The road less travelled: The Cassiar Highway
Leaving Whitehorse also meant leaving most amenities behind and few services could be expected for the next 2,5 weeks. We were repeatedly told to stop at every cafe, lodge or gas station that we would come across to stuff our face as much as we could… OK, this advice was clearly taken aboard ;)! Entering September also meant that services would start closing down; a race against the clock and snowfall!
Getting real wet and sleeping in a gas station
With the gear we took, we can properly stand the rain. However, a 80km heavy rain ride with a lot of elevation got us wet to the bone. We were relieved seeing the sign of the continental divide lodge, to find out it was already closed for the season… While Matthijs visited the bathroom, the defeated look on Jakoba’s face must have urged Rick to offer a solution. We could spent the night in the gas station and keep the stove running to do some cooking and dry out our clothes. Pity took over and only moments later we found ourselves enjoying a warm shower at Rick’s house next door. Such hospitality was unbelievably welcome! When we freshly returned, Rick suggested a joint efforts dinner. He brought some wild salmon and fresh veggies from the garden and luckily we could contribute some ‘amazing’ dry pasta to the equation! We were astonished how this tough day was turned into a very enjoyable night with good conversation, some beers and a very hospitable and warm feeling.
Remoteness, wildfires, bears and a jacuzzi
Taking the turn from the Alaska Highway onto the Cassiar highway (finally really heading South), was like going from a highway to a back alley. Hardly any cars, no road marking and patches of gravel. It really felt like taking the road less travelled. This alerted us we should have the bear spray (pepper spray for bears) and whistles close at hand, not knowing that it would still take a week before we would encounter the first one… Our first night camping at Boya lake got us to our second joint dinner. We brought the main goodies; four packets of noodles and some canned tuna! The down hill fanatic boy from Ravelstoke contributed some beers and we had good fun. Early off to bed though to shield against the cold. The next day we took an easy one and ended up camping at Jade city. A community set-up by a family company that is mining for Jade in the area. Arriving there the first thing we noticed was the camera crew. Turned out this family was the center of a very popular Discovery Channel series and filming their fifth season of “Jade fever”. We were educated about mining Jade and after a night of free camping and coffee we were back on the road. Some dry days followed and we were lucky to find out that the wildfires around Dease Lake eased off and we did not need to worry about thick smoke or particles in the air.
We continued our way down and decided to skip a day of wild camping and ride 140kms and 1,200 elevation meters in one day – to enjoy a king-size bed and a dive in the jacuzzi in the Bell2lodge! But not before we had our first bear encounter, only a few kilometers out of town. A black bear was crossing the road, stopped and looked at us. It was hesitating and trying to sniff us before it went on to the other side of the road. Luckily we could hail a car shortly after the encounter and have the car honk him off the road. When we passed, the bear was still checking out the road and our whistles did the final trick to scare him off. Finally Jakoba proved Matthijs that these yellow plastic buggers would come in handy…
We made most of our luxury stay and jumped into the jacuzzi again in the morning and enjoyed a big lunch before heading off for the next 92 kms to Meziadin Junction. During lunch we had an animated conversation with Mike, a truck driver on the Cassiar highway that provided us with a sneak peak into the harsh conditions of fueling mines and gas stations year round in this remote area! He kindly invited us to his house in Terrace when we would pass by in a few days, how nice! However, this stretch would still take us a few days and we first camped at Meziadin Lake where we could hitch a ride with our kind Canadian neighbors to see Steward and its amazing glaciers and the salmon spawning place in Hyder. We had a great day with Ian and Judy who are both fanatic bicyclists as well! In the afternoon we went for a short ride up the road to Hannah river, a well known place for sockeye salmon to spawn. WOW, we had no idea that the salmon would actually turn SO red when spawning, really astonishing! On our way back we checked this place again and encountered a large grizzly on the spot! It would stand on its back legs to check us out and give it a good sniff! This was slightly beyond our comfort level… luckily the grizzly turned and went to fish some salmon, a good moment for us to sneakily get a good picture! Pumped of adrenaline we returned to the campsite to run into Karin and Berend from the Netherlands. Our entertaining conversation turned into an invite for dinner and we got treated to some fresh veggies and a hamburger from the firewood BBQ. They were curious about our bikes and tested them across the campsite the next day, great fun to share the whike experience!
Wild camping bonus, heritage totem poles and returning to civilization
Being around so many hospitable people, it was quite a change to have a last night of wild camping at Bonus lake before we slowly would get back to civilization, i.e. the end of the Cassiar highway. On the way we visited a man-made fish ladder where thousands of salmon attempt to get up the river and literally jump more than a meter out of the water to complete their life goal: spawn up the creek they were hatched. Our goal after some 80kms and a flat tire was a freeze-dried meal, a good book (finally reading “Into the wild” by Jon Krakauer – we were very close to the famous bus in Denali Park) and 9 hours of sleep to refuel for the last stretch.
The next day the ride brought us to what the locals call “the zoo”. The sign that pulled us off the road read – free coffee- and the first thing we noted on this wall tent was a painting of a colorful mushroom! Being Dutch we made a link with magic mushrooms, but this was actually a buying place for pine mushrooms! A rare mushroom species that is worth a lot (more than ordinary mushrooms) and that is very competitively picked by locals and sold to the mushroom buyers in their self-fabricated seasonal sheds. Great fun people to talk with and we even got fed a breakfast bun with egg, bacon and cheese! We hit the road again and came across a native town called Gitanyow where we found some of the oldest totem poles in British Columbia. Of course we could find them next to the gas station, which is generally the center of town in all small places we visited in the Yukon. At the next door shop we got a bit more insight into the history of the town and a nice hot chocolate to warm up. Camping at the RV park in Kitwanga, the end of the Cassiar finally provided us with some Wi-Fi to ensure the family we were not (yet) eaten by bears.
Blue skies we enjoyed the day after, but had to get used to the amount of traffic on the road again. This highway stretch along the Skeena river was busy with logging trucks, cars, RVs and had a hard shoulder again, which sometimes disappeared and made us watch our moves and alert traffic behind us timely. A sunny riverside spot for a romantic freeze-dried Thai curry lunch made the kilometers fly by on our way to Terrace where we were invited to have dinner with Mike, Sandy and their family! It was unbelievable how much effort Mike made to cook us a real Dutch haché, red cabbage and potatoes meal – as he learned from his Dutch mom! We met his son, daughter in law and their three weeks old baby as well as his cousin and were surprised to learn that they really love the ‘Dutch kitchen’. The ‘boerenkool’, ‘kroketten’ and licorice are real treats to them and we were happy to indulge some of the latter while in Canada! A bottle of Jägermeister and red wine later we set-up camp in the yard and woke-up to a breakfast with gouda cheese, cut meats, bread and yoghurt! Wow, what a hospitality, it really felt like a home away from home.
Hard thing to get on your bicycle again after such a treat, a nice warm shower and a few too many drinks… but we made it to the wild camp spot along the river some 55 kilometers out of town towards Prince Rupert. This left us with only 95 kilometers for the last day to make it in time for the ferry to Vancouver Island. This concluding ride in the North was the fastest to date at 24kms p/hour on average. We arrived therefore quite early in Prince Rupert to enjoy this history rich port town! We indulged with a pizza at the #1 restaurant in town while spotting a seal in the adjacent harbor. A stroll around town and some groceries got us a delicious fresh salad for dinner and a re-stack of food for the ferry as well as the days beyond.
2,933 kms down and elevated by 21,124 meters to conclude our adventure up North!
Vancouver island here we come! We look forward greeting Age & Evelien at Port McNeil to bicycle down the island together and embark on an electric vehicle road trip to the Canadian wineries!
