Day 4

Yes, the drunken sailors. Three of them woke me up unceremoniously at around 5 am, by that time, it was bright daylight. One of them announced he was going to piss on me, for whatever reason, I did not find that offer compelling. Somehow I managed to convince him not to do that and after a minute or two, they left. Hmmm, weird start of the day.

So now that I was awake, I thought it would be prudent to start the next section of this journey, the cycling part. I got my act together, washed as best I could at a fountain and left town. Actually, even though I do not remember, I am sure I did stack up supplies, i.e. groceries. You see, the next larger town was called Haines Junction and it was 240 kilometers (!) to the north. There were a few smaller settlements with no services, but there was a petrol station somewhere between the two. Hmmm, interesting.

Leaving town, it was still quite early and I made good distance on this stretch of road called Alaska Highway 3. Two broad lanes, a generous shoulder in both directions and hardly any traffic. The one thing that did struck me were quite a few and rather large “cow manures”, so the droppings of cows. At certain places, I had to navigate through these. But where are the cows that made these? I did not see a single one. Or were they from horses? And the thing that puzzled me was that these droppings were a mixture of a herbivorous and carnivorous animal. As you might now guess, these were droppings of grizzlies (as I later found out). At night, when they are cold, they prefer the pavement of the road, as it radiates the warmth gathered during the daytime – and this is the source of these animals. As far as I can remember, I only saw this “feature” here, close to Haines, probably as in other places, traffic was more heavy. I did think, however, that I would not want to actually meet the animal that made these huge droppings.

So now I was riding in the midst of pristine nature, surrounded by glaciers as far as the eye could see – it was stunning! Traffic was really light, I recall seeing just one car per hour. After all, Haines (with 1,500 folks) is dead-end and really not much to do there. I had a strategy, I smiled and waved at each car coming opposite, best to be friends, who knows, I might need some help when they are returning.

And what nature it was! It was quite a roller-coaster, with lots of ups and downs. At one turn, I saw some weird animal crossing the road, about a meter long, resembling a crocodile or an alligator. Later, I found out that was a porcupine, which can grow up to a meter long. I got goose-bumps, it looked so weird. Soon thereafter, I reached the Canadian border, the officer (I believe he was American and not Canadian, but no longer sure) felt a bit hassled having to look at my strange Hungarian passport – without uttering a single word or asking any questions, he stamped it. No small talk there. Welcome to Yukon.

It was then that one of the weirdest stories of my biking career happened. I was riding on a long straight patch of road and a car was coming from the other direction and I smiled and waved. A lady driver smiles and waves back. As soon as she passed me, I heard her car wheels screeching, her slamming the brakes and turning around violently. Next to me, she lowers the window and asks: “Do you realize there is a bear following you?”.

HOLY COW (or holy bear)! To this day, I am not sure if she was kidding or serious. No, I did not see any bears (only their droppings, so they were definitely around) and also learnt that they tend to get out of harm’s way. Do I really think I was on the potential menu of a bear? Somehow, I do not think so, maybe it wanted to scare me off, I might have disturbed it, without actually realizing that I did. Or maybe she just wanted to pull of a prank? I guess I will never find out.

Anyhow, we chatted for a while, she asking me if I had a bear spray (I did not – I do not think it to be practical when on a bike, let us assume you get attached, then you have to find the spray in your bag, hmmm, no), but she did make me promise to buy a whistle and use it. I remember when she left – and I was all by myself for an hour or so again – I felt the same weakness in my knees I had experienced when arriving to Haines. I thought for a while of abandoning the journey, riding back to Haines and catching the ferry back to Washington, but I decided against it.

I did reach the one petrol station in the afternoon and yes, they did have a whistle. From thereon, at least on the more abandoned patches of roads, I did use the whistle, like every thirty or forty seconds, even felt like a dumbass doing so, but better safe than be sorry. And, by the way, this lady also told me to appear larger if attacked, so from thereon, I had my jacket on, even though it was rather warm. I actually practised appearing big a couple of times, so if anyone would have seen me, they would have thought Batman is commuting on bike.

According to an email I had sent back then, I apparently made it to a Million Dollar Falls Campground, having ridden about 100 miles (160 km) that day. If I recall, I was the only one camping there – and was a bit worried about bears. It was a “primitive” campground, offering no showers, but they did have a toilet, and bear-proof garbage bins and caches to store food and toiletry items. Here the sun set at around 11:30 pm (!), so even at midnight it was not completely dark, so for both the fear of a visit by a grizzly and lack of darkness made falling asleep hard.