Fort St John

Well we have made it here tonight after a long days ride. Yesterday we stopped at Muncho Lake looking like a couple of drowned rats. As you might have guessed we were rained on. The plan of camping at Liard Hot Springs turned into stop, look, yes its warm, leave. Down the road to the first dry accomodation available. A quaint little "rustic" cabin. Running hot water, roof, and a dry bed priceless!! We stopped at the signpost forest in Watson Lake see the pictures. Lots of Bison (size of a Volkwagen), caribou, mule deer at the side and on the road yesterday and today. Long straight stretches and some faboulous curves. The pictures are of filling up in Fort Nelson, the cabin in Muncho Lake, Watson lake signpost forest and Kevan at the Musuem in Whitehorse.

Cheers Karen

Post Dempster Days

Well today was a vacation day from our vacation. Going flat out for more than a week is at times exhausting. Whitehorse is a beautiful city and easy to navigate for us first timers. We were typical tourists (rented a car) saw the SS Klondike, Yukon Beringia Centre (mammoth city), Miles Canyon Suspension Bridge, rode a train at the Copperbelt Railway & Mining Centre, and had a stupendous dinner at the world famous Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ. Back on the road tomorrow heading to Carcross on the way to Teslin. Looking forward sleeping in the tent again with the peace and quiet. The last few nights have consisted of drunk locals singing, crying and yelling outside our window. The loudness of the yelling is proportional I believe to the amount of alcohol ingested, and they are pros around here! PS there has been no more camera and motorcycle dumping escapades!!
Karen

Photos

We are back in Whitehorse tonight. Karen will be updating you all about the trip details but I have - hopefully - been able to set up a photoshare for you all to look at.

click here to view http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/11854246216-1252293779-56385/

It is not password protected.

Kevan

BTW: Yes we made it to the Arctic Circle

On the road in Whitehorse

Tonight we are in Whitehorse. It seams like it has been much longer than the five days that have transpired. Where do we start.

We actually we started in Port Hardy. Hard to believe but we actually started a motorcycle trip with good weather. Boat trip was really quite good but boring. Stunning scenery on the inside passage but my god was it a long ferry ride.

Had a short stay over in Prince Rupert. The hotel we booked was supposed to be a 3 star but I think someone cant count.Best thing was when I questioned why we could not park the bikes in the underground parking they let us pull them up to the front doors of the hotel and park them there

We stopped and visited the old cannery at Port Edward outside Prince Rupert. It is really well done and any of you who have a coastal marine history in your family would really enjoy it

We made it up to Stewart on the first day but with a little excitement. We stopped to take pictures of Bear Glacier which is ritht on the side of the road going in. There was a storm brewing and the wind was quite high. Well Karen stopped, got her camera out and as a gust of wind hit her she fell over. Well actually fell off the bike !! She did not get hurt - other than her pride - and a few minutes of straightening out things all was well with the bike. The camera though bit the dust shall we say. We actually have a picture of the ground as the camera was hitting it. And we have a picture of Karen with her bike on it's side :)

The Cassiar highway is narrow, winding with breathtaking scenery. The northern part is sort of a slightly wider logging road that has been covered in tar and gravel. Challenging in places but it is a good warm up to the Dempster.

We are heading off to Dawson tomorrow and the north on Wednesday. We have a window of good weather and need to take advantage of that. So hopefully by weekend we should have made it to the Artic Circle and be back in Dawson. Hope to update you then

I will try to upload photos later to a photoshare site and post the link

Kevan and Karen on the road

Questions

The real question is: weather not whether. It is not whether we go or not it is truly dependant on the weather.

See the Dempster Highway is not what we think of as a “highway”. It is not paved. It is not well maintained. It does not have nice little rest areas. It does not suffer fools well. And up there you cannot get BCAA to come get you. And if you fuck up and fall off the only practical way out is with a helicopter.

The Dempster is a bed of gravel 3 feet thick that your ride/drive on. It is designed that way so that the frost does not completely destroy the highway each winter. It has been described as a 750 kilometre long rut filled sometimes filled with water. Dusty and rocky in the dry and absolute nightmare in the wet. And yes we want to ride it the whole way.

So the question is not whether – as in whether we want to or not – as we definitely want to. The question is the weather. If it is dry we will. If it is wet we probably wont.

Remember we are riding heavily loaded motorcycles with dual sport tires ( think all season tires on your car) – not heavy knobby tires (think snow tires or heavy duty truck tires) – and Karen has not had a lot of off road riding experience. Hell my experience is limited and long ago and I have never ridden that type of surface.

So if we cant due to weather then we have an alternative route planned through eastern Alaska and returning down the Alaska Highway home.

There are certain times where “discretion is the better part of valour” and this is probably one of them.

We are getting ready for our adventure this year – the Arctic Circle. We leave August 26, 2009 to head up the Cassiar Highway to Whitehorse in the Yukon. From there we go north to the historic city of Dawson and then 400 plus kilometers of grave road to the Arctic Circle

In preparation to this trip Karen and I did a quick overnight trip to Lake Cowichan to try out our camping gear. Nice sunny day with temps in the 10 degree area but the night was bloody freezing. We were camping at the snow line at Lake Cowichan and let me tell ya it was bloody cold. But we learned that we need better gear and warmer sleeping pad and all will be good.

Epilogue

Well the guys made as I knew they would. They are in Panama today and have made the end rally point which is the Bridge of the Americas. Congratulations guys, you did a hell of a job !!

And yes I wish I was with them. There are not words the describe my disappointment of not being able to complete the trip.

As for my health I am feeling better. My regular doctor cant find anything obviously wrong with me i.e.: had a heart attack, high cholesterol, etc. All the tests so far are inconclusive. He is putting it down to high "endothelin concentrations" in my system caused by the pollution. He figures that it affected my lungs with the asthma then as it progressed it affected my heart. Thought he was full of BS but Karen has been talking to some of the other doctors at the hospital and doing some research with the New England Medical Journal, some case studies out of the UK and some work done by Health Canada and maybe that is exactly what happened. Apparently even fairly short term exposure to certain air pollution, notably that caused by diesel emissions, can cause elevated blood pressure and arrhythmia along with affecting lung function.

I spent Thursday and Friday with a heart monitor attached to my chest so that the specialist can have an accurate read out of what has been happening. Along with all the other tests I have taken hopefully he can tell me what exactly caused it so that I can better deal with it in the future. But I will probably not find out for a few more months until I see him.

As for now I have stopped taking all the heart medication as my regular doctor cannot tell me what is wrong with me. I figure if they don't know what's wrong then why would I take medication ? So finally I have stopped feeling light headed and dizzy and my blood pressure - which I am taking 4 or 5 times a day - is lower and stable at this point. The pulse is still a little irregular but nothing like what it was in Mexico.

Well this is it for the time being. I will post a link to the pictures - I have a photo share with Shaw - after Dale, Brad, Steve and I get together and swap all of our photos but that will not be for a few months yet.

We will keep this blog account as Karen and I will use it for our upcoming trip this summer to Northern BC to see Ian, Heather and the kids and hopefully our Alaska trip next year

Thank you to all my friends and family for their support of the trip and your concerns over my early return.

Kevan