There and Back – The Whitehorse Adventure – What’s Next?

I’m typing this in early December and while it was a few months ago now that we completed the trip, thinking about the days on the road still evokes strong emotions.

We got back from the Whitehorse Adventure on Sat. Aug 17 and while it was a bit of a grind at times, riding a few hundred kilometres every day but two, the scenery in northern BC and in the Yukon was simply amazing and needs to be experienced in person – it can’t adequately be described.

We dodged some pretty inclement weather – while we had rain at times during most of the first half of the trip, we found out that just a few days after we’d left Watson Lake in the Yukon, there was a storm system that moved through dumping 40cms of snow in places – in mid-August! That would have added to the adventure!

The day after we got back, Sunday, our friends Dan, Kay, Trent, Bev and Shelagh asked us to join them for dinner on Sunday at a restaurant in downtown Calgary.  Among other topics, we talked about our trip since it was so fresh for us all.

Here’s the thing – as with all our other trips, we woke up the next morning thinking we had to get packed up and hit the road again. It was a bit disconcerting realizing that we didn’t have to get packed and ride a few hundred kilometres. Frankly it was a bit depressing to not be still riding. Sure it’s tiring and it was nice to sleep in our own bed and to see the dogs again. But there’s something about travel – especially on bikes – that feeds the soul.

So at dinner with our friends, the conversation naturally gravitated to future trips and it was resolved that we would all be doing a Pacific Northwest / Pacific Coast Highway trip in August 2020. Serious trip planning will commence after the Calgary Motorcycle Show in January.

I’ve also committed myself and Louise to a trip to Tuktoyuktuk in 2021! More on that later.

There and Back – The Whitehorse Adventure 2019 – Day 14

August 17, 2019 – Revelstoke to Cochrane

It was pretty wet outside in the morning – it had rained overnight and the roads were still wet, but the sun was shining and the looked to be starting well. We got packed up and headed to downtown Revelstoke to find a breakfast place. I’d searched the ‘net the night before looking for “the best breakfast place in Revelstoke” and a few sites indicated that the Modern Bakeshop and Cafe was the best, so that’s where we were headed.

Since it was a Saturday, Revelstoke had it’s street market going on so we had to park down the street a bit from the Modern Cafe and walk a bit. But it was worth it! The food here was terrific! We ate outside as it was crowded in the cafe, and just warm enough outside in our gear that we were comfortable.

With breakfast done, we got gas and hit the highway! Homeward bound!

We stopped for gas and a break in Golden, that way we could just go straight home without having to stop again. Funny thing happened to Louise at the Tim Hortons – as we went in the door, one of her co-workers happened to be right there! What were the odds! They chatted for a bit, then we got our coffee and tea, sat for a bit, then headed out again for home.

The newly built TransCanada east of Golden is a rather quick and easy run to Lake Louise now. At the Lake Louise junction, we turned off the TransCanada and got on the Bow Valley Parkway, which is a way nicer ride. While the speeds are far less, the reduced traffic reduced the stress, and it’s very curvy so way more fun to ride. Soon enough though, the Bow Valley Parkway ended where it joined up with the TransCanada again. Once we hit Canmore, we again pulled off the TransCanada onto the 1A for the last 40 minutes or so to Cochrane and home.

We arrived in the mid-afternoon, broke my Apple Watch taking my jacket off, then showered and unpacked. Then we piled into the Jeep and headed into Calgary to get the dogs!

Another trip completed and into the history books!

There and Back – The Whitehorse Adventure – Day 13

August 16, 2019 – Clearwater, BC to Revelstoke, BC

We slept in a bit in the kosy KOA Kabin, then had instant oatmeal for brekkie and packed up. Heading back south on Highway 5, we retraced the few kms from Little Fort that we did the day before, and continued south to Kamloops. The further south we got, the heavier the traffic got. At some points it was pretty brutal – at one point we got passed by an F350 brodozer pulling a 20+ ft trailer doing about 140kph! He was passing everything and anything – on corners, on solid lines and into oncoming traffic. Must have had somewhere important to be that he was late for!

Eventually we came to Kamloops and a whole mess of traffic, especially merging onto Highway 1. It was coming on midday, but neither of us wanted to stop in Kamloops for food. We decided to press on another hour and stop at the Dreamcycle Motorcycle Museum and Sprocket Cafe that I’d heard about.

There was a sign on the side of the road that said something like “Dreamcycle Motorcycle Museum 30 mins ahead” so I started counting down. We were something like 40 minutes down the road when I happened to see the sign on the right and called to Louise “right turn right here!” We had to cross a lane of busy traffic to get over in time to make the corner, but we did it without causing any crashes.

The Dreamcycle Motorcycle Museum turned out to be very cool and we had a pretty enjoyable 90 minutes wandering the building and checking out the bikes there.  We took pictures of many, but here are a couple of highlights …

That blue bike, a ’75 Honda CB400F, was pretty close to the first bike that Louise and I had back in 1984 or so – a yellow 1976 CB400/4 SS – the handlebars on our dropped a bit more compared to the standard bars on the blue one.

As cool as the museum was, the Sprocket Cafe was a bit of a disappointment. I’ve heard other folks talk about the cafe and rave about it. But there wasn’t much food left and no sticky buns grrrrr so we just got pre-made sandwiches and iced tea, ate outside, and mounted up to head to Revelstoke.

A couple more hours of riding found us in Revelstoke and we quickly found our way to the Gateway Inn on the west side of the town. While we were waiting to check in, the couple ahead of us were having a bit of trouble comprehending the 2-star status of the motel and what it meant in terms of room quality versus price. Welcome to the tourist zone. The room was fine – very simple, rather small and quite rustic in ways, but it was clean enough. We unpacked, and headed out for dinner.

The dinner place had been figured out long before, as soon as we figured that we’d be stopping at Revelstoke – the Nomad Food Co. and it was literally just across the road from the motel!

As usual the place was hopping busy (I took the picture above a while later in the evening after the place had closed), and the food, as usual, was really good.

Wow, is that haircut ever terrible! I should have left my hat on. The milkshake, however, was awesome.

If you’re ever in Revelstoke I highly recommend stopping at the Nomad. We chilled back at the motel room for a bit, then went for a walk, stopping by Starbuck’s for a latte and then at this sign at the entrance to the townsite:

The weather was mostly dull with a few rain showers passing through. We could see some rainclouds rolling down the mountainside on the north side of town and some pretty cool looking clouds along the lake on the south side.

Back at the motel, we read for a bit and hit the hay, both happy and sad that tomorrow night we’d be in our own beds!

 

There and Back – The Whitehorse Adventure – Day 12

August 15, 2019 – Quesnel, BC to Clearwater, BC

We slept pretty well overnight and after packing up and stuff, we headed back for Denny’s for a forgettable breakfast.

It was a nice morning and while I was checking the tire pressure on the bikes, all four tires were down a couple of pounds of pressure. So I busted out the mini-compressor to give them all puff. I got one tire up to spec, then started on the second tire, when the compressor quit. A bit quick troubleshooting revealed the problem to a blown fuse for the accessory plug on the FJR. I had forgotten that it’s only rated for low amperage use on phone chargers and the like. So I had to pull the dry bag, tent and everything off the rear seat on the FJR so I could plug the compressor into the higher amperage 12v jack I have under the seat. I should have used that jack in the first place. Oh well.

With everything all packed we headed south out of town on Highway 97 towards the junction with Highway 24 where we’d head east to Little Fort and north to Clearwater on Highway 5.

Not much eventful happened on this leg as it would be a relatively short day. We stopped for gas, bio break and snack in Williams Lake. turned east on Highway 24, which was a pretty scenic ride with a low mountain pass in the northern Monashees range.

We arrived in Clearwater in the late afternoon and stopped at the Clearwater KOA. We’d stopped here years ago on a trip to Horizons Unlimited and camped overnight.

We were just going to get a tent spot, but I’ve always wanted to try one of the KOA Kamping Kabins. So we got a cabin! The Grizzly Cave. Cool!

After unpacking, I jumped onto the internet to find a place to eat – ideally something within walking distance. As it turned out there was a place close by – the Hop and Hog Tap and Smokehouse! It was literally 400m down the road from the KOA entrance. So around 530pm or so headed out for dinner.

It was a warm evening so we opted to sit out on the covered deck where we had a terrific dinner! It’s worth planning a road trip to Clearwater just to go to the Hop and Hog again!

Hunger and thirst abated with brisket and a beer, we waddled back to the Kabin and chilled for while. We finally got to test out our area bug deterrent which worked pretty well.
Once it got dark we headed to bed in our kosy KOA Kabin.

There and Back – Whitehorse 2019 Adventure – Day 11

August 14 – Houston, BC to Quesnel, BC

After pretty much 10 straight days on the road, things had both settled into a groove and at the same time, we were both getting pretty tired with the traffic on Highway 16 the day before. We were headed to a campground near Quesnel, BC, but as it turned out we didn’t camp that night – more in a bit.

We packed up the tent and it was really nice to have a bone dry tent to pack! The wooden shelter over the tent site kept the condensation to nothing. After a breakfast of instant oatmeal, we finished packing the bikes and headed out on the highway once more.

There was a long hill were heading up later in the morning and as we passed the 1/4 mark, I felt a stinging on my right shoulder. It was pretty hot so I had the jacket undone at the neck for some airflow – this turned out to be a mistake.

I scratched at the pain with my left arm, rather ineffectually given the bulky jacket and having to maintain control of the bike. Thinking it was just a sharp itch, I went back to concentrating on the ride. Then another stinging pain, and another! I threw my arm around to scratch and slap at my shoulder blade, realizing now that a bloody wasp had flown into my open jacket and he’d crawled around onto my right shoulder blade. All my scratching and slapping had done was piss the wasp off even more and he just kept biting me.

Realizing that I had to get to the side of the road and deal with this off the bike, I told Louise on the intercom that I had to stop, that a wasp was trying to eat me. I peeled off across the highway to the rest stop on the left side of highway. Stopping the bike, I quickly hopped off and starting peeling my jacket and layers off. I’m sure that the couple of carloads of people in the rest stop were wondering what the hell I was doing as flung off the jacket and kept taking layers off, including my t-shirt.

Louise came up to me as I was taking my t-shirt off and she looked at my back. Sure enough there were a number of swelling bite marks on my back. Louise put some anti-perspirant on my back to reduce the stinging, then I carefully checked my shirt and the jacket to make the damn wasp wasn’t there anymore before gearing up again and continuing on.

For lunch, we stopped at a pretty cool place in Vanderhof, BC. We went all the way into town looking for a place to eat that wasn’t part of a fast food chain. At the gas station we filled up at, the attendant didn’t have an opinion other that Subway. I recalled seeing a cafe at the western end of town at the town’s museum. We decided to head there and try the OK Cafe.

It turned out to be a great idea! The food was really good and the service was ok – way better than a fast food place, and the building had a really good ambiance and vibe.

After lunch and bio break and a bit of a sit, we headed out onto Highway 16 again. A few hours on, we came to Price George, BC. Traffic was pretty heavy and we had to get through PG to get to Highway 97 to head south. It was again pretty hot and tiring but traffic was a bit lighter on 97 so that was good.

We had planned on camping near Quesnel but the place was farther outside of the town than it looked on the map. Plus we were tired, Louise even commenting over the intercom that she could tell I was tiring because I stopped nattering away to her. So at a gas stop we made the decision to not camp, instead we’d get a hotel for the night.

Here’s a hint – don’t try to book a hotel room online on an iPhone on the side of the road after riding a bike all day through heavy traffic in a strange town in the heat after days on the road. I didn’t realize exactly what day it was and when I booked the room at a local Holiday Inn, I made the reservation for the next night not tonight! Damn it! Realizing what I’d done as soon as I got the confirmation email, I ranted and raved at myself for a bit. What an idiot! I should have checked the dates to make sure I had the right day. After calming down a little bit, I called the hotel to try and explain what I’d done, but for some reason we couldn’t figure it out over the phone and so we decided to head to the hotel and try to figure it out in person.

If you’ve never driven through Quesnel, you should try it sometime. The highway goes through the centre of the town, but meanders back on itself before heading south again out of town. The Holiday Inn I booked was on the south side so we had to ride all the way through town. Then my intercom battery died so Louise and I couldn’t talk anymore. Louise now had to trust that I could figure out where were going without driving right past it.

This one hour was easily the most frustrating hour of the whole trip and really the only time that Louise and I barked at each other.

We did make it in the end, rolled in about 6ish. Got unpacked, showered and ate forgettable food at the Denny’s. Went to bed early – at least it was a warm comfy bed!

 

 

There and Back – The Whitehorse Adventure – Day 10

August 13, 2019 – Stewart, BC  to  Houston, BC

Today was Tuesday the 13th, which meant two things. One, we were now officially headed back home. Two, more places were open in town, including Ripley Creek Inn’s cafe, Toastworks.

After getting showered and packed up, we wandered over to Toastworks for breakfast. It was a busy busy place!

We fuelled up the bikes at the local Petro-Canada and hit the road. Since the day was way better weather than when we came into Stewart, we stopped by the side of the road at Bear Glacier for a few pictures.

Highway 37A was just as scenic heading east as it was coming in the day before. Before long though we stopped at Meziadin Junction where 37A ends at the Cassiar Highway. After topping up the gas tanks and having a bio break, we headed south again on the Cassiar.

At the Nass River Bridge, we ran into our first major construction detour of the whole trip. No pictures, sadly, but the bridge was being replaced and there were about 10kms of the highway ripped up, with traffic crawling along a dirt road detour with plenty of bumps and ruts. It was pretty sketchy on the FJR and Louise left a big gap between us so she could see the lay of land. The good thing was that we rarely got above 20kph the entire way.  Back on pavement we made pretty good time to the junction of the Cassiar and Highway 16 just past the town of Kitwanga.

Once on Highway 16, a bit of depression set in. Highway 16 was busy with tons of RVs and transport trucks roaring by at 110kph. We were on the backside of the trip heading home. We were back into civilization and the adventure part of the trip was now over – from this point on it was just cruise the highway, try not to get smoked by a semi and make it to the next stop.

We saw billboards exhorting native women to not hitchhike along the highway which was pretty sad. Highway 16 has been called the Highway of Tears because of the large number of native women who have disappeared along the highway over the last 3 decades or so.

Midday came and since we were now a bit hungry we stopped in New Hazelton for a place where I thought we could get Sticky Buns – the Skeena Bakery.  Well we happened to stop there right at lunchtime and the place was busy with locals buying up all the goodies. There wasn’t much left for us, but what we ate was pretty good.

We were headed to a campground not far from Houston called Shady Rest RV Park. We fuelled up in Houston and made for the campground. While it was mostly gravel parking pads for RVs and trailers with some grass between spots there was a really nice tent-only area that the owners sent us to. Since we were almost the only ones, we got the pick of the spots. This place had something I’ve not seen at another campground – a shelter over the tent site!

We made our camping classic dinner of chickpea masala and couscous wrapped in a tortilla shell.

The only negative thing I can say about the Shady Rest is that the damn CN train engineers insisted on hooting the air horns all night. Louise didn’t hear them because she wears earplugs.

There and Back – The Whitehorse Adventure – Day 9

Stewart, BC

Today was going to be a relatively light day – we just planned to wander around the town and see the sights and rest up for the rest of the trip. We’d thought of heading over to Hyder, AK so we could say that we went to Alaska, but Louise did not bring her passport. We would need the passport to get back into Canada without a bunch of hassle, and we didn’t want to knowingly subject ourselves to a hassle.

First task was finding breakfast. Didn’t think it’d be that tough but as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there’s not a lot going on in Stewart. We found the Silverado Cafe across from the Ripley Creek Inn and enjoyed a light breakfast followed by a walk up the estuary. There is couple of kilometres of boardwalk out into the estuary with some informative plaques talking about the flora and fauna of the estuary.

Along the way Louise spotted a fallen rotting tree trunk that had a small forest growing on it!

The sky was mostly clearing up from yesterday’s clouds and light rain. The picture below was from mid-way on the boardwalk looking to the south-east.

We continued walking around the western end of town for a bit, then headed back to  our room at the Inn for a bit. This hack of a machine is parked in the Ripley Inn roadway between buildings.

It’s an old car mounted onto a tracked chassis, presumably for getting around in the snow or perhaps at one of the mine sites up in the mountains. There’s no explanation for it – it’s just sitting there.

After hanging out in the room for a bit reading it was lunchtime, so we headed to find something to eat. We figured we’d just pickup some sandwiches and some fruit, and have a picnic in the park near the motel. After getting some things at the Harbour Lights grocery, we sat down in the sun and had good eats.

Still feeling lazy, we drifted back to the room where Louise had a nap. I sat down outside and worked on the computer. While I typed away, I heard a hell of a commotion with the local chickens …

… which were crowing and cackling and running around. Followed by a coupe of the Inn’s staff running by asking if had seen the bear! Apparently a young bear had ambled through the area between the buildings towards the estuary. Scared a staffer and set off the chickens. I didn’t see the bear myself, but it seems certain that the chickens did!

Later in the afternoon we figured we’d head over the Stewart Museum for a look at some culture. The museum used to be at the old Firehall, where there are still some artifacts, but the museum itself has moved to upper floor of the Service BC Centre, which was the old town school.

By the time we got the museum itself it was close to 5pm and the museum was closing. The custodian was staying late for a bit, so she allowed us in to have a quick look at the various mining information and artefacts that the museum had on display, then headed back the long way to the Inn.

Along the way, just off the highway, Telus had a building with antennas and whatnot, as well as these three old phone booths …

… and so being the curious type that I am, I headed over to have a look. Two of the three were just empty shells, but the third had a phone in it. I picked up the handset …

… and it had a dialtone! A still working phone booth! Don’t see too many of those anymore.

Back at the room again, I was outside reading when Rooster the chicken chief ambled by clucking away. Apparently he’d recovered from the earlier bear scare and acting all tough again …

Since it was by this late afternoon, getting near to 6pm, travellers started to arrive, including a bunch of “wild hog” types from somewhere in Ontario riding their cruisers. In addition to the loud pipes, the guys were pretty loud and foul-mouthed as well. One guy was loudly and rudely berating all around him that his room reservation had been screwed up and he clearly wanted everyone to feel his pain.

In addition to the cruiser dudes, a couple of Australians here on a whirlwind trip pulled in on an AfricaTwin and GS1200. They were loud as well but at least polite.

Louise and I went back to the restaurant at the King Edward Hotel for dinner, along with nearly every other traveler in town. Like I said before, there’s no much going on here in Stewart! Lots more cruiser riders arrived, most staying at the King Edward Motel across the street from the Hotel and restaurant.

After dinner we went for another walk on the boardwalk and snapped a couple of more pictures, before calling it a night.

Stewart is a pretty little town that runs at a rather relaxed pace. Louise really liked it here and wants to come back for a longer stay sometime.