Awoke to a gun metal gray sky and persistent rain. It was the all too rare kind of motorcycle trip day where you know it is in your best interests to put your rain suit on right from the git go. No negotiating with Mother Nature, hoping for a rainfall reprieve just because you detest being ensconced in a plastic bag.

During the 5 minutes it takes to pack the bike, 3 trips from my inside door'ed room, my shirt and hair are pretty wet. I leather and plastic up inside the lobby and then Bill and I drive 150' to the A&W down the road for some breakfast.

Our fast broken we head back out on hwy 16 and are immediately greeted by the sight of white clouds and patches of blue sky to the west. Yeah! We are going to be able to drive out of this mess. It is about 100 km to our hwy 37 turn off and we are out of the rain in 50 km of those. It takes another 50 km for the road to dry and by the time we get to the hwy 37 Kitwanga turn off we are under an almost impossibly blue sky!

We don't need gas so we don't fuel up, but we need to get out of our rain suits. I shot a video of my antics in rainsut removal. Sorry about the lack of headroom in the first minute or two!



Despite the roads leading up to this spot, and leaving it, being utterly devoid of traffic, this corner is Grand Central Station with a constant stream of RV's, trailers, truckers, cars & trucks. Most notable is this sign, with Bill standing in front, that really says it all......



We were truly northbound now, Hwy 37 goes all the way to The Yukon! Hwy 37 is the Stewart Cassier Hwy, I drove it in a pickup truck years ago, and I mean in the mid 80's, with my buddy Buckwheat when I went to Alaska the first time. Travel on the Cassier at that time was not recommended to the general public, and you were supposed to carry more than 1 spare tire. Prior to leaving we went to a used tire store and bought 4 mounted wheels just for that. If I recall we used all 4 of them, but only 1 on the Cassier. Mostly it was the spare tire that needed replacement, you don't get a lot of mileage out of a $10 buck tire.

Apparently over 90% of the highway is paved now, otherwise we wouldn't even attempt it. While it is true that I drove the James Dalton all the way to Coldfoot, AK on an air cooled V-Twin that was 300 km of gravel, I have learned my lesson, and would not repeat that (ominous foreshadowing!). The riding is, in fact, spec-fuggin-tacular!

The road is what I think starts as a gravel road, gets graded and compacted, and then covered with what a flagger told us is called seal coat. This creates a smooth pavement like road, but without the macadam and also, notably, without the gravel! This our first exposure to seal coat and while it is in good condition we eventually experience it in all of its many forms and conditions.
















It encourages an aggressive right hand and we are usually doing in the 120 - 130 range. We stop for fuel in Meziadin Jct when we are at about 80% of Bill's range. We know better than to squander fueling opportunities in the North. Our goal today is Dease Lake, which will require one more fuel stop in between, the town lies 336 km away. Gotta be a gas station in 300+ km right? (More ominous foreshadowing!)

From Meziadin Jct to the next shred of humanity; Tatogga is 258 km of nothingness, nothing but unsurpassed scenery as the road flanks the Eagle's Nest Mountain Range. The peaks are rugged and snow-covered, with a pure blue sky as the backdrop.



There are still patches of the road that are messed up, or have been, in my opinion, haphazardly repaired. There are these tiny little signs, maybe 4" square, and only 2' high at the side of the road that say SLOW, then another one about 100' away that marks where the actual damage is. Usually the so called 'damaged' area is smoother than the rest of the road.

I stopped slowing down for these, there was no point. Then I came across one that looked a little different, it seemed to have a shadow, or some depth to it but at 120 kph gave me no time to react to. I hit it hard and felt the bike's suspension bottom out, then the bike bucked me a good foot off the seat, all of a sudden I was looking down at the speedometer.

I fell back to earth and landed on the seat hard, I was so high off the seat the wind had blown my sheepskin seat cover back and I landed on it all bunched up. I give these patches a little more credence now, but haven't hit one like that since. You'd think the highway repair crews would have to be held to a higher standard, I would consider that spot to be hazard, especially in a smaller car. I eventually had to stop to fix the seat cover, and Bill asked me what I was doing, he was oblivious to my stunt riding!

We had a couple of wildlife encounters; one, a young black bear, ran across the highway about 100' in front of us. Another time a much smaller cub was at the side of the road, but he turned tail and ran back into the forest when we roared by. His mother taught him well because he looked both ways but I bet he'd be in trouble if Momma Bear found out he was trying to cross the highway alone!

Another time, in the middle of a curve, there was a small rodentia of some genus, maybe a hedgehog, or a small porcupine. Tough to tell when you see him for maybe 3 seconds. He was sitting in the middle of our lane, and due to oncoming traffic I could only give him a narrow berth as I passed him. Bill told me later he jumped straight up in the air as I passed within 2' of him. Bill couldn't ID his species either.

At 258 kms we know we are Bingo Fuel so we pull into the first opportunity we see, which is a multi use recreational area with a pair of pumps. There are a few shacks and sheds around, but no people. Oh, wait, here comes a guy.......no, he is looking for services too. Nothing is happening here so we move on to Iskut, a dozen clicks down the road.

We have arrived! It is a real gas station, with modern pumps, a store, a gaggle of Native ladies smoking out front. Bill parks first and starts to work the pump, but something is wrong. I look at the readout on my side and the pump reads ^^^<<<0079 or something similar. I have to say I have never seen one look like that before! One of the smoking ladies tells us the power is out and therefore the electrically operated pumps won't work!



We decide to wait it out, because, well, we don't have any other choice! I moved my bike away from the pumps, but subsequent arrivals stayed where they parked, kinda like they were reserving their spot for the moment power was restored. Every couple of minutes another car pulls up and you see the annoyed look on their faces finding cars blocking the pumps. The smoking ladies quickly tired of the job of explaining the situation to every new arrival, and left the job to us.

Every person we told the tale to said something along the lines of 'you're joking right'. Yes, yes we are, we have nothing better to do than stand in the hot sun in the middle of nowhere and hoodwink complete strangers. Some people took it in stride, prolly locals used to unreliable utilities in the barren wilderness.

Bill, who likes to link songs from his vast repertoire of Folk Songs to our current situation, offers me his iPad to hear what he hopes will become our Theme Song. Johnny Horton sings the score for the movie, North to Alaska! Here is the video of this hard driving toe tapper!



We listen to it once, and never speak of it again!

A couple from California arrived, Jake and Christine, and they knew of many places Bill was familiar with so they had a spirited conversation for some time. We were going nowhere fast and I felt the need to make an Executive Decision. I suggested to Bill that we commit ourselves to the ether. Head off into the Great Wide Open and see what will happen. We'll also slow down to The Double Nickel, 55 MPH (90 kms) in order to maximize his fuel mileage. We had about 86 km left, with 260 kms indicated. About 45 km over his previously proven range.

Bill, courageously agreed and bidding fond farewells to our new friends we headed off, at a more sedate pace. Unbeknownst to me Bill had discovered a program option in his incredibly intelligent motorcycle's brain (see how I went from derisively calling it a scooter to almost reverently referring to it as a motorcycle!) that allowed him to program in his required fuel range, in this case, 90 km or 3.6L/100km and then the bike would tell him when his throttle position was exceeding that usage.

I was keeping it, with some difficulty, under 90 kmh and I notice Bill would often fall back, especially on steep uphill grades, but then would catch up on the flats. My odo crept up to 300 kms and then beyond. The tension mounted. It palpable, thick like waiting for a root canal. As we clocked over 310, then 320 km I kept a constant vigil in the mirrors, but he was always there. Little did I know his bike computer was doing all the hard work.

We still hadn't driven on the 10% unpaved portion and our map seemed to suggest it may be in a provincial park we were going to drive through just south of our destination. It never materialized, just seal coat all the way to Dease Lake (as in; no, not Dat Lake, Dease Lake!) Good joke, worth at least a dozen uses! That was one!



We pulled into Dease Lake at 1800h on the dot, with 345 km indicated on my trip odo. We immediately filled up and Bill found, much to his delight, that he didn't even need a full tank, he still had considerable range left!

There was a hotel across the street where we got 2 rooms. The nice lady who checked us in reacted well to a little good natured kidding and we got 2 very large nice rooms, a little pricey at $115, but you don't have a lot of choices up here! I didn't know what pricey was going to mean as we got further North!



The gas station was also a grocery store and more importantly a liquor store. It also had a little takeout kitchen and while there was another burger shack down the road that the hotel lady had recommended, we decided to sate all of our requirements in one spot. We stood in line, for some time, at the take out counter, only to find the grill was off, and they weren't cooking anything new, just selling off all the ***** they had in their warmer. No thank you!



I didn't know it was called Rumours until I posted that picture and actually read the sign. I would say that Rumours stands for rumours of service, rumours of good food, rumours of friendliness.....

On our way out we ran into our new friends Jake and Christine who we met at the out of power gas station in IsKut. Ironically our chance meeting happened in the Jerry Can aisle of Rumours! Apparently, they waited for some time, having no other choice, until some guy came by who suggested some other guy he knew could sell them some gas. They drove up the road a few clicks and found a guy (some other guy) who had an old fashioned gravity pump and sold Jake 10L for $1.25 each, even made change from a $20!

That is the North for you, people stick together, and help one another. It is a remarkable notion! The jerry can aisle made a big impression on Bill who revisited the store the next day and invested in a 10L can. When I headed to Alaska on my Intruder 1400 in 2004 I carried 2 x 25L gas cans in preparation of the James Dalton highway. That bike had a 13L tank, 10L main & 3L reserve, and a range at highway speed of about 100 miles. In biker parlance, it's called a peanut tank.

We bid them farewell and safe travels, got some brewskis and headed off to the Sugar Shack, well, obviously not a health food store, but low and behold there was a food truck in our path. Food trailer would be more accurate. We ordered some burgers and poutine from the young couple operating it, and while we waited for our order we sat in 'patio' area (I am being generous!) and talked with some local native gangsta's, boyz from da hood. Elliot was the leader, or at least he owned the car, and he regaled us with stories of how cheap everything was 'on the res'!



Apparently smart shoppers in the area on buy 'on the reservation' where Treaty status clientele enjoy considerable discounts and are GST exempt. Way to go Canada, let's just drive the spike of disparity even deeper!

We sat on 'the patio' and ate our burgers and drank our beers and shot the ****, then turned in for the evening.

Smithers to Dease Lake
598 km
9 hours in the saddle