Ground Truthing the Tagish
The Rise Up Ride 2022: Days 34-42
Ground Truthing the Tagish
Date: 1 June 2022
Start Location: Skagway, AK
End Location: Skagway, AK
Distance/mode: 426 km/bicycle
Latitude: 59° 27′ N
Ground Truthing: The facts that are found when a location shown on a map, air photograph, or satellite image is checked on the ground, as validation.
Oxford Reference
There’s a land— oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back— and I will.
Robert W Service, The Spell of the Yukon
@kateoffmars' message last summer was simple and direct, "... stash your gear, get ready to travel as lightly as possible (less weight in the plane the better, but dress warmly!), and get yourself to the Haines Junction airport to meet me." Two hours later we were airborne, heading to refuel her vintage yellow, black and white 1957 Cessna 172 taildragger in Whitehorse and bound for her cabin in Atlin by way of the Juneau Icefield, flying over the Tagish. (I've written about the experience on my blog at https://www.theriseupride.com/blog/TRURDay122128 "Visiting the Kates in the Land of Closed Borders")
My journey in 2021, cycling from Minnesota to visit the Kates in Northern British Columbia, was derailed by COVID restrictions, forcing me to detour around Canada taking ferries through the Inside Passage and across the Gulf of Alaska to Homer. When I finally entered the country in mid-August, riding the Alaska Highway down from Fairbanks, the snowline was dropping and it was time to head to lower latitudes. Kate's rescue flight allowed me to reach Atlin to visit my friends but also served as a "tasting menu" as we soared above the Yukon's Southern Lakes Region. The cascading system of connected lakes below the famed Chilkoot and White passes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River, is spectacular in its grandeur and storied in Klondike lore. I resolved that I would lose the altitude, returning in Spring to explore this land on two wheels to "ground truth" the images of that wonderful day.
Leaving Haines on the morning ferry up the Lynn Canal to Skagway, I dawdled in town meeting new colleagues at Sockeye Cycle until it would have been too late to ride up White Pass and safely make camp. Having long ago abandoned any dignity or reluctance to accept the offer of a lift up steep climbs, my friend Matt dropped me, bike and gear at the top of White Pass near the Canadian border. I rode past still-frozen lakes, along Tutshi Lake about 67 km to Conrad Campground on the Windy Arm of the Tagish.
This is truly one of the most epic places to explore by bicycle in all of the world. While riding along the contours of the land, past the lakes bounded by mountains that drop abruptly into the water, the rush by tens of thousands of goldseekers through these passes decades ago, headed to Dawson City, started to make sense. It's only through the effort of hauling your belongings through this land that you can understand why it was worth the toil and suffering to build something that could float your shit, rather than hauling it, through the Southern Lakes Region. Each person entering Canada in 1897-98 was required to bring 520 kg (3 lbs of food per day for one year) over the pass. Miners toiled on the shores here to build anything that could carry their stuff to where the water started moving at the northern end of Marsh Lake, the start of the Yukon River. In my mind the lore, those tales by Jack London and others, met the geology and it all helped me understand the logistical necessities. I would follow the Tagish, riding along the Klondike Gold Rush superhighway to Whitehorse and return in several weeks to paddle down the Yukon on my own modern-day journey to Dawson City.
The two mountain passes, the Chilkoot rising from Dyea and the White Pass above nearby Skagway, tumble down into Lake Bennett and the Tagish, converging at Carcross (short for "caribou crossing"). On the second day, I rode from Conrad Campground, down the Windy Arm, through Carcross and along Tagish Road towards Jake's Corner. My destination was Little Atlin Lodge, 70 km and a five-hour ride away down lightly-trafficked chip seal roads accompanied by moose, bear, and complaining ravens. Thank you to Mallory and Haley for the amazing hospitality and for the perfect spot by the lake to sit and write, listening to the loons and watching the thawing ice flows blow past.
Soon after meeting we realized that the two of us were cut from the same piece of cloth. Peter had responded quickly to my message on the WarmShowers site, offering me a place to stay at his home on Marsh Lake. For two nights I bunked in his walltent guest room while we swapped tales of adventure on several continents over many decades. In the 80s, carrying well-worn copies of the South American Handbook we must have overlapped once or twice on the Gringo Trail. Peter's ski treks through the Yukon are legend and he was a great source of knowledge on the history and ecology of the region. From his place at Swan Haven, it was a short walk to the spot where the M'Clintock River flows into Marsh Lake and the water begins to move. This is the headwaters of the mighty Yukon River that flows another 3000 km in an arc across Alaska to the Bering Sea. It was at this stage of their journey, after rowing or sailing their gear along the lakes that the miners in their watercraft finally began moving with the current, faster and faster towards the gold just waiting to be picked up in the streets of Dawson City. Thank you, Peter, for the warm welcome and a new friendship.
In Whitehorse I spent two days sorting out the logistics of my upcoming exploration downriver. A local trucking company will deliver my bicycle to Inuvik while UpNorth Adventures will provide the kayak and gear for a two-week paddle to Dawson, leaving 21 June with a shuttle to moving water at the end of Lake Laberge. I'm scouting a multi-modal journey north to the Arctic Ocean and cycling route south from Tuktoyaktuk down the Dempster Highway to the Pacific Ocean in Skagway, a trip that could be offered as a commercial tour in 2023.
For the last three days I've been working my way back to Alaska, riding through Carcross Cutoff, camping in the Tagish Carcross First Nations campground and waking this morning along the shore of the Windy Arm of the Tagish. Way off the grid with 90 km and 1000 meters of climbing to Skagway, I had one mission today: to ride to civilization and a cell signal in order to make an important phone call. Over almost 30 years it has now become an important family tradition that my Mother-in-law, Arlene, should be serenaded by her Son-in-law, me, with a rousing chorus of "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" on her June 1st birthday. After summiting the pass, and screaming down into Alaska astride 50 kg of loaded touring bicycle, my phone started buzzing and chirping with several days of backlogged messages. I'd found a signal. Standing by the roadside, surrounded by the Coastal Range, I made my call, belting out a full-throated Rodgers and Hammerstein chorus…
Because it’s June!
June—June—June—
Jest because it’s June—June—June!
I'll stay one night in the Sockeye Cycle bunkhouse in Skagway before taking the ferry to Haines for the start of our Golden Circle Tour with clients, glamping our way back up into the Yukon. I'm truly thrilled to be able to share the experience of cycling through this incredible land with others. Onwards!
