Kimsjo's blogg: 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 :).