I am in Dease Lake, BC now. It has been a great ride so far. Beautiful country. Met up with Biker Bob at the hostel in Pr Rupert and we rode to Terrace, BC where I had pre-ordered a part to fix my speedo (speedometer, not swimsuit). Took a back road thru the lava fields NE of Terrace. Like being on the moon. Ended up going 30 miles on a gravel road before getting back on the the Cassiar Hwy going north. Rode to Stewart, BC and then over the border into Hyder, Alaska. No U.S. manned border guards but were coming back into Canada manned by the Cannucks. Put up the tents beside the roadhouse/bar in Hyder and camped out. Spent most of the evening swapping motorcycle stories with 4 cannucks on bikes (including a guy from Germany and a Swiss). One of them had taken a year and a half to go around the world previously on a bike. Also a guy from ID and one from Okla on bikes joined our group. Lots of tall tales. Maybe it was the beer. Beautiful setting in Hyder to camp. Straight up and down mtns on all sides. We rode up to the glacier above town the next morning-14 miles of gravel. The snow on the road stopped us at that point. Rode back to Stewart and we were in a cafe eating muffins w/coffee when two guys walk in wanting to know about our bikes. Then one of them asked us if we wanted to go up in a Bell heliocopter with him. He had a bike like mine and is planning a trip to South America in Nov. So anyway, we rode out to the airport and went on a tour of the glaciers for about half an hour sightseeing. The whirlybird is used to service and support the wildcat gold mines up near the glaciers. you can't get there by road because there are no roads. it was AWSOME! Rode on up the Cassiar Hwy to here in Dease Lake. We will ride to Telegraph Creek down 65 miles of gravel this morning. This is a little town on the Stikine River east of Wrangell, AK. Looking forward to that. Will give you an update later. using Biker Bob's apple computer to write this.
bill

 

   Biker Bob and I were able to ride from Dease Lake, BC to Telegrahp Creek on the Stikine River. Beautiful ride but a LOT of mud. We looked like mud statuary by the time we made the round trip. It was 72 miles one-way of mud and gravel but spectacular scenery (I seemed to say that I like, don't I??). A teenage moose ran out in front of us once. Not many other vehicles on the road. We did pass a guy on a KLR bike who we had met earlier in Stewart, BC. He was the other guy who went up in the heliocopter with us as a fellow passenger with the crazy Scotsman named Dug (as in "Doog").
   Anyway, Telegraph Creek was just about how I had pictured it. A semi-deserted out-post which use to be a Hudson Bay Co trading post. The Stikine River was really rolling. We had lunch at the Riversong Inn right on the river. Took two hours to get there but about an hour and a half on the return. The Stikine Canyon was awsome! Saw a couple of fox on the return ride. Hosed off the bikes when we got back to the Cassiar Hwy. You could tell they were motorcycles again and not just lumps of clay mud. Gassed up and headed North to the Alaska Highway at Watson Lake. I got the impression from Bob that he considered this town as the general armpit of the AlCan Hwy. Got a tent spot there at an RV park sandwiched between two motorhomes. Was ok though. The next morning, I got up early and walked around the sign-post forest at dawn for which this community is famous. And dawn comes pretty early at this lattitude this time of year.
   Headed up to Whitehorse, Yukon and spent the night at a camping park next to the Yukon River. Met some other bikers there. 3 guys from MI & NC on KLR's like mine and another guy by himself on a BMW Dakar 650 like Bob's bike from AL. The last guy use to own a Harley dealership in AL. He told me he had crashed his bike on Ruta 40 in Patagonia on a recent trip there. Very cold the next morning in Whitehorse so we packed up quickly and hightailed it to the Starbucks in downtown Whitehorse. Then hit the road after we warmed up. We rode North on the North Klondike Hwy up to the intersection of the Dempster Hwy (the road to Inuvik, NW Territories) and got a room at a lodge there. It was actually a trailer but not a bad room for $42 bucks. Showered and then rode the 24 miles to Dawson City for dinner and the Can-Can show at the casino there. Saw the 3 guys from MI/NC that we had met earlier in Whitehorse. Nice meal. "Interesting" show.
   When we got back to the room, Biker Bob looked at his tires and decided he did not have enough tread left to go up the gravel road which would be approx 500 miles each way to & from Inuvik. So I started up that road the next morning by myself. We might meet up again later in Fairbanks. Bought a jerry can for spare gas -as the next gas station was 230 miles away. Then I preceded to ride through mud and gravel for the next 12 hours, stopping half way at a place called Eagle Plains for lunch and fuel. The road was not bad until I crossed the border from the Yukon into the NW Territories. Then I hit deep gravel. Stopped at the sign when I crossed the Arctic Circle for the mandatory photo. I guess you could say that I had come a long way from the time I was in Ushuaia, Argentina in Patagonia at the other end of the earth. Had to cross rivers on ferries two different times and got into Inuvik at about 10pm. I had never seen mosquitoes and bugs so thick in all my life. They seemed to be attracted to Deet rather than repelled by it. I went 460 miles in all yesterday. My bike went on reserve tank twice but I did not run completely out of fuel. That was good because there were not many vehicles on this road. Now I know why. I did pass the 4 Cannucks that we had met at the roadhouse bar in Hyder, Alaska. They were on their way out and were having some mechanical problems.
   The big news now is that I may not be able to get out of here any time soon. I spent the night in a hotel here in Inuvik and asked the desk clerk to call ahead to reserve a room for me at the half way point for my return trip. The person on the other end at the Eagle Plains lodge said the road has been closed due to wash outs and mudslides. So I am sort of biding my time in here in Inuvik, the community which has the distinction of being the furthest town North (via the road system) in Canada. Stay tuned for further developments.
Bill in Inuvik, Northwest Territories

 

   When last I wrote I was in the public library in Inuvik, NW Territories. My trip continued to get more interesting from there. As I mentioned, I had heard a rumor that the road was closed back to Dawson City. I tried to verify that info while at the library. The Yukon Highway Dept website said the Dempster HWY was "open". I stopped a RCMP cop car (Canadian Mountie) and the mountie checked on the radio and was told that the road was open as well. So I headed back down the only road into and out of here in the early afternoon. My plan was to go only half way that day and spend the night in a place called Eagle Plains, 230 miles from Inuvik. It had rained the night before but the road out of town was good. The gravel was a bit of a challenge but nothing I hadn't seen before in either Bolivia, Chile or Argentina. In fact, it was just enough of a challenge to be really fun. I rode for a couple of hours, crossed the two ferries again and was about 10 miles past the small town of Fort Macphearson when I was stopped for road work. There were several pieces of heavy equipment up ahead putting the road back from where it had washed away. I guess that should have told me something.
   Up until that time I had not really hit any mud to speak of. Mostly just gravel. Well it was ALL mud through the construction site on a one lane track. About 3/4 of a mile past where the equipment was working is where my bike trip ended. I hit a patch of mud on an elevated stretch of road between two lakes going about 30 mph. The bike started slipping every which way and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I went down and hit the roadway hard on the left side of my lower back. Knocked the wind out of me and I continued to slide a little ways with the bike - over to the edge of the right side of the road - just above one of the little lakes. If I had slid a few feet further I would have been in the water. Anyway, the wind was knocked out of me. I had a hard time just trying to stand up in the sticky mud. It was SLICK. The darn bike continued to run while on its side and when I tried to reach over to turn it off, I realized something was wrong with my ribs on my left side. Probably the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It took me a few minutes to get up so that I could sit down again on one of the boxes on the bike. It hurt to move. I did not want to move. I was covered in mud. I could not see through my face shield because of all the mud. I had a very hard time getting my helmet off because of the mud. I would hate to do mud wrestling as a living.
   A young man on a roadgrader about a half mile away was coming my way so I just sat there and waited for him. And tried very had not to move. It hurt to move. The grader man stopped and saw my predicament. He said he would drive on ahead and get one of the construction crew pickups. He came back to get me a few minutes later. It took me a long time to get into the truck. Back up at the construction site, I was transfered into the front seat of another truck and two guys took me back to Fort Macphearson about 10 miles back up the road. We had to cross back over on one of the ferries. They called ahead on their radio to have the two nurses meet us there at the town health clinic by the time we arrived.
   The nurses were very good. They took an x-ray and saw that I had some broken ribs. It was very hard for me to breath by that time because of the pain. One nurse told me that I was very fortunate that my mishap happened where it did as there was not another clinic the whole rest of the way back to Dawson City (which was probably another 10 hours away). She said this was the only clinic on the whole Dempster Highway route. The nurse called into the hosptial in Inuvik and talked to a doctor. The doc's main concern was that one of the broken ribs might puncture my lung. So the recommendation was made that I be med-evac'd back to the Inuvik Hospital. They called in a fixed wing aircraft and it was on the ground at the airport nearby within the hour. I was fortunate again as the plane had already been called out twice that same day and was already in our vicinity.
   I was taken to the airstrip in the back of an SUV and loaded onto the plane for the 20 minute flight to the hospital. It seemed like a lot longer flight than that. Unfortunately, I was unable to see the scenery as they had me on a back board and in a neck brace by that time. An ambulance was waiting at the airstrip in Inuvik to take me to the hospital. Very soon afterwards, I was was being x-rayed in a very modern hospital facility.
   I was told that I had 4 broken ribs, two of which were broken in two places. So I have been here at this hospital for 4 days now (I think). I could hardly move. The docs wanted to be sure that my lung did not collapse. I am doing much better now but will not be riding any motorcycles for a little while. I have been able to meet a lot of great medical professionals from all over Canada. It seems like most of the nurses are newly out of school and have come from either New Brunswick or Newfoundland. I've met the hospital pharmacist as well. One of the nurses brought me a cake from the hospital kitchen on Friday that had "July 4" on it. The Cannuck independence day was July 1st. The town reminds me a lot of Barrow, Alaska. The hospital here is very similiar to the one in Barrow as well, a govt hospital located above the Arctic Circle. The sun does not go down this time of year. And the bugs are terrible. But the folks are great.
   I went to an Anglican church service today with residents of the long term care facility which is attached to the hospital. Everybody in attendence were First Nation Natives except for me and the priest. I think the hymn singing was good for my lungs. We sang 5 songs so they got a lot of exercise.
   I hope to fly out to Whitehorse tomorrow; then take a bus to Skagway, AK; then hopefully get on a ferry to Ketchikan and then back home. My bike is already in Whitehorse. A nurse from here and her husband drove their pickup to Whitehorse from here in Inuvkik and loaded the bike into the back of the truck. They picked it up for me out on the Dempster Highway at the construction camp where the road workers took it. Nice folks here in the NW Territories. They remind me of Alaskans.
   Now all I have to do is find me some shoes. I left my motorcycle boots with the bike. I don't know if they will let me on the plane tomorrow with these little foam hospital slippers.
Bill - still in Inuvik, NWT