Day 5 Ride to Dawson City: Chill and Chat
I slept hard last night as the last four days’ schedule caught up with me for a solid 7 hours. I’m typically more around the 5 or 6 hr mark so this was welcomed.
Greg was already halfway out the door when I got up to say “see ya later and keep the rubber side down”. He had me come out to listen to his Tiger running after hearing a loud ticking coming from it when it reluctantly flashed up that morning.
Naturally, whenever a mechanic comes around everything seems to run fine and I honestly didn’t hear anything to worry about. His fluid levels were good and nothing seemed amiss. There wasn’t much more to be done short of starting to pull parts off the engine to inspect it and that’s not happening in the Days Inn parking lot with a handful of tools we have between us.
It’s possible the cool morning just had something to do with it, but his bike has seen plenty of hard miles on this and other trips so things could be wearing out too. I told him that he should probably just keep going to Alaska as planned, but if it starts getting worse or makes noises when warm it’s time to take action. Hopefully, it’s nothing doing, but time will tell.
Then I was alone in a puff of exhaust from the Triumph’s tailpipe.
I felt the urge to join him, but the Ninja isn’t built for a ride up the Dalton. I need to push on to Dawson City to rendezvous with Wade Bauck and a Honda Africa Twin.
While I loaded up my bike in the hotel parking lot a woman who had parked beside me and was getting in her car up struck up a conversation.
She and her dog were heading home to Montana after spending 3 weeks touring Alaska together. It’s amazing what people will share with you in the north quite casually and openly. Everyone seems your friend up here and looking to get away from the life they live down south.
She told me about how she was divorced, 65 years old and worked at WalMart in Great Falls now. She had asked for a month off work to go have a long-overdue adventure. I could tell the divorce had been a hard hill to climb for her and that she was one tough customer.
She and Fido had even slept in the car more than a few nights while on the road and couldn’t find anywhere to stay. Other times she had just gotten tired of driving before reaching a town. Good for her! Everyone mentally healthy needs to take on a challenge like this in life. Some do it in their 20s or 40s while for others like this lady it’s impressively done in their 60s.
She wished me well, and I the same to her before we parted ways.
Off I went to Lister’s Motosports which is the local Kawasaki dealership in Whitehorse. I needed to borrow something to measure my chain tension and maybe show off the H2SX SE to a staff I’m more than sure will never have one in their showroom.
I made sure to take the bike to the car wash and get rid of most of the filth first though. It also gave me the chance to inspect the damaged fairing. It turns out that it’s not quite as awful as I feared as you can see below. It’s still sickening, but I’ll get over it.
After borrowing a tape measure and finding chain tension right where it should be, one of the young salesmen came roaring out to take some photos of my bike for Instagram and the dealer website. He was super stoked to see an H2SX around there as I thought. He gushed about the features as I showed him what this bike is about. He currently owns a ZX12 but is trying to sell it to buy something newer. Told me no one buys sport bikes around these parts so he’ll have to let it go cheap.
They have a 2014 Ninja ZX10 in their showroom that is brand new and won’t sell! Even though it’s listed at their cost.
He asked me if I was in town for the Ride For Dad Rally going on. This is a fundraiser ride for prostate cancer research. I didn’t realize it was happening that day in Whitehorse (as it was in Calgary) so I went over for a look-see.
There were over a hundred bikes gathered for the run and after checking the route out I opted instead just to make a donation, have breakfast with them and chat with some of the locals. I’ve put enough miles on the last four days I think.
I spoke with one young man attending the event named Joyner Edmond. He had moved to Whitehorse from Manitoba and was working as an HR rep for the local Indigenous Government. It’s interesting that he is of Indian ethnicity himself and working for people here mistakenly named Indians originally.
He had his arm in a sling and told me about how he had recently been in an accident on his brand new Yamaha R1 a month ago and had to heal up before riding again. The bike was totaled, but he got away with just had an injured shoulder. ATGATT would possibly have prevented it according to him and he vowed to always wear everything going forward.
I went for a rip around Whitehorse to see what’s up with this town. It’s down in a valley surrounded by low mountains with turquoise or jade-green colored water flowing through and around it. The smell of burning wood is strong from all those heating their homes with wood stoves and the downtown area is full of old-style buildings from frontier times.
There’s an old Klondike paddlewheel boat on display down by the water that I went by as well. I didn’t feel like parking and going inside. I wanted to cruise around instead.
My wandering led out of town where I spotted a sign for Miles Canyon. I turned off the main road to explore this further. What a fun road that was! Really tight S curves the whole way up and then down to the lake again. It didn’t take long to cover the 5 km even while taking it slow because there was plenty of pea-gravel all over it.
The float planes docked along the way down there called out to me and I stopped to admire them. I’m not much for planes myself, but my Grandfather was as passionate about anything that flew as I am about anything two-wheeled with an engine powering it.
It made me remember him fondly and the times I spent learning how to work with my hands in his shop before he passed on several years ago. He spent a fair amount of time working in Northern Ontario during his life, but I’m not sure whether he ever made it up this far north.
By this point, it was getting close to 3 pm when I needed to check into my Airbnb host’s home. I’ve never used Airbnb before so this is yet another learning experience joining the growing list achieved on this ride. It’s pretty easy as it turns out using the app.
I chuckled to myself as I pulled up to the house located on… Elm Street! My host’s name isn’t Freddy Krueger at least, but a Korean woman named Snow Park, which is slightly humorous all the same in my immature head. I found myself wondering does she have a sister named Snow White? She’s very welcoming and my room is exactly what I need to get ready for the rest of this adventure. I totally recommend this place if you’re ever in Whitehorse.
So I’ve made myself at home and hung up my wet items to dry. Snow Park is being very helpful by washing my clothes and I’m kicking back the rest of the day.
I’m leaving for Dawson City tomorrow.
Wade Bauck from Dawson Adventure riding Expeditions contacted me and said they’d love to have me come up tomorrow so I can have a couple of days to take in the place and I’m totally open to that. Dawson City is a legendary place and I’m ready to greet it in all its greatness after what’s sure to be an interesting 568 km (362 miles).
Going to get some proper rest again and start early tomorrow. The end of the Ninja riding portion is in sight for the ride up. Soon I’ll be swinging a leg over a Honda Africa Twin to start phase 2 of this northern galavant and the run up the Dempster to Tuk.
I saw no animals today for the first time this trip… other than a dog.