Against the wind.....And Canada day 1 of July!

Dead Moose along the road after Buckinghorse River

 The Canadian guy who's mission was to remove the moose from the road

 Break at the afternoon

 My gear start to break down a bit into trip number 4

Beer, cinnamonrolls, peanutbutter and The Alaskan Candian HW start to put me into some kind of shape again. Here during the evening activity, killing mosquitos in the tent

Hey Buddys!

Heres a short Hi from Fort St. John. Just arrived here and been covering close to 400km during the past 3 days. good weather but a fair bit of headwind. Nothing else but forest to bike through and a gasstaion every 50-60 km makes the bike roll during long days. Planning to bike the 75 km to Dawson Creek tomorrow and dont think it could be any better day rolling in there while finish the last stretch of Alaskan HW on Canada day.

Over and out

Edvin

A Wild part of the world...........

What ever you do mum, for god sake, don't read this :)

Howdy folks! 

Close to 35 000 people call Yukon Territory's there home. 26 000 of these lives in the capital, Whitehorse. The second biggest town is Dawson city which was a very important town during the gold rush in the late 1800's. 2000 people lives in Dawson. On third place we got the town of Watson Lake were the last post on this blog came from. 1500 people are located there. My hometown back in sweden, Molnbo, is consider a ridicolously small place and it was fun think about that it would fit in as the third biggest place by population in Yukon :).

Important to mention thou, along the Alaskan highway, Watson Lake is a city. They got a real grocery store, rec center, motel, bank and, belive it or not, even a stoplight :).The town of Watson Lake could problably smell me long before I entered the town and I headed straight away to the visitor center. Except for that Watson is an important town for mining in the Yukon and north B.C, is also very well known in Northamerica for what they call the "Signpost forest". It started out during the beginning of the construction of the highway in 1942. I fella called Carl K Lindley from Danville, Illonois were apperantly homesick and put up a sign with his hometown and the distance to it. Ever since, people from all over the world bringing up signs to Watson Lake from there own places. Last year the impressiv collection reached over 70.000!! signs. It was really fun just cruising around for a couple of hours to se what kind of towns was represented there. I saw a lot of towns I passed through on the last years trip across the continent and it's cool to know it could be the same one I saw a year ago 1000 miles from here  

My intention was to stay in Watson for the night and at the infocenter they told me about sauna  and showers at the rec center for 3 bucks. I thought that sounded terrific cold as I were but well on sight the suana was turned of. I could have turned it on and taken a 45 min long shower but couldn't bother with that and ofcorse, it didn't feel enviromentally correct :). I skipped the sauna and in my clean and fancy jeans and t-shirt I headed for the library and my next mission, Internet. Today was problably the only time in my life I'm gonna be in Watson Lake and ofcorse they were installing new computers at the library so no internet for the people that day. After a little bit of smiling and to the pretty girl behind the desc she orgonized with a computer I could use for a couple of hours on the afternoon. I was thinking about staying at the campground in town but at 6 pm when I came there it looked very booring and pretty much no people were staying there so I decided for a little bit of biking and then freecamping along the raod instead. After about 10 minutes of biking it started, as so many times before in Canada, to rain. I pulled over at Lucky Lake rec area and put up my tent in one of the empty firepits. During the evening there a pickup pulled up and a couple with a dog came out and started to cook food in the other empty firepit. Sam and Karen invited me for pastadinner and we had a goog chat during the evening. they were from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territory's (Yes Bert, the same town as in "Ice-road Truckers" so if you dont wanna fish crab up in alaska you can start to drive that distance instead, sure they will give you a cup of coffe when you get up there :)). They were on a 2 week holiday down here and later on they drove in to Watson to stay at a motel, I went back to my well set up camp :). 

In the morning I took of 8 am to be packed up before some park ranger would see me. It was very foggy but during the day it cleared up to the most beautiful weather and I tell you guys, after Watson Lake, the wildlife is just amazing:). I heard is was suppose to be a lot of Buffalo along the road further south but a lot of other animals was standing just along the road. this is no joke, since Watson to Fort Nelson I've seen about 8 blackbears, 1 brownbear, 1 Grizzly(!), about 40-50 Buffalos, stone sheeps, Caribou, moose's and more. The most amzing thing, they are in close distance, just a couple of meters ofroad. The Buffalos are just enormous animals and the first one I passed were standing on the lefthand side of the road. same with the first Blackbear. No one of them cared to much about me and before lunch I saw several more Buffalos.   

After lunch I had two really exciting moments. I was biking along the road and were looking for a granola bar in my handlebar bag so I didn't really pay full attention to the road, even less, the ditch along it. Suddenly on the left hand side of the road in an slight angle forward this big bear steps out from the bush and is standing in the ditch just about 10 meters from me when I go by. I was extremely surprised about he bear and almost shit my pants because of the size of it. The other Black bear was an small one but this brown thing was big. I'm not an bear expert but I based on the size and the long nose I think it was a grizzly. another sign for grizzly is an humb behind they head but I werent' keen at all staying for a closer look. He didn't care to much about me except for just follow me with the look. After passing by I looked back and was reaching for the camera in my bag but the bear was gone long before I even opened the bag. I biked on for a couple of minutes and I could feel my eyes turned wet and my heart were on it's way up through my throut with the fastest heartbeat it ever been. I stopped to try to realized what I just seen and I felt really glad beeing out out here to see this animals but also a little bit scared with the knowledge a flat tire at that moment could be, fairly negative. 

For the next 20 minutes of biking my heart was still pumping hard and my thoughts of the bear was interrupted when a man in a pick up coming from the other direction sopped and told me there were an agressiv blackbear just a couple of miles ahead of me. It had chased people into there cars at a restarea and putting his claws towards his door on the pick up. I grabed the bearspray in the bag and unlocked the safetysprint on it. Carefully and slowly I rolled forward and a couple of hundred meters ahead I saw the bear walking around in the ditch further up the road. I stopped and waited to see if it was gonna bugger of into the forest. after a minute or 2 it changed side of the road and I could see him no more. With the spray in my left hand I pushed up some high speed to pass the area as fats as possible, the bear was gone. During the rest of the day I saw another couple of fairly small blackbears along the road. The photos from the animals are pretty bad because on the pedalbike you don't want to stop if your'e not really sure your'e in a safe place. You never know if the animal decides it doens't like you so mostly of the pictures are taken from the bike.

At the end of the day I put up camp at coal river were I met an old fella on a motorbike from Vancouver area. A cool dude who had spent a lot of time in norther part of Canada and northwest territorys with some interesting bearsstories. He had a good little setup with a trailer he pulled after his MC and we had a chat during the evening. I went for a laydown in the tent and around 10.30 I woke up by the sound of and motorcycle. In the morning I deeply regret that I didn't bother about going out to see who it was putting up the tent just next to me. It was this beutiful canadian girl Emily from Ontario. she was heading north on her mc and we had a long chat in the morning. she had come up pretty much the same route me and emil biked over the northern plains last year. I aksed here wereabout in Ontario she were from and she answered Barrie. I thought Barrie.....Barrie, were do I remember Barrie from? I certainly heard about the town and suddenly, cling!. Aha I know :). Me and Emil was traveling through Barrie last year and why do I remember it? ofcorse, we had our first meal on Hooters there :). 

We changed contactinfo before she took of north and I south. With beutiful weather I biked through the landscape of B.C and thought for my self, there's a reason they call it the with the slogan "B.C The best place on earth"  . It took about 2 hours before I saw the first Buffalos for the day and later on a smaller brownbear along the road. I met Larry, a bicyclist from Vancouver, he was heading north and told me I will see 2 dozen of Buffalos just down the road. He was certainly right about that and just before Liard River Lodge this enormous animals was standing just along the road. I boiled up some pasta outside the lodge and a tourbus came up the driveway. Loaded with older people who later on was pretty much lined up for a chat and a photo of the Swedish guy :). It was pretty fun becuse When I told them I was heading for San Diego, it turned out half of them actually were from there :). 

Later on a couple of bicyclist arrived. It was cladia and Cristian from Luxemburg who were going south also. We camped togheter at Liard River Hotsprings were you can take a bath in the 45 celsius warm water and later on we had a decent dinner consisting of Buffaloburger on the lodge, you know, trying to keep the heard of Buffalos down a little bit :). In the morning we set of togheter and bkied togheter mucho lake were the rain started to fall really heavy over us. They was gonna stay at the campground starwberry flats just 6 km after muncho lake but I was in for more biking in the beutiful weather. I was planning on staying at Toad river and ofcorse, about 30 minutes after leaving cristian and cladia, I was stuck in a really bad rain and headwind. In times like that I really appriciate the 10 years I put into Icehockey which mean in these conditions I enough power in the legs to put in the high gear and push on to next gasstation or shelter. This time next thing meant Toad river 60 km ahead and I tell ya, the weather was really windy and rainy all the way there :).I actually came up with a new rule for biking in Canada. - Never take your raingear of, if it's not raing at the moment, you can bu pretty sure it is juuust about to start :) . I arrived to Toad River and with no question at all I payed for the tentsite which meant a war shower and a shelter were I could cook my food. I was in the stage were you eat peunutbutter right from the jar :) and later on I had and excellent american dinner, Mac & cheese:). I met alot of fun people on the campground that I met at Liard River and had an excellent time there. On the evening we watched a moose swim across the lake and was standing to have supper along the shore. Later on Bryan and Rachel from Texas with there dog Hugo came to set up a tent next to me. we shared a bottle of wiskey and a couple of beers before I fell asleep like a baby in my tent. 

In the morning I woke up and they had set of long before me. I was extremely slow and it took me a couple of hours to get orgonized. Today I was gonna go through summit pass which is the highest piont on the alaskan highway. after an hour or two of biking my head was pumping harder than my legs and I was seriosly considering settle down with my tent just along the road for a week or two. I collected my power thou and on the way up to summit lake the scenery blowed away the pain in my head and I could for sure feel my legs more now:). Stone sheeps were all over the place on the way up. after a nice downhill I stopped at Tetsa river lodge for lunch. I bought a cinnamon bun and a coke and took a 1,5 hour long laydown on the grass. Today was actually the first day in Cnada it didn't rain on the whole day and on the evening I put up my tent just along the road. 

Between Tetsa river and F Nelson there was nothing thou, not evene a creek with decent water. When I woke up Today I had 60 km to go to F Nelson and no water or food. The headwind was fairly strong and later on rain started to fall. With about 30 km to go I felt extremely week and couldn't even bike up the smallest hills. I was actually considering putting out my thump and hitch the last stretch but put my sense togheter and thought for my self that I could suffer a little after that bad planning in the watersupplies. With 20 km to go I was really thirsty and tired. Suddenly I saw a car with the trunk open standing along the road in the distance. When I got closer a couple of ladies smiled and asked me if I needed water. Hehe it's funny how things works out. apparenlty they had a triathlon in nelson thata morning and they were the turn around piont for the bikes :). I lowered down 1,5 liter right away and after 10 km more there were another watersupplie table :). I started to met the athletes coming in the other direction and I realised I had ended up in the lead of the biking :). With alot of new power from the water I started to push on harder on the bike and people were cheering along the road:). When I got down to town I was the first bike in but when the other athletes left there bike for the run I parked up outside Subway :).   

     

Nice Camp outside Watson Lake :)













Beutiful scenery in the north rockies











 
 
 This buddy was Big! Buffalo
























 Yepp, brakes are OK!
























Buffalo!!























 Along the road

 Cute little thing, wonder if mama is looking angry on me from the bushes

 Home sweet home!

 Muncho Lake

 My friends Claudia and Cristian from Luxemburg

 The agressive Blackbear!

 Northern Rockies!

 American dinner, Mac & cheese, Beutiful :)

 at Toad River we wtched this young fella had supper in the lake

 Early morning before the traffic hit the road

 Stone sheep at Summit Pass

 Caribou close to summit Lake

 Yepp, another of the blacks!

 Hey Buddy, how is it going up there?

 Okey kids, look both right and left before c
rossing the road. 











"Sign Post Forest" in Watson Lake. Total of 70.000 signs from all over, mostly northamerica.

 

Watson Lake, Canada - Part 2 of the last post

In Dot lake we decided to stop for lunch while it was pissing down above us. When we arrived we saw a single loghouse along the road with the sign "Postoffice". I knocked gently on the sidedoor because we werent sure if it really was a postoffice, it looked like a privite cabin. Tim, a man in his 60, opened the door and he toold us it was his house but he operated a small corner of it as a postoffice. Really nice man who let us having our lunch under the roof outside. He joined us while he smoked his pipe and told us stories about bear and moosehunting in the area. He told us, if you kill a moose up here you need to be able to pull the whole thing out right away. If you need to get back to organize with transport or so someone have to stay back and guard the moose with an fire arm. otherwise you can be sure a grizzly is eating on it when you get back. He told us that the grizzlys makes pretty good neighbors but the blackbears cause some trouble. One day he was out bluyeberrypicking on an area were they get heaps of berries. He was picking on a section with his firearm laying against a tree a couple of meters away. On the other side of the tractorpath a grizzly was eating his part of the berries, welll aware of each other. Suddenly the bear decides that the berries were much better on Tim side and he told us he didn't argue with him, he let him have the berries :). Before we took of he said they have had some trouble with a blackbear in the village the last couple of nights. When we took of we wondered, what village?, because we didn't se a single house :).

On the afternoon we arrived to Tok and headed straight away to the infocenter and later on Fast Eddies for a pizza and a Alaska Amber (beer). The girl wnated to give us a doggybag right away but we told here we aint gonna need that :). Later on we camped at the recreational area Tok River were we also took a restday . We meet Terry and Judie who was from Langley outside Vancouver and had a nice chat with them during the evening about traveling, ishockey and more.

From Tok we took of with the intention to stop in Tetlin for a smoko. As so many times before a dot on the map was nothing except for a couple of old loghouses. We did pretty well during the day with good weather and better winds . Lunch was consumed at a restarea with a great view over the Alaskan landscape. By the Time we arrived to Northway Junction it was time for a smoko. Northway J is an gasstation/giftshop/store runned by a couple of native canadian womens. When I enetered the building the first thing the lady said was

- "sorry, waterpump is broken so the showers dont work"

I looked behind me to se if she was talking to somebody else but there were noone there. apparently I looked like I needed a shower:).

- I aint after a shower, just a coke and a sit down :)

I love the signs they got in small countrystores like this. on the desc a note were saying
"Water is not working so coffemachin is out of business, maybee works another day"

Later on we continued and stopped for dinner at the porch to the closed visitor cenetr in tetlin national refuge. After a feed we realized that we only had 10 km to the canadian border and decided to take a bikeride to Canada during the evening and did so while OOH CANADA ecoing between the trees. The border control must have wonder what a hell is this, are we gonna let them in :). We sleept the firts night in Canada on some random hill along the road,you know, as you do:).

 Next coming morning it was pissing down and we weren't extremely tempted for biking. Dressed in raingear we packed up our stuff while we also blessed the rain that kept the mosquitos away. During the night a puncture in Daves tire had let the air out so the first thing we had to do were to deal with that. I did the sanding and patching under my opened rainjacket while Dave handed me the stuff. With bad roads Dave got another couple of flats and by the time we rolled in to Beaver Creek we were, yeah guess what, soaked :). The day came to a sudden change there thou. weather cleared up and on the visitor centre they had they "Public service appriciation week" which meant BBQ and cake for all the visitors :).

The scenery after Beaver Creek start to get really nice with big jagged snowcapped mountaines. We found a spot along the river were we decided to camp for the night. Before dinner Dave had a wash in the river. I decided I couldn't bother with it and its only been 7 days since my last shower so it's not that bad yet :). Today we actually saw our first bear along the road. Since I started biking with Dave I have had a little bit of fun, but also, alittle bit concerned over his, what to say, soft attitude to put away food from the camp. I thought that after the sight of the bear today he was gonna be alittle bit more fuzzy about it. After the dinner I said

- Hey Dave, I'm gonna put up my foodbag in a tree, do you want me to take our?
- No worries mate, I got that sorted. came from a reading Aussie in his tent

I looked around and on an 2 meter hi post 30 meters from the tents, Daves Bag was hanging. If I would have walked under the post I would have hit the bag with my noose :). I laughed for my self and thought that it at leats keept it away from the tents :). Later on we joked that he problably is more use to koala bears.

The day after we continued our journey through beutiful scenery. after a long day with headwind we arrived to Burwash Landing at 5 pm. On the radio at the gasstation we heard that the last game of the stanley cup was just about to start so we headed down to the motel for a meal and to look at the game netween Boston and Vancouver. Guess we couldn't find a betetr place for watching the game than in a bar in Canada. During the game the place fills up with truckdrivers, travelers and locals that want to watch the game.....

The owner of the bar, an old fella called "Burwash Ollie" really hated the Vancouver team and for some reason, the whole BC. The tables around quickly filled up with beerbottles. A guy came in during the game and told Ollie that the dieselpump didn't work. His answer were pretty much. "fill up somewere else, we're wtaching hockey here":). During the game he always made his comments about the "Sedin sisters" as he called them which, according to him, was the biggest wankers the world ever seen. I said to him with a smile that was the swedes the team were built around.

"Bah, bullshit!they are pussys. On time they put a couple of eggs in there pants during a game and after, the eggs were intact"

I couldn'r argue with him anymore when the score was 3 to nothing for Boston. After the game we took of to the bar in Destruction Bay with a couple of native canadian womens.

Hangover and miserable we woke up in the motel in Burwash landing. After close to 2 weeks in the tent with my thin madress my first thought was, were the hell am I, is this a clean bed?. After a while I understood that I actually paid for it in my unsober condition the night before. Well, it's only stanley cup one time a year:).

We took of in the really strong headwind and it took us forever just to reach Destruction Bay 16 km south east. I stopped and waited for Dave

- What do you reckon mate, smoko?

I didnt't have to convince him to a break. After 2 fairly easy weeks from Anchorage we suddenly realized we were on pushbikes. The wind were close to that stage were you just pull over to wait it out and so we did at 4 a clock for a pestopasta a la Dave and a powernap. We continued after a while and put up Camp in a downhill 20 km before Haines Junction. In the morning the downhill showed up to take us pretty much all the way down to Haines J . 50 meters in front of us a doglooking animal crossed the road. we're not sure if it was a wolf or a coyote. felt a little bit to small to be a wolf but at the same time to big be a coyote. On arrival to haines we had breakfast outside the generalstore were I said goodby to my australian friend who was leaving for the ferry to Vancouver Island.

I decided to countinue towwards Whitehorse during the day and with amzing winds and slightly downhill on big stretches I reached Whitehorse the smae day after 180 km of biking. some days you're just able to cream it out:) I met heaps of bicyclists along the road, all of them heading north thou. Jeff from North Carolina, 2 swiss guys and a couple from Vancouver Island. They siad a lot of people are heading south on the alcan by bicycle and apparentley the closest one down the road are a guy from Taiwan whos heading for San Fransisco. So don't be surprised if next post is about how life is holding up for team Sweden/Taiwan along the Alcan :). In Whitehorse I checked in on Robert Service Campground and had a fun night by the campfire with some people from Vancouver.

In the morning I packed up my stuff and headed down to the library along the Yukon River. My plan was to do a long post on the blog but, as you notice, an hour is not enough if you got a lot to write. I criused along the streets of whitehorse for a couple of hours and looked in some stores and more before I took of. The day went fairly quick  and not to much happened, could be because I only passed one gasstation in Jakes corner, otherwise, just me and the rolling hills through Yukons forest. I stopped and made camp just by a lake. The thing with the biking up here is to take a lot of short brakes during the day. if you take a longer one you have to put up the tent because the mosquitos will start eat on you pretty quick. I dressed to other clothes and put up my tent while I was doing some kind of dance to wave the small bastards away. I through in my bags in the tent and had a lay down for some music and reading. At midnight I woke up amazed that I couldn't see the time on my wristclock that I attached it the roof in the tent. It's finally getting alittle bit darker :). I had a problem thou. The only thing I could hear was the sound of mosquitos outside and I had to take care of some business that could impossible be done from inside the tent. After setting guiness wolrd record on doing numero dos I was back in the tent and didn't have to leave the sack until morning :).

I woke up by the sound of heavy rain. I didn't know about it then but that rain was gonna be constant for a couple of days. It's only one thing to do, specially when your'e 60 km from closest anything, dress up and try to get the heat up on the bike. I decided that Teslin was gonna be my lunchstop and totally soaked I arrived there and bought 2 slices of pizza and a mt dew on the general store. oh, actually, a cheesecake size a la America went through my throat also :).

 I can definetely tell the amount of wildlife is starting to add up. Blackbears are crossing the raod in the same intervals I eat peanutbutter sandwiches, which is, pretty often. After Teslin I met a nice couple on bikes that were heading north. They had seen 25 (!) bears along the Cassier HW. By suppertime I met this dude, Steve from Utah, who was going towards Fairbanks. We had a good chat for half an hour and he told me he seen a , what he called it, gigantic grizzly sneaking in the bushes along the road just before he met me. A RV came and the bear buggered of.

The rain hanged in all evening and night and I crashed in the tent behind a hill somewere along the road. By morning the rain was really strong and a lot of my gear, wet. . I remember what Dave said:

"If my gear is not good enough for the weather, I shouldn't be out there. I should check in on Starbucks"

Well mate, I would love to do that, but, there aint no Starbucks around :)

I biked 3 hours in puring rain till I came to a truckstop and took a break for early lunch to hope the rain was gonna go down a little bit. I talked to the Canadians on the other table and they said the forecast was rain and drizzle to friday. With a smile I said fantastic, whats today?

-"Monday, sir"

F#ck :)

After kind of a long break I actually got a 30 minutes break in the rain until someone up there started to piss on me again. I plugged in some Luke Bryan and the song "Rain is a good thing" on my Ipod and put my head down in the tarmac :). Youtube the song, it's really good, Emil know what I'm talking about:).

On late afternoon it stopped raining and I had beutiful biking on the rolling hills of the Alcan HW. I met Sebastian and Julie who was a young couple from Vancouver Island heading north towards whitehorse. later on I find a good plave to put up my tent at Big Creek. I met a german couple  and the old man there splitted up some firewood fore me and later on an estonian couple came by and suddenly I had a smoked salmon sandwich in my left hand, a cider in the right one and a beer in my pocket, people are nice :). In the middle of the night I woke up by the sound of........hehe yeah, rain :).

I started out pretty early to get the 60 km to Watson lake which would be the destionation for the day. Just a slighly bit of drizzly on the way there which wasn't bad at all. I decided I was gonna stay on the campground there to try to get my clothes in some kind of laundry, it's start to get a little bit bad actuallt specially when the are both wet and the smell from campfire :). When I arrived I saw an old fella with a small camper van. on the back of it he had a small sticker with the Swedish flag on an I asked were he was from. It was Hans Larsson who moved here 1957 and we had an intresting conversation in swenglish.

"Hello, my name ar Hans. Jag er from Colorado but are on semester her uppe right now" something like that

I realized that at the moment I putting my sentences togheter way better in english than in Swedish :)

Thats all from Watson Lake. Hopefully you will hear more from Dawson Creek 1000 km southeast from here

Over and out

Grizzlyman

Oh Canada..... - Kicking back in Whitehorse, Yukon Territorys, Canada

After biking approximately 300 miles from Anchorage, the biggest city in Alaska, or, as they say up here, Alaska’s biggest village, me Rob and Dave arrived to Fairbanks. Fairbanks is the second biggest town and is home for about 35000 residents. It was a funny feeling knowing that except from Juneau in the south there’s pretty much only tiny villages in the state, a lot of them, only access by flight. We decided to check in on Go north hostel in town were we slept in a tepee. After a shower and a cup of coffee we cruised down to town for a visit at the library and the visitor centre. Apparently, Fairbanks have the biggest extremes in the weather up here with warm, well, fairly warm summers and I guess, shitcould winters. Later on me and Dave decided to take a bike ride to Fred Mayers to get some dinner for the night and with no idea about it, Fairbanks was going to be the place for our firsta Alaskan BBQ. Dave was finished whit his shopping and waited outside while I was lost in the endless floors of fred Mayers looking for powder milk. When I finally made my way out swearing over big supermarkets and fat ladies with coupons he had hooked us up for BBQ for the night after a chat with Sarah that lives in town. Dave went in for a bear and meat mission while I recovered outside. Later on we took of to Sarah’s place and had a great time with her and her buddies.

On the following day we decided to start our journey down south and did so around lunchtime. Dave’s plan is to bike down to Haines and catch the ferry there to Bellingham or Vancouver while mine is, as always not in concrete, to follow the alcan down to Dawson Creek and later on Jasper and Banff NP where I’m going to visit Rob and Zoe that I met in NZ last year. After that some road will take me to Bellingham on the American west coast.



When we left Fairbanks rain was in the air and we hit a slightly bit of drizzle heading out of town. We have been kinda lucky with the roads and winds so far up here and covered a lot of distance in a short period of time without to much effort put into it. The first stop on the way south was North Pole and Santa’s house which is a shopping center with x-mas all year around. Dave sended some postcards before we continued on the fairly heavy trafficked road. We passed an American airforce base and I took some photos. 2 minutes later a police pulled up behind us and a deep voice said



“Sir, you can not take pictures here”

- Sorry dude, didn’t know about that

“Can you please come over here and delete theme for me”

- for sure



That was good, I was just going to send them to Usama Bin Ladens brother . We looked at the map and decided Richardson will be our next stop . The miles went by and when we finally run out of both water and energy we were very surprised we hadn’t reached Richardsson yet and start to expect it didn’t exist. A pick up pull up on the truckstop and we asked the guy if he saw the town when he came from the other direction. It was confirmed. There aint no Richardsson. The lady in the passanger seat asked me after my first sentence.



“you are Swedeish aren’t you?”

It showed up she was from Halmstad but moved to Las Vegas 15 years ago. I guess she guessed my Heritage based on the accent and maybe a little bit by the blond hair . We continued down the road for a wee bit and put up our tent by the river and fell asleep to the sound of 2 beavers fooling around in the water.



In the morning we continued and in Big Delta we got our first glimpse of the trans Alaskan pipeline that takes the oil from Prudhoe Bay in the far north to Valdez in the south. We arrived to Delta Junction and the start of the famous Al can HW which is and 1422 mile long stretch down to Dawson Creek in BC. It was constructed 1942 with the purpose to connect Alaska with the lower 48. 12000 men were working from both ends of the road for 6 months and it served first fro military viechles but opened up for crazy bicyclist in 1948.



We stopped in Delta Junction for a visit at the library and later on a beautiful lunch. I introduced Dave for Baked Bean chippie sandwich or as they also called, Swedish hamburgers. The meal was developed in the vast land of Riwaka Valley, NZ and is perfect for hardworking activities were you don’s want to spend more than 3 minutes on cooking . Our first stretch on the alcan was excellent with good weather and sight of moose’s along the road.



The Destination the day after became Tok. I remember talking about Tok with Paul up in Anchorage the day before I set of. He explained that the people in Tok may be alittle bit “funny”. I explained that Tok in Swedish is the same name for maniac. He laughed and said: Well, how appropriate . To Tok we had 70 sonme miles to go with Dot Lake as only spot on the map in between.

Sorry, thats part one, didnt got more internet time

Delta Junction, Alaska - Entering the Alcan HW

 Howdy!

Me and Croc Dundee (Dave, The Australian bicyclist I met along the road) are in Delta Junction and gonna enter the Alcan HW very soon that will take us 1422 miles down to Dawson Creek in Canada. Biking holding up very well and with fairly flat roads and tailwind we're covering long distances every day. On the sign it says end of the Alcan HW because were actually starting from the "wrong" way. 

Take care guys and you'll hear from me in Canada.


Cheers big ears!

Fairbanks, Alaska - It's all south from here.....

 Hey there!


5 days ago I left the Enslow family in Anchorage and headed north towards the town of Fairbanks which me, the Englishmen Rob and the Aussie guy Dave entered a couple of hours ago. I met them this morning and we have been biking togheter for the day. Rob is heading north towards Prudhoe Bay while me and Dave is gonna go south from here towards the Alcan HW and the Canadian border. We found an nice Backpackers in Fairbanks were we are staying in a tepee with thousands of mosquitoes :). The journey from Anchorage has been really nice and I have passed through some incredible scenery with Denali NP on my left hand side the Parks HW. The mountain Mt.Mckinley it's just an majestic view from the HW and I've been very lucky with the weather. On a viewpoint I met a guy who said "
-" well, I guess we're in the 30 % club"
- I said, what do you mean?
- "You know man, only 30 percent of the people who goes to Alaska actually get to see the mountain"

The biking is holding up well and it's pretty easy so far with a lot of tailwind and pretty flat. Have cover a lot of distance in 5 days. It's not to much else to do than just biking and enjoying the scenery and the people I meet along the road. the distances between the places are pretty long.

Like I said, tomorrow I'm starting to make my way south towards the Canadian border and later on the Lower 48 as they say up here. Haven's seen any bears so far but I expect I will see some along the road sometime. Have seen 4 moose's and the ones on the pictures are just outside the small town of Nenana yesterday. I stopped along the road and we were staniding and looking on each other for about 10 minutes before she buggered of with the young fella.

Well, gonna cruise away and buy some food for tonights dinner with the guys. Take care people!

Edvin