If It Don't Kill Ya

Kurt pulls his motorcycle to the side of the gravel road and motions me to ride up beside him.   His gesture is that of a scout in an old western, and he looks the part, with his long red beard and a generous covering of trail dust from head to toe.  "I just saw a bear cross the road up ahead, so watch out for it," he says.

"Black or brown?" I ask, trying to get an idea of size, as if it matters.   I don't want a close encounter with any bear. 

"I couldn't tell through all this dust, but it was big."

That makes it a three-bear day, so far.  First, there was the unseen one who left a large pile of scat fifty yards from our tent during the night.  Presumably, it was the same bear for which a large canister trap had been set alongside the service road behind the campground.  Kurt didn't tell me about the trap, knowing I wouldn't have stayed the night if he did.  As it was, the howling of wolves interrupted my sleep and made me acutely aware of the remoteness of this place, and uneasy about camping in a park that was all but deserted at the height of summer tourist season.

Bear number two was a black cub hunkered down alongside the road this morning.  We stared at one another as I rode slowly past, trying to keep my adrenaline in check, wondering where its mother was.  

Now, hours later, I'm in no mood for an up close and personal bear encounter on this unbelievably awful road.

The journey, a detour, really, started two days earlier at a crossroads in Alberta.  We were on our way to Alaska, which we'd visited a few times before.  But Kurt stopped at a visitor center where he caught the bug to visit someplace we hadn't seen, Northwest Territories.  "It'll be an adventure," he said, with the enthusiasm of a kid headed for Disney World.  For several hours now, I'd been mumbling to myself that what I needed was a vacation, not an adventure. 

We crossed the 60^th parallel twenty-four hours ago.  The weather was sunny and mild, so we stopped to take photos of our old BMW motorcycles in front of the Northwest Territories border sign, with its polar bear logo.   When we stopped at the nearby welcome center for maps and information, we saw no other visitors, just a young, earnest-looking, uniformed representative of the Territories.   Kurt asked him about road conditions on the westward loop that would take us through the southern portion of the Territories and on to Fort Nelson, British Columbia. 

"Oh, it's good gravel all the way.  You'll have no trouble," the officer replied.

"What about traffic on the road?  I mean, are there enough vehicles traveling that way so that we can get help if we have some type of problem?"

"Oh yeah, there's plenty of tourist traffic.  You won't have a problem.  And there's great scenery and wildlife, too.  You should stop at the waterfall just up the road."

"How about gas?  Where can we find gas?"  Distance between gas stops always requires more attentiveness on back roads west of the Mississippi.

"Well, there's Hay River and Fort Providence.  Then there's a store along the road here, near Fort Simpson.  And there's gas at Fort Liard."  As he spoke, the officer pointed out the locations on the map.  They were pretty far apart, but nothing we couldn't handle within the range of our gas tanks.

Our host was upbeat and enthusiastic, very likeable.  From the looks of things, he was probably glad for some human company.  He signed our "North of 60 Explorer" certificates, and then followed us outside. "Nice bikes," he said approvingly.  We thanked him and left, with no idea we'd curse him for the rest of our trip, if not the rest of our lives.

We headed north, through country that was neither forest nor tundra, but something in between.  It was green, but not terribly scenic.   We stopped and took some photos at the waterfall, and then focused on getting to the campground in Fort Providence.

To reach our destination, we needed to ferry across the McKenzie River.  I'm not fond of ferry crossings, and the McKenzie was especially intimidating: wide, dark and deep, with a swift current.  We parked behind several other passengers, and stood by our bikes to steady them in the event of any pitch and roll.   Though the crossing was uneventful, I was nevertheless glad to ride off the boat and onto land on the north side of the river.

We found the territorial park, where only four campsites were occupied, so site selection wasn't a problem.   We pitched our tent high above the McKenzie, with an impressive view of the river.  But we realized there was a price to pay for the view, as we were constantly tormented by black flies.   We were glad to escape to town for dinner, away from the relentless insects.  It seemed late for black flies, and when Kurt asked about that in town, the locals told us black fly season in Fort Providence is basically all summer.   That explained the campground's pitifully small population of campers.  We lingered over our after-dinner coffee, then explored a bit, stumbling across a sign that posted ice road conditions. We learned the frozen McKenzie becomes a road for truckers during the winter, as do other rivers in Northwest Territories.  "Sounds crazy to me," I remarked.  "But at least there'd be no black flies then."

We woke early and were on our way, with the black flies providing additional motivation to get moving.   It was another sunny and mild day, perfect motorcycling weather.  The pavement ended at the edge of town, but the gravel road beyond was as advertised by the welcome center guide, and we could comfortably travel around forty-five miles per hour, and admire what scenery there was.  There's still a snapshot in my head of one view unique in my travels across Canada and the U.S.: an unbroken vista of evergreen tops as far as the eye could see to the north, a window through the brush on a seemingly untouched wilderness.

After lunch in Fort Simpson, the road turned south and conditions deteriorated.   The gravel became coarser, requiring us to downshift and slow down.  We assumed it was a temporary condition, and that we'd soon find ourselves back on a smoother surface.  But the gravel became looser and larger, so that it felt like driving on marbles.  We geared down more, riding in first gear at a maximum of fifteen to twenty miles per hour.  As promised at the welcome center, there was quite a bit of traffic.  While we never saw anyone who looked at all like a tourist, every twenty minutes or so a truck full of local mine workers would roar past at sixty miles per hour or more, raising such a dense cloud of dust, we had to slow to a crawl until we could see again.   It was amazing that Kurt had seen the bear that had brought us to a stop on the Fort Liard Trail.

We continue on, cautiously scanning around us for the bear, but it's probably long gone, just as anxious as we are to get off the road and out of the dust.   After a half-hour or so, Kurt's bike zigzags precariously in front of me, and he stops again, frustrated.  "I almost dumped the bike!"  That almost never happens to this guy who's ridden nearly three-hundred thousand miles, in all kinds of conditions, including some very miserable roads in Alaska and Mexico.   It gives me some perspective on just how lousy this road really is.   Kurt suggests I lead for awhile.  I point out he'll be eating more dust, but he thinks it will help if he focuses on me and the horizon ahead.

It's painfully obvious we aren't going to reach our Fort Nelson destination by nightfall, so we soldier on, determined to try to reach Fort Liard, the only other dot on the map.   We wobble, weave, curse, and occasionally stop to relieve the tension in our shoulders brought on by our absurd balancing act.   We keep expecting that at any minute conditions will improve, but are disappointed mile after mile.  If there's scenery, we miss it, since we have to keep our eyes on the road, though Kurt does spot a wood buffalo off to our right.  I'm relieved to finally reach Fort Liard with no damage to us or our motorcycles.  We look like a couple of saddle tramps with dust clinging to every inch of our riding suits, faces, and bike surfaces. 

Fort Liard is called a "hamlet," which sounds much more charming than the remote settlement actually is.   We roll up to the only motel, a shabby, peeling wooden structure perched atop a small grocery store that's closed.   It looks like it should be named the "Very Last Resort."  I ring the buzzer, and am greeted by a stoic, middle-aged woman who quotes me a rate of $125 per night.   "You've got to be kidding," Kurt says, starting up his bike to head for the rustic campground outside of town.  No way is he paying $125 for that fleabag place.  But there's no way I'm camping after the day I've had.  "I'm paying for it!" I growl.  Kurt decides there's no point arguing, and sulks as we carry our bags up the rickety stairs.  

The room looks like a 1960's nightmare, with dirty orange shag carpeting and phony wood-grain paneling.  But it has a shower and a bed, and no four-legged critters roaming in it.  Maybe there are some six or eight-legged critters; I'm too exhausted to care.   I'm satisfied.  After a burger at the one and only restaurant, basically a shack, we're glad to shower and crawl into bed.  Funny thing is, we can still see the road coming at us when we close our eyes.  Kurt assures me the road will be better tomorrow, when we cross the British Columbia border a few miles away.  I don't know if it's the darker side of my nature or a genuine premonition, but I'm not so sure.

We're back at the lone café for breakfast in the morning, then stop at the most attractive building around, a native crafts center.  I indulge in retail therapy to compensate for yesterday's miseries, buying beautifully made Acho Dene bead and quill work, a birch bark basket, and a bear-shaped pin made of walrus ivory that only aboriginal people may carve and sell.  I load my treasures carefully onto the seat behind me, and we hit the road, heading south.

It's overcast and the smell of smoke is heavy in the air, though its source, a nearby forest fire, isn't visible.   It rained during the night, so dust is no longer a problem.   Sure enough, as Kurt predicted, in British Columbia, the road surface does change, though not as he anticipated.  We stop to assess a deep mud hole full of water spread across the entire road.  We inch our way along the edge of the hole, where the surface appears to be less soupy.   We're barely past when a black pickup blasts through the middle of the bog, the driver amused when he throws mud everywhere.  Thankfully, the glop misses us.

The road continues to be sloppy as we ride on in the gloom.   Kurt has me riding in the lead, so he'll know right away if I run into trouble.   That's exactly what happens when the motor beneath me sputters and stalls.  My bike slowly lists to the left and then slithers onto its engine guard in the ooze, as the unexpected stop catches me off balance.   Kurt stops and helps me get the bike upright again.  "What happened?"  

"I think I've got engine trouble." 

Kurt presses the starter, and the engine responds immediately.  No trouble there.  He looks down at the front of the bike, and finds the real culprit: the space between the front tire and fender is completely filled with mud that has the texture of wet cement.  The rear tire and fender look the same.  The engine hasn't the power to muscle the wheels along against that heavy sludge. 

After we scrape the mud off the tires and fenders, I climb back on and start the bike.  Just ahead of us, the road climbs a hill.  What next?  Kurt gives me a pep talk, "If you get moving, keep moving 'til you get over that hill.  Don't look back and don't worry about me."   I head off, shaky with adrenaline.  Somehow, we both manage to keep moving, cresting the hill, after which the road surface changes again, finally for the better.  We still move slowly and cautiously, wary of surprises, but can relax somewhat and admire both the sight and smells of the tall, thick, quiet evergreen forest through which we ride.  

It's afternoon when we finally reach pavement: the Alaska Highway, or "AlCan."  Kurt turns to me and teases, "Wanna kiss the pavement?"  I curse, and shout a frustrated farewell to the damnable road we've just traveled.  We turn eastward, heading toward Fort Nelson.  Then it begins to rain.