Ten Days Later.

I'll be honest, I stopped taking notes after the last post. Headed up through Canada, I was too frazzled. In Alaska, I was too busy trying to experience things to write them down. On the way back...well, you'll see.

Washington, British Columbia, Yukon, Alaska – 3 Days

Ten miles from the border, Google Maps went insane. It wasn't a signal issue, or a data problem. Maybe a GPS problem. Turn onto the road you're already on. Make a U-turn. No wait, make another U-turn. No wait...I turned off the audio.

One curveball at the border: what was the crossing I usually used to get into Quebec? I blanked. They waved me through anyhow.

Immediately upon entering British Columbia, I was faced with three problems:

1. For the first time since high school, I was dealing with the metric system. Speed limits were an enigma. Distances, a cipher. I was back in Algebra II, and all the values where X.

2. How long would this take? I had no way to know. Google was in one-armed Buzz Lightyear mode. I could look at a map and know which roads to take, but navigation on a street-by-street level was out of the question.

3. I'd never had to track my gas mileage before. I knew gas stations might be few and far between up here, and I couldn't check my phone for the nearest one. People had warned me that I would need extra gas up here. I bought a couple extra jugs and stopped every time I got below a half a tank. When I hit those dry stretches, I'd be as prepared as I could be.

The extra gas proved superfluous. Turns out that the Moxie Mama's mileage is such that she can make it between stations just fine up in the North. Those extra cans just sloshed around in the back, occasionally tipping over and leaking. What a nuisance. I finally used them up just to be rid of the hassle.

I never really got less uptight about the time. I made Alaska in 2.5 days, and by the end of it I was raw-nerved and exhausted. I didn't let myself stop except for gas and bathroom breaks. No pictures.

I did get used to the metric system after a while, though.

Rest Area Toilets in the North

One good thing about the timing of this trip: it was still too early for the swarms of bugs I'd been told invaded the North every summer. Not many tourists on the roads yet, either. The downside is that whoever does a pre-season maintenance check on the rest areas in British Columbia and Yukon clearly hadn't been through yet. Most of the “pit toilets” (they're outhouses) were out of sanitizer. Several were out of paper. Trash cans overflowed. And most of the seats looked like they'd been mauled by a grizzly.

Alaska's rest areas generally had the same issues, although hardly any of their toilet seats were actually in pieces. And some of them came with bonus surprises.

Picture it. My first afternoon in Alaska. Hungry, sleep-deprived, still riding a mix of anxiety and adrenaline from the drive up (exacerbated by the absolute shit condition of the Alaska Highway through Yukon), now interwoven with threads of absolute relief: I made it! I pulled into the Tanana River rest area, marched into the pit toilet, sat down – and burst into a fit of the giggles.

Whatever engineering genius designed this rest area had perfectly aligned the air vents underneath the toilet with the trajectory of the wind. Every gust came straight up through the hole I was sitting on. And it was a very windy day. Wind's trying to play my ass like an empty beer bottle, I thought, and laughed again.

I was still laughing when I drove on, into

Alaska At Last

I didn't touch my notebook all week. And I didn't get as many pictures as I'd hoped. It rained most of the time; even on dry days the sky hung gray-white and overcast, making it almost indistinguishable from the snow-capped mountains below. 

I drove to Denali National Park; snow and rain and cloud-cover all but blotted the mountains from view (ironically, even at the spot along the drive called “Mountain Vista”!). Lessons in letting go of expectations.

From Fairbanks to Anchorage to Homer to Seward. I managed to capture a few nice shots along the Kenai Peninsula, where the mountains descend straight to the Cook Inlet, seemingly without any coastline for a buffer. I spent a night in a secluded spot on the shore of the Turnagain Arm, and another in Kenai Fjords National Park, near Exit Glacier.

Headed north toward Fairbanks again, I noticed an egg forming on one of my tires. The last thing I needed was a blowout, or some other serious problem with the car. Might as well head things off at the pass, I decided. I was going to replace my tires sometime this summer anyway, why not just do it early?

The next morning, I bought four new tires from Giant Tire in Fairbanks. Then I headed up Alaska Route 11, aka the Dalton Highway.

I'd hesitated before committing to this leg of the trip. I was worried about getting back to Vermont before my car insurance expired. Would the extra day in Alaska force me to rush going back? Luckily I was able to get my insurance dealt with online (I was worried they might need an actual signature). There went my main time constraint.

That left one other concern: Route 11 itself. Guidebooks describe the Dalton as if it's the road to Hell. Steep shoulders, hairpin turns, razor-sharp gravel interspersed with potholes eager to chomp your tires. No gas, no reception, lots of big rigs taking their half out of the middle. Murphy's Law incarnate.

On the other hand, the Dalton is the only major road into the Arctic Circle. I was already limiting myself by only exploring those parts of Alaska to which I could drive; did I also want to miss out on the drivable parts, just because it would take me longer? Plus, a friend was texting me every day, nagging me to “Go North!” like some alt-universe Horace Greeley. If nothing else, it would keep her from giving me shit about it the rest of my life.

The guidebooks were half-right. Yes, there were sharp turns. And there were a lot of trucks, hauling freight to the far reaches of the wilderness. But the gravel sections were no more dangerous than any of the unpaved roads back home. Better maintained, in fact. The potholes on the paved sections were a nightmare, but all I had to do was mimic the long-haul truckers, who treated the center line as a suggestion, swerving every which way to avoid the meanest divots. The new tires probably helped, too.

I stopped for dinner and gas at Coldfoot Camp, just past the Arctic Circle. Far enough, I decided. I'd been driving for eight hours already, I had a ways to go before I'd reach my intended campsite, and I was getting a little tired of the potholes. Things were probably only going to get worse if I continued north. Time to turn around before my luck ran out.

Must You Go So Soon?

I woke up next morning to a dead battery. I walked back to the highway from the deserted campground. The third trucker I flagged stopped and gave me a lift to the DOT maintenance station. There I found a guy willing to drive me back to my campsite and jump the car. So far, so good.

An hour later, I stopped at a rest area to “utilize the facilities” as they say. Came back out and, yep – dead battery again. I rapped on the window of the big rig parked nearby and woke the driver. He gave me a boost, shook my hand, and sent me on my way. No more problems, I thought. Please. Please, I just want to get out of Alaska.

An hour and a half from the Canadian border, a pickup pulling a boat trailer flew by me in the other lane. One of the trailer's tires kicked up a rock with enough force that it didn't just bruise my windshield. It cracked, hard.How's that for an Alaskan goodbye.

I stopped for gas in Beaver Creek, Yukon that evening. Hung up the pump, got in the car, turned the key – nothing. Again. Now I'm getting nervous. A woman on her way to Connecticut gave me another boost. It took a few tries to get the Moxie Mama going this time. Meanwhile I told my rescuer of my plans for the next day. I was headed to Dawson City, where I would be inducted into the Sourtoe Cocktail Club. I explained the process. Gelatin, I assume, she said. I shook my head. These are the genuine article, I told her.

I drove on, and on. I was exhausted, but I didn't want to stop again. A couple times, tiredness got the better of me, and I pulled into a rest area. Set a timer, take an hour nap, back on the road. Luckily the car started back up each time. Finally I couldn't anymore. I found a pullout, parked, and slept.

Yukon Dance If You Wanna

And of course, the battery was dead again. Luckily, a young couple in a U-haul were also in the pullout. Even more luckily, one of them was mechanically inclined, and had tools with him. The problem wasn't actually with my battery. All the bouncing around I've been doing on these rough roads had shaken one of the connections loose. He cleaned up my terminals and tightened the connections back down. Good as new. I'm writing this five days later, and I've had not one incident since.

One thing that struck me over and over, first in Alaska, but now also as I drove north toward Dawson City: no one warns you about the colors. Spring in this part of the world is a second autumn. Purple-gray mountains, blinding white snow, the blues of water and sky (it finally stopped raining), the deep green of dense black spruce forest, the yellow of new leaves, of grass not yet awake from the long winter; the Yukon River transforming from white and black marble near Livengood, Alaska to brilliant jade as it winds through Miles Canyon near Whitehorse, Yukon. I was in love with the colors, with the long days without darkness.

Into Dawson City, which clings to its Gold Rush roots with the tenacity of a terrier on meth. Wooden sidewalks line dirt streets, loomed over by shops and hotels and saloons with false fronts. One saloon hosts nightly can-can performances, a bizarre cocktail of 19^th century costumes and mid- 20^th century music. Time is loosely swirled together in Dawson, all pasts bleeding into a single undifferentiated Ago.

The Downtown Hotel was constructed in the 1980s, but it wears its ersatz Klondike costume with sincerity. The lobby and main staircase are accented with dark wooden fixtures and red velvet damask wallpaper. Rooms are small, neat, functional. The real star is downstairs, anyway: the Sourdough Hotel.

Toe Time occurs nightly from 9-11. Participants fill out a sign-up sheet with their name and city of origin, and indicate whether (for $8) they want to keep their shot glass afterward. Of course I did.

At the appointed hour, an elderly man in glasses and a nautical hat – the Captain – announces the names of the participants, who line up for their chance to drink the Sourtoe Cocktail.

The original toe was amputated from a frostbite victim some time in the 1920s, and preserved in a jar of bourbon. For some ungodly reason, fifty years afterward, people started putting the toe into their drinks as a dare. The original toe is long since lost; the tradition lives on with what is apparently now the tenth digit to be preserved and served.

The Sourtoe Cocktail is simply a shot of very smooth cognac. You sit across from the Captain and hand him your glass of cognac. He smiles gently and plunks in the toe. Then earnestly, softly, he repeats the catechism of his faith - “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the toe!” And that's literal. You're not allowed to bite, lick, or suck on the toe. The lightest kiss, a mere caress of the lips, and you're done.

For a long time, there was a $500 fine for anyone who accidentally swallowed the toe during the ceremony. Then some wiseass sat down, slapped $500 onto the counter, and slurped it down on purpose. The fine immediately increased to $2,500 in hopes of discouraging such a stunt being pulled again. What kind of freak would do that anyway? Just kiss the desiccated human toe like a normal person, would ya?

I fell in with a group of other newly-inducted members: a nomadic couple from Scotland, a pair of Canadians up from Whitehorse, a fellow American over from Anchorage. We swapped stories of our respective trips, compared experiences with the toe. Then we went to see the can-can show. More drinks. From there, another saloon. And back to the can-can club for another show. I'm not much of a drinker, these days, but that night I let the camaraderie and the atmosphere and the never-fading twilight carry me through pint after pint after cocktail. Things became a little hazy, a little soft-focused. I struck up a conversation with an attractive woman. In my inebriation, I completely misunderstood something she said to me; I'm pretty sure the rest of my side of the conversation seemed a total non sequitur, and a bit creepy. Ah, well. One of the benefits of travel, if you make an idiot of yourself in front of people, at least you know you're unlikely to see them again.

The party fizzled somewhere around 2. Everyone wandered off to their respective lodgings. Disoriented, I staggered through the streets of an old-timey western town, the light leaving me simultaneously energized – it was clearly late afternoon – and so very tired – was it time to get up?

It was neither. I finally found my hotel, staggered up the stairs and into bed. And slept.

*

The next morning at checkout, the desk clerk kept me while another employee inspected my room for damage. It wasn't personal, he explained. Last week, some idiot couldn't get his door open, so he kicked his way in. The clerk showed me pictures – the door jamb shattered into toothpicks, the strike plate and latch dangling like a bad hangover. The inspector came back happy; I was cleared for takeoff.

I grabbed a quick breakfast at the Red Mammoth Bistro, a croissant sandwich (tasty) and a latte (very foamy, still good). A middle-aged woman held court from a corner table, talking a blue streak to me and every other customer who came in, oblivious to their discomfort and to the sharp looks from the proprietor. She suggested that, before I leave town, I should swing up the Dome Road for pictures. She was irritating, but she was also right. What a view!

From there, I drove up to Tombstone Territorial Park, which the Scots had mentioned the night before. They were just barely open for the season; only 1km of trails was available for hiking. I made the trek anyway. I wasn't sorry.

Down the Klondike Highway toward British Columbia, I got the same feeling I had leaving Valley of the Gods a few weeks ago. I didn't want to go. I'd become addicted to this place – to the colors, to long days without night, to the people who went out of their way to help one another in crisis, knowing full well that this is life on the very edge. It was hard up here, no doubt. Hard, and beautiful, and full of life. I had to come back.

And Back Again

I drove south through acres of burned-out forest and craggy mountains. My mind was already beginning to look ahead. To planning my return trip. To – after. Some new form of life would need creating. That reality was increasingly difficult to ignore. I still didn't know what to do with it. Still don't, I should say.

Because here I am. The same Kirkland hotel with the grumpy desk clerk and the bad plumbing. Same old Sporkman, hours behind where I thought I'd be today, only half an idea what tomorrow will look like, let alone the day after, or next week, or next year. Jumping in as always, feet first, with half a plan and an ounce of optimism. It doesn't pay off quite the way I hope, most of the time. But sometimes, man. Sometimes.