5) Drink a shot of whiskey with a toe in the glass
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The Rise Up Ride 2022: Days 73-78
5) Drink a shot of whiskey with a toe in the glass
Date: 7 July 2022
Start Location: Moose Creek, Yukon
End Location:, Dawson City, Yukon
Distance/mode: 155 km bicycle / pilot car
Latitude: 64° 03′ N
When I rode into Dawson City three days ago I had a list. Tomorrow I'm flying up to Inuvik and the list is almost done. I washed my clothes, slept in a room with indoor plumbing, bought food for ten days of cycling down the Dempster Highway, found more mosquito repellent, gained five pounds on purpose, and arranged for my bike and gear to be delivered up the road to Inuvik. The only thing left on the list is to drink a shot of whisky with a guy's severed toe in it, and I'm thinking about taking care of that at the Sourdough Saloon. But, then again, maybe not.
Fires have closed the Yukon Highway at Pelly River Crossing, so Dawson City is currently cut off from the rest of Canada. Yesterday, when the fiber optic cable went down, the locals just paid for shit in cash and barely noticed. No trucks with food can get through, and no mail delivery (including my prescription medications from home). Even the local dispensary is running low on supplies but word is that urgent deliveries are being led through the fires by pilot cars. Priorities.
The dozen or so residents of Moose Creek, where I had spent Canada Day, have been ordered to evacuate. I took two days to ride from there to Dawson City, on Sunday and Monday, loading my bike into construction zone vehicles to be shuttled through stretches of gravel and roadwork. I've been riding well and feel ready, after several weeks of hard cycling, to undertake the big ride down the Dempster Highway. If I can handle everything that the Yukon can throw at me over the last six weeks, I think I'm physically and mentally prepared to string together eleven long days riding down a bad road. At least I know that I won't run out of daylight since at >64° N in early July dusk seamlessly becomes dawn sometime around midnight. The birds give up for a while around 11:00 pm, probably from exhaustion, but start chirping again at 2:00 am.
But the bugs never stop. You have your mosquitos, your little noseeum flies, your big flies, and lots of things of various sizes that just want to kamikaze into my coffee. I spray Permethrin on my clothes, put Picaradin on my skin, wear a headnet when I stop but the bugs never do. There was one persistent horse fly that flew circles around me for almost an hour while I was riding, just waiting for me to stop. Thankfully there were no insects at the Eldorado Hotel.
Tomorrow morning I'll drop off my bike and gear with Sue and Hugh, the @mapleleafdrifters, who will be driving north on the Dempster while I fly. Rather than breaking down and boxing up my bike for the flight (leaving behind my cooking gas and bear spray) I figured I'd look for other ways to move my stuff to Inuvik. Dawn, who works at the Northwest Territories Dempster Highway Visitor Center in town, was talking up the tourists and found my bike a ride. Hopefully in two weeks I'll be back in Dawson, and then I may be ready to brave the Sour Toe Cocktail.
