point? That's the hill. Only the first km of it though. *shudder*




Okay, I have to go and eat myself stupid, as per my training regime. It's very strict you know. Then I hope to dream beautiful dreams of anti-gravity pulling me up hills (failing that, sails, or a motor). I will be getting on a bicycle in the next few days. Wish my buttocks luck. Keep me in your prayers, I keep hearing stories of cyclists getting eaten by bears and the like. Although the way I'm rolling, I'd probably eat IT before it ate me.

Stay and play safe, little kittens.

holy sh-Inuvik!

AKA: I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can...
AKA: It never got dark. Period.
AKA: I'd hate to be there in the winter.
AKA: North of the arctic circle.
AKA: ...





As previously indicated, I did actually make it up to the end of the road in Canada (with Katherine) -- Inuvik, NWT (the proper abbreviation is actually NT now, but I'm so old-school it hurts). My cousin lives up there, and absolutely loves it, and I can see why.


The trip to Inuvik happens via the world-famous, 750 km dirt "highway" called The Dempster. It's the most beautiful trip I've ever taken in a car. The majority of the ride is spent gazing out the windows in a dream-like state, looking over the tundra and the seemingly never-ending mountains and hills, with the road lined with a beautiful pink flower known as fireweed. If you ever get a chance, you should ride this road. We hitchhiked both up and back. After we smelled it, we saw the smoldering of a new forest fire on the way back down the Dempster.



This is the famous church in Inuvik. A real crowd pleaser, apparently. I'd never heard of it.

We were in Inuvik for thier annual Northern Arts Festival. It's the big deal for the year, so we were there at just the right time. Artists from all over the territories and BC come to display their art, which ranged from impressionism, to soap-stone and wood carving, to traditional Native art.




One day, my cousin and her friend, Katherine and I headed out after they had finished work for the day to go fishing. We loaded the truck with a couple canoes, boxes of tackle, rods, and all necessary accessories. We paddled around one of the beautiful creeks for what felt like just a few hours, catching a number of pike. When we got back, we cleaned them on the back of the truck, and then headed back into town. The town was still bussling, at least the strip of the streets in front of the bars. When we got back to my cousins house, we found that it was almost 2:00 AM! We didn't get to bed until after 4:00 that night... again... it's just so easy to stay up when it's not dark outside. What a mind-fudge.

Yep, so Inuvik was great. We stayed for 5 days, instead of the 1 we intended to stay. And thank goodness for my cousins generousity -- an excellent host, and she ended up driving us a good way down the Dempster on the way home, because after 6 hours in the sun one day trying to hitch a ride home, she decided that she'd just come for the drive and we'd camp out that night. What a doll. Thank you so much J, you are wonderful.

I'm a naughty blogger, still trying to catch up.. I'm writing this from southern BC...

Going to Guggieville, and the Dawson City Music Festival

Scroll down through the recent posts, I made another post that I thought I'd posted before and it's now out of order ... (look for the pic of the pig) ...


















So as you know I was working on a farm. I left there, a few thursdays ago, to hitchhike with my girlfriend to Dawson city for their music festival, where we were volunteering. It's 575 km or so to Dawson along the Klondike highway. We sat on the highway in the sun for about an hour until a hotdog vendor (among about 100 other trades) came shimmying to a stop in an old Jeep, dragging a trailer full of assorted meats. For the next 6 hours he educated us about local geography and culture, and filled our ride with terrific stories of adventure and bush living. Quite a dude. Then we were in Guggieville (goo-gee-ville), where we camped during the festival, about 30 minutes outside of Dawson City on foot.

We volunteered, security detail. I did my best Jacky Chan impression while IDing all of the ladies that looked well over 30, to give them a morale boost, they loved it. K really wanted to ID David Suzuki as he walked through, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. The man just wanted his beer.

While at the festival, I ran into a few people from my past. The very first person that walked through the security gates on my first shift was a guy I went to highschool with. Small world. He and his band were playing at the festival. Along with him, there was another girl that I went to uni with, who I'd planned to meet up with after she told me she'd be there! So we drank and danced and were marry, and shared a good slice of life.

The festival itself was amazing. So many talented acts. Good atmosphere. The highlights for me were the Great Lake Swimmers, Amy Millan (Stars), the Tuvan Throat Singers, and Old Man Leudecke. You should look up the throat singers, they evoked so much emotion that a number of people in the crowd were crying and laughing. At least it seemed that way through my blurry eyes. Not that I'd cry, heck no, I'm a man, more power *grunt*.





Dawson City itself is a step back in time. It's a small town, maybe 3000 full time residents. But with a town that far north, I'm sure the population fluxtuates quite drastically during the summer and winter months. When you are in the downtown core, it would be pretty easy to convince yourself that you actually stepped out of a time warp and arrived back in the days of the old Wild West. The buildings, for the most part, have been preserved immaculately, to reflect the time of roar, at the turn of the century when all of the people flooded in for the great gold rush.


Okay, I'm being pressed to leave. I am currently in southern BC, visiting with family. There are more adventures to tell you about that have come to pass, but I've been too busy having them to write them all down. So soon, between beers on the dock and the mental preperation for my imminent departure on the bike, I will find some time to catch up my blogging. Hope you're all smiling, I'll have a waterski for ya.

Blazing thumbs

AKA: Hitchhiking 101
AKA: How to score a pimp ride
AKA: Hitchhikers guide to the Gala... oh wait, that's already taken.
AKA:...

Okay, so we hitched approximately 2500 km since I last wrote. Whitehorse to Dawson City (where we volunteered at a 3 day music festival), up to Inuvik (north of the Arctic Circle where it never got dark to visit some family), and then back to Whitehorse in reverse. I thought I'd write a little mini how-to for anybody that wants to hitchhike...

1. Don't usurp rides from those that went before you. I don't care how many times you count the rosary, the hitching Gods will come back and run you down with a Mac truck. This is a pointed comment, due to those bloody Europeans that sniped our ride as we sat for 4 hours on the side of the road before they . No, I don't hate all Europeans. I love most of them. And even I love them. They'll need it where the hitching Gods will be sending them.
2. Do it in the Yukon/sparsely populated places where nice people reside. In Ontario you fight with two things: #1, fear, and #2, the 'gotta get there' attitude. In the Yukon or other sparsely populated places with nice people you fight with two different things, #1, no traffic, and #2 full cars, because anybody who's in BF Nowhere, probably has supplies to last them for an eternity (approximately).
3. Go with a girl. The prettier, the better. Make sure she likes to smile, and has clean clothes. The breathe doesn't matter, by that time you're already in the car.
4. Don't look like a dirty hippy. Although if you do, other dirty hippies will take pity on you and pick you up. However, I now sport a fauxhawk, so I wouldn't know.
5. Don't expect RVs to pick you up. They won't. It's like inviting complete strangers into their homes. Just smile and wave. However, if you're lucky enough to score a ride in the tow vehicle and then impress the ride-givers with your humour and charm (thank goodness for travelling with a funny charming woman), take the ride in the RV that they'll inevitably offer. People are nice. I would upload a pic, but I just don't have time. They even gave us some reading material and fed us, gave us hugs, and sent us on our way.
6. Do it from a roadside stop. I don't care if you have thumbs like the green giant (actually I don't know if there's anything special about his thumbs), you'll have better luck if you try and coral a ride from a busy roadside stop, like a gas bar or a common spot where people stop on a given route. It gives people the extra few minutes they need to decide that you're not completely sketchy. Unless you are, then you should stick to plan A (the thumb technique).
7. Nobody in the middle of a line of cars will ever pick you up. Actually, nobody in a line will ever pick you up. The first car isn't going to pull over and slow down the whole line, the middle cars aren't going to pull over and slow down all cars behind them, and the last car, although it could, has been psychologically damaged by the first x cars in the line and is now thinking "well, THEY didn't pick them up." Just smile and wave. Maybe the last guy in the line will eventually pick you up.

Ya okay, I only have 30 minutes total on the net. So I'll have to cut it off there.

I haven't had much net access (read: any), but life is grand. Tomorrow we get on another bus for 55 hours to southern BC to visit more family. I will have access a little more for a little longer at that juncture, and will be sure to make a more reasonable post with pictures and the like. The Dempster Highway that crosses the Arctic Circle and takes you to Inuvik (NWT) is one of the most beautiful drives in the world. 750 km of dirt 'highway' through the end of time.

Anyway, hitching was an awesome experience. Met some wonderful people who we'll probably keep in touch with, had some interesting conversations, and shared some good laughs.

I have to go find a pillow.