Last leg - Vancouver

3 Jul
Caught the 10.30 ferry to West Vancouver and made my way to Coquitlam and teed up the shipper for tomorrows pack up. Stayed in a nice camp/RV ground not far from the shipper and repacked for the next day. Solo celebration with a good Canadian beer and the best steak dinner I have ever had. I thought the one I had with VSP in Williams, AZ was good but this beat it hands down.
The adventure is now all but over. Tomorrow it is a hotel in downtown Vancouver.
The odo on the DR tells me that we did 13,500km together in 5 weeks. We chopped out two sets of tyres plus a sprocket and the chain will need replacing when the bike gets back. God knows how much fuel we went through. Everything worked as planned and nothing broke. I could have taken slightly less clothes - the 'fly home' clothes were hardly used. The merino wool T shirts were a life saver but my thin footy socks were to thin and were replaced with thick wool ones. I bought 2 T shirts and threw 2 out and I also had to replace my self inflating sleeping mat because my one of 25 years finally died. So I got back with no more stuff than I took over.
Canada and the north is expensive but camping out helped a lot. A warmer sleeping bag would also have helped as would warmer weather. I was thankful I had only 1 wet day. Seems I was lucky as this was not the experience of many I came across. I really went to early to benefit from seeing the flowers and wild life and this was not helped by spring being 'late'. The constant riding in forest in BC was just too much and a big let down. The Dempster hwy was a major highlight closely followed by the Denali hwy and the general Anchorage area. You cannot go this far north on an adventure bike and not go to Deadhorse but the Dempster for me was better. It is a riders paradise up north in Alaska and the Yukon. I will never ride BC again it is simply not worth the fuel cost. However Vancouver is a lovely city and on my last night there it was warm and the people seemed in a festive mood. I would come here again.
Many Canadians I met expressed a desire to come to New Zealand. Quite why I don't know. There is nothing we have that they do not have more of and better. Canada, at least the little I saw of it, and Alaska are magic places.

Vancouver Island

Inside Passage

Qualican camping ground

The ferry left at 7.30am so it was an early rise and a painless embarkation. There were a couple of road bikers also embarking and they looked clean and washed. My bike and me looked looked like we had just come out of the bush. I suppose we had to some extent.
The boat trip was not as interesting as I had expected based on what others had said. If you have been through Queen Charlot sound in Marlborough then you have seen the inside passage. This one just happened to last 12 hours. All the same I was very relieved not to be riding to Vancouver so this was a relaxing day.
We arrived at Port Hardy at 10.45pm and it was pitch black so I put my tent up in the dark for the first time. No bugs.
Tue 1 July
Today is Canada day, it is warm and sunny so I stay the day. I wash my cloths and the bike and generally relax. At 7pm all the campers gathered together for cake to celebrate Canada day and just for good measure they had one with an American flag for the 4th of July. Interesting bunch of people. Many are here for the summer with their motorhomes while others seem to be permanent such as the ex biker who has turned to booze and Jan who is running away from a troubled past.
Wed 2 July
The ride to Nanaimo where I catch the ferry to the mainland is around 400 k so I take my time wandering down the coast and stay the night in a native american owned camp site right on the sea shore at Qualican. The weather is now pleasant and warm. Tomorrow I catch the ferry to the mainland.

Whitehorse to Prince Rupert

Three days for this leg. Tim Horton's is a coffee shop sort of in the Starbucks mould but better and is a Canadian institution. Had breakfast there in Whitehorse - not bad and with good coffee. It sure is popular with the locals.
Have decided to skip the icefields parkway and instead do the boat trip from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. This means retracing my steps down the Cassier hwy so day one was the long trip back to Watson Lake, followed in day 2 the 440km to Bell II and day 3 into Prince Rupert. Nothing much to report en route. Was entertained by a fellow camper at Bell II with an endless supply of red wine and the cutest husky pup. Experienced the dark at night for the first time in a long while - I guess the land of the midnight sun has gone.
By now it is the end of Jun and in the intervening month the wild flowers are starting to appear. It is also noticeably warmer. The run from Terrace to the Port along the Sheena River was lovely and I get friendly with a tame crow.
Arrived at Port Hardy late afternoon and camped in an RV park next to the ferry terminal. Grumpy sour faced sods running the place but they had a shower.
It's been a tough few days what with getting little sleep at night due to the cold and the long distance travelled.

Whitehorse

26 Jun
Met a couple of Kiwis in Dawson who were gold mining up here. They knew my sister-in-law Maud. Fitted sprocket and did laundry. Left Dawson by 1pm and made Whitehorse by 10pm. Back to being cold at night. Unspectacular ride.

Dempster Highway & Inuvik

Start of the Dempster Hwy

Walter on our tail

Arctic Circle in Canada

Welcome to Inuvik

Goodbye NWT. Hello Yukon

Fields of flowers

Farewells at Klondike Corner

The ride to Inuvik is a 4 day affair involving two overnight stops in Eagle Plains. It is a 1440km gravel road ride. By luck I picked up a travelers guide to the road which was excellent and made the whole event quite special. I also got to tag along with 3 Americans who were not scared of gravel roads and that added to the enjoyment. They in turn had picked up a trucker hauling 137,000 lbs of calcium chloride up to Ft McPherson. He is something of an amateur photographer and they caught him taking pictures of his truck - as you do. He is also an ice road trucker and promises to add some appropriate photos to his web site.
This road is quite unlike the Dalton where there are trees then tundra. Here it's tree, tundra then trees again. Much of the area shows the scars of ice age glaciation with U shaped valleys while further north it was to cold for glaciers and the area was covered in a layer of ice. The landscape is spectacular and visually more stunning than the Dalton. By now it is mid Jun and the warm weather produced fields of white flowers that at a distance looked like a covering of snow. Unfortunately there was little wildlife to be seen.
Mossies are real bad and drove us indoors at Eagle Plain.
There is a sign advising that you have arrived at the arctic circle and here most vehicles turn back to civilisation. Later there is a sign saying you have crossed into North West Territories. The ride is hot and dusty - in fact probably the first time I have felt warm on the whole journey.
Inuvik is the end of the Dempster hwy but as Walter, our trucker mate, will tell you, you can drive on the ice road in winter to the ocean. For us this is the end of the road. Strangely it is very hot - I would think maybe 30 degree C and we are 200 miles north of the arctic circle. We retreated to an air conditioned room and had beer and steak for dinner to celebrate.
The ride back to the Klondike junction (the other end of the Dempster) is just as enjoyable as the ride up. My bike turned over 20,000 km right on the farewell sign of the NWT.
I bad farewell to my riding companions, Frank, Dale and Mike and Walter the trucker who had caught us up once more. They were heading south to Whitehorse and I was going north back to Dawson to fit a new front sprocket. Oh and I met the Californian BMW pair for the 6th and final time.

Dust 2 Dawson

Site of the D2D dinner

HQ of the D2D

Midnight sun over Yukon River on 21 Jun

Dawson City at midnight. Yukon River

There are over 120 bikers here for the D2D. Furtherest traveled came from Florida and there were three foreigners - Holland, Germany and NZ. Toured the town in the morning and the #4 dredge in the afternoon. Cleaned the bike.
D2D function in the evening with photo and sticker session at mid night.
Sat 21 Jun
Most of the guests in the B&B left this morning leaving 1 biker couple and me. Changed my rear tyre with the help of Dick, the owner of the Downtown Hotel, and the local NAPA tyre change facility. My U beaut tyre tool did not work. Dick proved to be a God send - he arranged for a sprocket to come from Vancouver to Dawson and the system worked. No one else managed to succeed at sorting it.
Found a grave yard of stern wheel paddle boats so spent time picking over the bones. At midnight (solstice) rode up Dome Hill to join the others in watching the sun trying to set. At midnight it was still high in the sky but by 1.30am it was just below the horizon. You need to be at the arctic circle for it to remain above the horizon.
All-in-all a relaxing day.

Tok to Dawson

Welcome to Canada

Downtown Chicken

Following the Californians into Dawson

19 Jun
Rained last night and in the morning there were even more bodies and tents - so many in fact that I could not get out till most had left. Easy trip over the Top of the World hwy including a side trip to Eagle. The trip to Eagle was hardly worth it for what there was at the end but it was a nice scenic road in. Stopped at Chicken for the obligatory photo op and crossed back into Canada. Chicken is just a collection of 3 shops and down the road a bit a gas station and store. Caught the ferry over the Yukon into Dawson quite late in the evening to pre booked accommodation. Just as well - the town was pretty full. Met the Californian BMW pair again.
Today was a long day.