Month: June 2013

Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

Ferry Hopping, Killer Whales and Floatplanes

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The ferry hopping is in it’s final stages. One more 42 hour stint to go, dodging perfectly blue iceberg sculptures. There’ve been a couple of notable moments, both announced over the PA in between Petersburg and Juneau.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you look to the port side you’ll see a killer whale. I repeat, killer whale on the port side”.

Not an everyday phrase! There was a massive killer whale a few hundred metres off the boat. It was moving fast, and even from a distance it was clear to make out the spray. A jaw-on-the-ground moment to see something like that first-hand and not through the eyes of the BBC. It emphasised just how much big life is in the water up here. Definitely a “pinch me” moment for all viewers judging by the gasps and air of excitement. A downside to travelling light is only carrying a small selection of camera gear (no telephoto lenses), so here’s blurry pixels.

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There’s been a high pressure spell recently too, so it’s been hot. The perfect weather for hanging out on the sun deck on the boat and taking a nap. When you get woken up mid-nap with an announcement over the PA that says “Welcome to Cake!”, it’s really exciting. Cake? Where? Unfortunately it had nothing to do with cake at all – we were just pulling into a port in Kake to drop some passengers off.

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Floatplanes are cool. Ever since first seeing a floatplane land on water, it’s been something that I’ve longed to try. Seaplane docks seem to be a part of every small town in South East Alaska – they’re used to drop people off in remote places, to search for schools of fish so the locals know where to go for maximum success, or simply for commuting between islands. Whilst in Petersburg I bumped into Doug from Nordic Air, who was in between flying jobs. He didn’t have any time for a proper interview but there was time to make a 5 minute flight from water to land, catch a few brief words and capture some aerial footage. It was a ton of fun. Hope you enjoy it.

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

The beginnings of Alaska and thoughts on motivation

Just thinking out loud about motivation and scribbling it down whilst sat on the ferry, back in the USA’s 49th state. At the moment I’m making my way up to a port near Anchorage (just below Denali National Park), on the Alaska Marine Highway. A journey north into the heart of the land of the midnight sun.

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It’s a pretty indirect journey spread over two weeks of travel. I set off from Prince Rupert last week, the ferry then pulled into Wrangell, where I’ve spent the last four days battling the mosquitos. Now it’s a 3 hour journey to Petersburg, then Juneau, and finally Whittier in 10 days time, which marks the next section of the route – the longest one of all – from Alaska across Canada. It’s odd how such seemingly meaningless corners on an map can have such personal meanings.

Looking out from the railings is a thrilling sight. In between small towns, signs of human activity is non-existent, it’s just shimmering green water and dense forest as far as you can see. I’ve yet to see them, but there’s orcas in the drink and grizzlies amongst the trees. It’s an inspiring place to just look upon, reflect on the last several months, and look to the near-future knowing that this is the land that so many adventurous tales have been set in, and it’s clear to see why.

Motivation. When I was nearing the end of the East coast leg, and then again on the Southern states leg, on the hard days, knowing that I’d cycled the whole way meant it was easy to overcome any motivational struggles, because there was a rationale that went something like, ‘Well you’ve come this far, what’s another few days / miles / state lines?’. But on the West Coast leg, taking the bus ride from Northern California to Seattle was like an instant break, and I didn’t feel as attached to it.

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I’m still totally focused on making this a project about the people along the way, and stopping in certain places when it seems right. Otherwise there’s little difference between rocking the exercise bike whilst typing ‘road sign’ into Google. Alaska is one of the places I’ve been most excited about all along, so I’m definitely going to spend time to soak it in, and have a few plans that if they come off will make for interesting and unusual experiences.

But, I know that everything will seem disconnected if the final stretch isn’t done by human power. That may seem a bit ridiculous, and that it really shouldn’t matter, even a contradiction when there’s been writing about constant movement being tough, but there’s a snowball effect attached to de-motivation and it’s something I’m keen to avoid on the biggest stretch of all. Just showing up, getting on with it, and creating a flow does a lot for your psyche, but when that synthesis breaks your motivation can soon follow.

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People keep talking about the prairies in Canada, and how tough they are mentally, even when driving across them. There’s stories of people looking at a mountain in the distance and just driving for days without it getting any bigger. Driving, and being driven crazy by the endless and beautiful-at-first-but-soon-monotonous surroundings. Another cyclist I met in BC couldn’t hack it and jumped on a bus to ‘end the torture inside his head.’ Strong words that can drum up dread in anyone’s moments of insecurity or self-doubt.

There’ll surely be mind-games. You can take your ‘days in a car’ and convert it to ‘weeks on a bike’. But nothing with worth comes easily does it?

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

196 – 212: Prince George to New Hazelton, BC

Customs. There hasn’t been a trip-post for a while, as a lot more time than expected was spent in the city of Prince George chasing up a new set of wheels through customs. It was nice to settle for a while, and explore the city, but a few days would have been plenty. By the end of a two week(!) stint in PG, I was getting frustrated. Several days were spent taking shelter in this doorway, which was an unusual but functional base. And there were obvious upsides to an extended period of static time – mainly a solid amount of work was done, but by the end I was absolutely ready to move on.

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But maybe these are all just soured memories, as Prince George was the place that has caused the most physical pain so far. It wasn’t in some kind of epic crash, or brake failure, or in fact anything bike-related. As it turns out, walking face first into an air conditioner just really hurts and will leave a lump on your head for days.

It was the afternoon of day 206 when the wheels finally showed up. Being a fairly critical part of the project, I was over the moon to see they’d arrived, and ran to a bike shop to get them to swap over the cassette, making the bike a working item once again.

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Outside the bikeshop, I met local resident and all around top dude Erik (on the bike below), who in the last couple of years had racked up some serious cycling experience, taking 6 week trips in Yukon and Alaska. He’s got a big plan taking shape right now that involves taking an extended leave from his job as a prison guard, to cycle across Canada, West to East, meeting with long lost family in various cities along the way.

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Erik had some hilarious stories from his cycling in remote places, offered a place to crash in his basement (no more doorway!), and made it clear that he was the CEO of the BBQ, when he grilled up some stellar steaks. It was a great way to end a long spell in BC’s northern capital.

The morning of day 207. After the last couple of weeks, my motivation for cycling was at an all time high. It was a cracking day, the bike was working like a dream, and I was gunning for it. Standing up and pushing down on the climbs, face to the handlebars on the downhills. They don’t come much better than this.

CRUNCH. Are you serious?

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Crunch. 70km, and now I’d somehow managed to rip the rear derailleur out of the hanger, bending and de-threading the hanger in the process. If you’re thinking I might have been frustrated by this, then you’re totally right. Fuming. Luckily there was a spare hanger kicking about (they’re unique to each frame so it’s a good idea to carry a spare – often bike shops have to order them in), but on closer inspection of the derailleur it was knackered and completely out of shape. I ended up hitchhiking 30km west to a campsite in the town of Vanderhoof.

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The next day, the folks at Omineca saved the day. They had the right derailleur in stock, and were cool about letting me use their workshop and expertise to get the bike into a decent condition. The aim was: this has to stop happening. This service, right now, is going to fix the bike for the foreseeable. Luckily it has so far.

The day of the service, there wasn’t much progress made, but since then it’s been a great phase of being on the road. Motivation for progress is high, and I’m back in the swing of things. There’s been some horrendous headwinds, incredible downhills, uphill slogs, jaw-dropping landscapes of snowy mountain peaks, and loads of ‘Beware of Moose’ signs. I’ve been frantically looking around excitedly but am yet to see any. Hopefully in due course.

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The route for the last few days has been: Prince George – Vanderhoof – Fraser Lake – Burns Lake – Smithers – New Hazelton (where this is being written). From here it’s West to Prince Rupert (Canada likes the royal names huh?), and then it gets super exciting. All going well, the plan is to get a boat into the depths of Alaska and continue from there.

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews Philosophy

Vague Direction People: John, Seattle

Back in Seattle, I made this film with John Canfield from High Above – his cycling / outdoor bag design brand. It turned into a fun and inspiring conversation about entrepreneurship, getting fired and breaking barriers.

“Yeah, 2 years since I got fired from my last job… For the people that dump their heart into their work, and their boss doesn’t see it, or doesn’t care, then I would highly recommend to those people, entrepreneurship. Highly recommend it. It’s hard to break out of working for somebody else, it sucks. It’s terrible. At first. And then you pay the bill. “

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More on the cycling / trip soon – I’m currently waiting on post which has been massively delayed in arriving, fingers crossed it shows up tomorrow.