A couple of days ago, just outside Smithers, I passed the halfway point between where I started pedaling and Prudhoe Bay (around 1,850 miles). It was a peaceful little place beside Trout Creek, and I paused to consider how far there is yet to go.  I continued on.

Several days earlier, I came close to another century on a course that boasted some major hills.  This time, it was the plague of bugs that inspired such a distance.  We intended to camp that night at a highway rest area just north of Houston, British Columbia, but the mosquitoes and blackflies were a nightmare, not to mention that sick mud everywhere.  Though weary, I kept going.  Up, up, up: I didn’t know I would have to climb Mt. Everest just to get out of Houston.  Finally, I found a large paved pull-off just below the Hungry Hill Summit.  I was only seven miles from an unplanned century, and the temptation to keep going was strong.  But alas, it was late, cold, and dangerous to be on the roads with the wildlife.  So, I reluctantly exercised the same discipline that I have been forced to use just below the summits of a few peaks in my life: aggravating, but smart.  An informational sign at the pull-off told of phantom 1,000 lb. grizzlies on this hill, so my S.A.G. partner and I bedded down uneasy.  Beside me, the 12 gauge was loaded and ready with alternating shells: shot, slug, shot, slug.  I awoke shortly thereafter to loud racket outside.  The phantom grizzly had come.  I popped the tailgate open, leapt outside, and lowered my weapon: nothing.  As it turned out, a large field rat had crawled up into the truck engine and gotten stuck.  Eventually, I flushed him out and got to sleep as dawn’s light arose in the east. 

Finally, I left the Yellowhead and was able to turn north up the more remote Cassiar Route, making a four hundred mile beeline for the Yukon.  I was glad to leave HIghway 16, what some call the “Highway of Tears.”  West of Prince George, numerous female hitchhikers have gone missing, presumably murdered, over the past couple of decades, and the killer has never been found.  A couple of billboards begged women in large letters not to hitchhike.  “Killer on the loose,” it read alongside pictures of a few victims.  Troubling, terrible, sad.

On the Cassiar Highway, where services are sparse, the woods are thick, the wildlife is abundant, and the mountains are majestic: the road is lonely, and that’s a good thing. A couple of times, it behooved me to pedal down a short loop road just to ply through a Native village here and there.  In Gitwangak, I slalomed a slew of tall totem polls.  In Kitwanga, my S.A.G. partner and I  waited out the heat of the day and sipped coffee at a little cafe.  In Gitanyow, I studied more totems, enjoyed an ice cream sandwich, and enjoyed the cool of the evening on the steps of a ramshackle general store.

Shortly thereafter, the loop road through town turned to rough dirt, and I had to walk my road bike about 2 miles through an insane mess of mosquitoes back to the main highway where I rendezvoused with my S.A.G. wagon.  That night, covered with Deet, I bathed in an icy river  near the spooky place where we camped.  It never got fully dark; bugs were everywhere.  I awoke late to relieve myself, and in doing so, took in a nice performance of the Aurora Borealis.  Such are the days out here as I pedal toward the top of the continent.

Now, I sit in the back of the S.A.G. while it drops a steady, misty rain.  We are parked alongside a raging glacial river just over the international border from Stewart, British Columbia in a solitary little American outpost called Hyder.  After six straight days in the saddle, I packed the bicycle up at the Cassiar/Stewart Highway Junction last night, and we drove the forty miles down the side-road to this place.  Today and tomorrow will be much needed rest days, and we intend to explore these adjacent backwoods towns, if you can even call them that.  At least there’s gas here, a cafe or two, and a grocery store. The no-see-ums and mosquitoes are a plague; Ouch!  They are all inside the back of this truck.  Get out of here!  Ouch, bites all over me.  My S.A.G. partner is out like a light next to me and seems unbothered.  Anyway . . .

So, we actually slept in Alaska last night.  Hyder is a strange anomaly.  At the very southern tip of the Alaska Panhandle, this place is separated from the rest of the state by water and big mountains. The community actually uses Canadian currency and observes Pacific time, except, that is, for the little federal post office building.  They say it’s a rough crowd here; we’ll see. It behooved me to come down here and actually cross into Alaska.  Though anticlimactic after a hard day in the saddle, I finally tagged my 50th State.  My father and I have enjoyed a bit of a contest for many years concerning who has visited the most States.  While tied at 49 for a long while, I grabbed the victory late last night.

All this, and I’ve only been a little more than halfway.  What awaits?  For now, though chilly and wet outside, the extremes of my person are snug in the back of this truck.  With a fresh pair of Slogfest Crews on my feet and a Slog Beanie insulating my head, there is little heat escape, and I am cozy. I’ll just sit here and wait out the rain.

Check out the little video ad I posted below, or CLICK HERE for the same.

-Jesse Boyd