Yesterday was 155 km into firece headwinds. Took forever and was pretty demoralizing - pedal harder and nothing happened. Our outfitter doesn't provide lunch stops, so you have to carry food and liquids with you or plan on stopping at stores along the way. Fortunately, we were to have a convenience store at 115 Km where we could stock up. Unortunately, the store had burned down 3 years ago. Apparently our outfitter doesn not provide accurate information either. I'll let you know in a couple days how badly contaminated the Klondike River water is.
Low temp last night was 0 deg C - freezing. Rain in the forecast off & on the next few days, but the forecasts seem to change every couple hours, so who knows.
Breaking a saddle rail when the nearest bike shop is hundreds of km away is an interesting proposition. Scavenged a saddle from a non-riding staff member to get Jean through the day yesterday (new saddle on a day when you're in the saddle for 9 hours - hmmm, wonder if anything can go wrong with that? But, if something did go wrong, it would be something she's not likely to wish to share with too many people.) And, a new support crew is coming up from the south to trade off with the current crew - so, they're going to bring a new saddle - hopefully, the message as to what we need got translated correctly into Canadian. We'll find out in a few hours.
The riding has been quite exciting: lots of trees - changing from hemlock and fir to lodgepole pine and spruce with lots of Aspen mixed in. Glaciated terrain giving way yesterday and for the rest of the trip to an area that didn't get glaciated during the ice age: rather an unusual circumstance with continental glaciers over huge swathes of the Norther Hemisphere but a large part of northwestern North America in Alaska and the Yukon and eastern Siberia with no glaciers, so open for migration (since sea levels at the time were hundreds of meters lower than they are now) of humans from Siberia into Alaska and the Yukon, then douthwards into the Americas as the glaciers melted 14,000 or so years ago - humans had arrived in the Yukon at least 25,000 years ago - don't ask me how I know that.
Lots of mammoths and other extinct large beasts preserved up here in the permafrost, then washed out during the gold mining. Surprisingly, it is legal to make jewelry out of extinct mammoth tusks (unlike elephants, the mammoth extinction horse is already out of the barn) - and a number of stores sells the stuff.
Interestingly, apparently the oral traditions of the local native (First Nation) tribes goes back far enough that their stories tell of hunting the mammoths. Seems even cooler than Hans Christian Anderson and the dogs with the dish sized eyes.
Besides the trees, what else: Canada has really cool roadside signs describing the geology and the forest and some traditions. And the history: somebody discovered gold, thousands of people came from California and Seattle to pan, sluice, and dig for gold (and a few girls to keep the boys happy - sort of). They hiked over the mountains, then took a steamer. Then, they made some roads, and railroads (only took a couple years), and eventually got caterpillar tractors instead of horses. Then there was no more gold and they got Holland America and Princess cruises to bring lots of tourists carrying gold back to the site of origin. And, the old gold assay offices are now ice cream parlors and T-shirt shops (picture of bear chasing bicyclists: "Meals on Wheels") or ("I lost my virginity, but I still have the box it came in").
Not much else in recorded history.
Low temp last night was 0 deg C - freezing. Rain in the forecast off & on the next few days, but the forecasts seem to change every couple hours, so who knows.
Breaking a saddle rail when the nearest bike shop is hundreds of km away is an interesting proposition. Scavenged a saddle from a non-riding staff member to get Jean through the day yesterday (new saddle on a day when you're in the saddle for 9 hours - hmmm, wonder if anything can go wrong with that? But, if something did go wrong, it would be something she's not likely to wish to share with too many people.) And, a new support crew is coming up from the south to trade off with the current crew - so, they're going to bring a new saddle - hopefully, the message as to what we need got translated correctly into Canadian. We'll find out in a few hours.
The riding has been quite exciting: lots of trees - changing from hemlock and fir to lodgepole pine and spruce with lots of Aspen mixed in. Glaciated terrain giving way yesterday and for the rest of the trip to an area that didn't get glaciated during the ice age: rather an unusual circumstance with continental glaciers over huge swathes of the Norther Hemisphere but a large part of northwestern North America in Alaska and the Yukon and eastern Siberia with no glaciers, so open for migration (since sea levels at the time were hundreds of meters lower than they are now) of humans from Siberia into Alaska and the Yukon, then douthwards into the Americas as the glaciers melted 14,000 or so years ago - humans had arrived in the Yukon at least 25,000 years ago - don't ask me how I know that.
Lots of mammoths and other extinct large beasts preserved up here in the permafrost, then washed out during the gold mining. Surprisingly, it is legal to make jewelry out of extinct mammoth tusks (unlike elephants, the mammoth extinction horse is already out of the barn) - and a number of stores sells the stuff.
Interestingly, apparently the oral traditions of the local native (First Nation) tribes goes back far enough that their stories tell of hunting the mammoths. Seems even cooler than Hans Christian Anderson and the dogs with the dish sized eyes.
Besides the trees, what else: Canada has really cool roadside signs describing the geology and the forest and some traditions. And the history: somebody discovered gold, thousands of people came from California and Seattle to pan, sluice, and dig for gold (and a few girls to keep the boys happy - sort of). They hiked over the mountains, then took a steamer. Then, they made some roads, and railroads (only took a couple years), and eventually got caterpillar tractors instead of horses. Then there was no more gold and they got Holland America and Princess cruises to bring lots of tourists carrying gold back to the site of origin. And, the old gold assay offices are now ice cream parlors and T-shirt shops (picture of bear chasing bicyclists: "Meals on Wheels") or ("I lost my virginity, but I still have the box it came in").
Not much else in recorded history.
Great adventures... poor Jean with the broken saddle, that ride sounded hard enough with intact equipment. Hope you stay warm and dry.
ReplyDeleteEd & Jane