Day 63-65: 12-14 Sep 08. Glaciers & bears in Stewart, BC & Hyder, Alaska

After I had asked the noisy neighbour to shut off their generator (which was outside their big RV!), we had a peaceful night, without any bears. Even the wind had stopped and in the morning we had a great view over the Meziadin Lake.

The way to Stewart is only about 65 km and with the sun in our face, it was a pleasant ride. The scenery is very impressive, with huge glaciers hanging on to steep walls. The road itself climbed steep for a while, but leveled out in front of the famous Bear Glacier.

Not only well-known for being one of the most accessible glaciers (the road passes right in front of the lake), but also as a backdrop in the movie Insomnia (with Al Pacino & Robin Williams). Though even in the short period since, it has retreated visibly and for the first time the glacier is no longer touching the lake directly.

The strong headwind was pretty cold and soon we continued our way: downhill! Through beautiful scenery, we freewheeled all the way back to sealevel, the first time since we started at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a few months before.. Read more

1000 Americans: Nedda & George, Stewart, Alaska

George makes specialized wooden boxes for the mining companies and geologists, to carry and conserve the core samples. He made a small business and one day hopes to use his wood skills for making furniture as well.

Nedda works in the local supermarket and had lived in nearby Hyder for a long time.

When they got married, there had been a lot of activity in town for the movie “Insomnia” with Al Pacino, Hillary Swank and Robin Williams and they showed us photos and signatures of the stars in their wedding album. Thanks, Nedda & George, for taking so good care of us and your joy in life!

1000 Americans: Amor & Al in Stewart, BC

Amor was born and raised in South Africa, but lives in Prince Rupert with his family, working as a physician. He loves to go fishing with his father in law Al.

(Read about our encounters on the trip report.)

Day 53-62: 2-11 Sep 2008: The Cassiar Highway: a wonderful wilderness with hills, gravel, jade, wildlife… and people

Of course we took the road less travelled 🙂 Highway 37, The Stewart Cassiar Highway, or simply The Cassiar Highway. All names for this infamous road, almost 1000km long, known for the lack of services, bad weather, bears and gravel patches. The latter issue had been solved we had been promised, but the other?

2nd September: Nugget City – French Creek, 58km

The adventure started sunny, but dark clouds appeared, especially on Ivana’s face when she noticed the first set of hills. “is this going to be like that for the rest of the road?” she asked. I truly did not know, but suspected that this was just the beginning…

Fortunately some nice people made our day by donating a full bag of cut-up watermelon, just what the doctor ordered as the sun had come out. Unfortunately the wind had come to and after a week of tailwind, we were not happy to have it in our face again, slowing us down.

Ivana spotted a black bear, right beside the road, I must have raced right past him on the downhill. At least that made her a bit happier and when we also found a nice deserted rest area called French Creek where we -after hanging our foodbags in the trees- could relax near a good campfire.

Read more

1000 Americans: Guy & Megan, California

It was great to see how Guy and Megan used a small van for their trip. No need for a huge RV, all they needed was inside this totally rebuilt van.

Even their two bikes were on the back of the van, and -unlike the ones on most larger RV’s- they were used as they were both avid sporters, true Californians!

1000 Americans: Willy Williams, Stikine River ranch

Holly Eden from Dease Lake had told us to visit Willie if we had the opportunity.

Willie is one of those persons that can fill a documentary all by himself. We arrived late, uninvited but were welcome and spend hours talking about his history, present and future. We talk about the history of the Tahltan people and the fights with the other first nations.

We verbally travel from the horror stories of the missionaries taking the First Nation children away to religious experiences of his friends, fights about lands and property to sharing very personal stories and advice about love & life. He lets us sleep in the first house he built, filled with more memories.

Besides being the host for a yearly 3-day gospel music festival at his ranch, Willie organises horseback riding trips through the wilderness of the nearby provincial parks: Stikine River, Spatsizi Plateau & Mount Edizia. Every trip is different and some clients come back regularly.

Willie showed us a book from a german photographer, about the area, almost completely shot during the trips he guided. No website, no email. “How do you get your clients?” I asked him. “I don’t know, somehow people seem to find me”, he replied.

More than a week later we would meet Willie again, in Smithers where we also met his wonderful wife Grace. Thanks for letting us into your life for a short moment Willie, it will last much longer than just the few hours we spent together.

ps: To make it a bit easier to get a special adventure that might just change your outlook on life, call Willie or Grace Williams in BC: 250-771-4301. Trips can take anything from a few hours to a few weeks.

1000 Americans: Holly Eden, Dease Lake, British Columbia, Canada

Holly passed us when we were having lunch at Dease Lake, outside the library. She told us that we might be able to come to her place for a shower if needed, and that she would come back later that night. As it was getting cold and dark, we set up our tent behind the library, but found a note with a tasty cookie the next morning, inviting us for breakfast and a shower at her place…

1000 Americans: Claudia & Robin, Jade City, British Columbia

“In dog years I’m dead” reads Claudia’s mug. Though originally from Yugoslavia, she had been living in BC for a long time. Together with Robin she runs the Jade City store (officially the Cassiar Mountain Jade Store LTD) and we spend a lot of time chatting together about Jade, BC, Canada and Mount Everest…

They give a whole new meaning to “Go Green”, as everything is made from Jade…

Day 47- 52: Aug 27 – Sep 1: Anarchy, Argentineans & gasguzzlers in Nugget City

It was hard to leave Tracy & Sylvester as we had felt so much at home in their place, but we had to hit the road, winter was catching  up…

We managed to delay ourselves until about 16.00 in Whitehorse and then left in a terrible downpour, and as the first few km were steep uphill to get out of the valley, we were feeling down. But the sky stopped dumping water on us and soon we found ourselves going up and down over rolling hills besides more Wonderful Lakes. We had set ourselves a new goal: get to Scott’s Anarchy Farm! We had met Scott in the Potlatch (see previous post here) and he had invited us to visit him when we would pass.

Unfortunately he was not in the Greenhouse: a big plastic covered collection of wonderful smelling flowers and vegetables. We waited outside for some moments and cycled around in the area, but as we did not had the directions to their house, we returned to the greenhouse. The rain started again, and we decided to sleep inside the greenhouse, setting up our inner tent only. It was by far the best smelling campsite on our entire trip.

In the middle of the night we heard some noises and Scott came in. He did not seem to surprised to see us sleeping in the middle of hundreds of flowers and added one more log to the slow burning woodstove, so the temperature stayed above freezing.

The next morning he came back with coffee. A few weeks later he sent us a great poem, please check it out here on his 1000 Americans page. We stayed close to the warm fire all morning and only after noon, we packed our tent and continued riding through the rainy Yukon lake District. The wind was friendly and even with our late starts we did over 100 km, ending up late at a deserted state campground, close to Teslin lake.

August 28 – 30: through the lake District with Mate & tortas

We had promised ourselves to start earlier, and actually managed to get on our bikes before 8 ‘o clock! We arrived quickly at the small place of Teslin, where we spend several hours in the library. We were surprised at the many small libraries we met, there is so much great stuff to see and hear, most offer Internet access and the ladies running them are without exception all nice and friendly, so support your local Library and get your kids to read!

We spend some time in the Teslin Motel, working on our reports and chatting with Heather, who was on her way North, on a big BMW motorbike (see her picture here). We fixed her iPhone for her and chatted with this lovely woman, who was in great spirit.. Do not pass the Motel without seeing the hidden gem: a small museum with stuffed animals in the gift shop (some of Ivana’s images are on Flickr here). This sounds much worse than it is, they have done a wonderful job. Oh, and the Wifi is free at the Motel 🙂

Ivana managed to cross the scary and long bridge, which had a steel bottom, through which you could see water below. As with most rivers, we had to climb a steep hill to get out of the valley it had created, but during the climb a van stopped. Read more

1000 Americans: Bikergrrl Heather

Heather was on her way North, coming from Vermont. Though I only know one person in Vermont (hyperactive Joe from the Riverside Wedding, overall Great Guy) she knew him as well, guess it’s a small world after all…

She was carrying a helmet cam and almost fell over laughing when she spoke of the people she filmed and photographed on the way. Looking forward to seeing them on YouTube Heather!

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