Alaska and the Yukon, pushing the final frontier

Cowbay, Prince Rupert, 5833 km away from Honolulu Hawaii, 7544 km away from London and right across the road of Eagle Bluf B&B, 5 days ago. I found myself checking up my reservation again. About 5 days before that I had - mesmerized by visions of icebergs, glaciers and Nargwals (unicorn whales)- ended up buying a one-way ticket on the ferry to Haines, Alaska.  So, there I sat. In a rainy port town with at least two motels that are called ‘The Moby Dick’, plenty of rugged fishermen and a general smell of adventure on the wind. 42 km away of Alaskan waters, not much north beyond this point to be found in British Columbia, you either go back South to Vancouver, or you travel up North by ship and undock at Haines… Counting down the hours before I could board the ferry in the middle of the night, I was getting more nervous by the minute... I mean, just the drive up here was already a dramatic changed from Vancouver and I was about to double the distance from here.

Passing though places called Mission, Hope, Dragon and the Rainbow pass, I have literally driven all but 3 roads in mainland BC. I decided to go visit Prince George and the University of Northern British Columbia on route in the heart of BC hinterland. Somewhere around Dragon, the roads became appropriately misty and covered the landscape in grey. The canadian coast, is generally a rainy place in winter but not less beautiful for it, as it harbours one of the few coastal rainforests in the world! Smokey Betty (my -so far- reliable GMC minivan), Frank (my Halloween night-time security guard-skeleton) and I drove through gorgeous misty canyons, passing snowy mountains, endless ranchlands and wild rushing rivers. Basically, postcard Canada!.Some of the heritage towns up here actually look like ghosttowns from old western movies, where other towns are a depressing collection of large branch malls, gas-pumps and industry. Prince George, sadly, falls into the second category.

One of the professors I had been in contact with had actually warned me about it. ‘This place is not for everyone’, she had written to me in her last email, ’go check it out and come back to me after’. My first impression was that Prince George is where the worst of religion and capitalism meet. Every other corner had either a church or a ‘shepherds shelter’. The city in general looked poor and seemed like a place where you are accidentally born, just to spend the rest of your life plotting how to get out. The unfortunate ones who never seemed to have been able to escape, matched the town in their gloomy grey clothes and their apparently common feature of being toothless. Even painting the streets with pure sunlight, would not lighten up this gloomy place.  I could go on but I guess you’re getting the picture right?

It might have had something to do with my choice to check into a downtown guesthouse, which ‘doesn’t win any beauty contests’ as I read later. But as I hadn’t had a shower in almost a week and was meeting up with a prof. later at the UNBC, so the only guesthouse in town would have to do. ‘The Manor’ is runned by 30 year old Sarah and her 45 year old boyfriend Kenneth. A ‘Delicatessen’ like building, one halve occupied by long-term renters, the other halve for passer-by’s like me. The hot shower and the bed were fantastic and Ken and Sarah welcomed me with open arms if truth be told, but the place opened up a door to a world I hadn’t yet experienced. Alcohol and drug-saturated western poverty. The kind I would expect to find in Russia... Both Sarah and Ken seemed desperate to share their life-stories with me, so I was immediately immersed in the day to day soap-opera of the building consisting of naked-night dwelling neighbours, a curfew for the long-term rental hallway based on when ‘they’re surely all drunk’, a street robbery, dreams of long gone bass-guitar gigs, newly found lost fathers and a secret 50 dollar weddingring Ken was both awaiting the right moment for…. Needless to say, I was intrigued and stayed another night. 

In hindsight, looking back on Ken being robbed around the corner, the amount of seemingly addicted people I had spotted in our hood and a reputed bunch of track-marked prostitutes at the gasstation beyond the tracks, I can’t believe I took Sarah’s word for the fact that these streets would be safe at night and walked 20 minutes back to the hostel after catching a movie my first night. Then again, it did seem an appropriate place to spend Halloween, or so I thought… As it turned out, I fled the place as soon as possible after my meeting with the professor. I couldn’t stand another couple of hours in that town. No matter how gorgeous the campus or how merry all the dressed-up students were competing in pumpking-carving contests. Two and half days P.G., were more than I could handle. Needles to say I won’t end up pursuing a 4 year PhD in this place…

Sure enough, half an hour away from P.G. I caught a glimpse of sun again and drove through the gorgeous rainbow pass to the much merrier Coastal Prince Rupert, while listening to a special ghost-story telling edition on the radio. I ended up spending my Halloween night appropriately on a well-hidden parking lot being woken up by both a creepy deep-bass pumping from a car that turned up around 3am as well as loudly howling wolves! The next morning I topped it of by doing an early, misty swampwalk by myself. A pretty badass Halloween I would say ;) 

In the meantime I navigated the inside passage up to Alaska, which was basically the most gentle watertravel I have ever done. Of course I didn't know this when I got on. So the first the thing I did was pop in one of the anti-nausea pills I stocked up on in the hinterland. However, as the package didn't have any prescription on how to take them, I just stuck one under my tongue for immediate effect. The intense chemical taste should have given me a heads up,but I persisted until the whole thing had dissolved and of course I ended up with a completely paralized mouth (instead of stomach) and was immediately knocked out (might cause drowsiness).  The rest of the trip, once I woke up, was pretty uneventfull and I actually started to calm down as the last stop before my destination didn't show any traces of icebergs, snow or polar bears yet. However things can change dramatically in 7 hours on the water, as I found out. Just before sundown we were going straight into a bright white line of glaciers and snowcovered mountains. Basically a wall of snow. 

Honestly I panicked, wondering whether there were actually people living there (of course)  and how on earth I would drive Betty through such wilderness (just on roads as it turned out). The funny thing is though, that many things that look scary turn out to be completely fine once just go for it. Within 2 hours I was merrily driving Betty with 80 km a hour over completely snowcovered roads. By now I am actually back to 100 km a hour, no problem. It's just the slippery braking part that seems to be an issue ;)  

By now I have passed back into Canada again and am in the Yukon territories, following the gold rush trails. The scenery is still as breathtakingly beautiful, to the point where t is almost spiritual. I have never seen anything like it. It's like someone made it up. Did you know that snow actually flows like water? It dances over the roads on the wind and creates a kind of mist that cloaks the place in mystery. The local radio calls it flurry, which I think is both appropriate but also the cutest term for lots of snow. Then again, flurry seems to be the least of what Yukon winter can throw at you. Up north there was a blizzard yesterday with windchills of -27 and a chance of frostbite. I mean these guys don't play around...

So far, I have not gone below -13. Let's see what the final frontier has in store for me the coming days, before I sadly have to head south again.