With this in mind for ease of transport my Norco Quest bicycle was modified with two S&S couplers and bought a carrying case to go with a now break apart bicycle.
I caught the Borough bus as far as the Salcha store. The White Line there is a relatively new route on the Richardson Highway. But I wasn't traveling light. My bicycle case 26"x26"x10," was the lightest and least bulky, a disassembled B.O.B trailer and assorted gear in a very large duffel and another with food and more gear plus a day pack. I held up my sign with destination Whitehorse and four rides later I was there late in the day thanks to the kindness of strangers. I had a very enjoyable visit with Malkolmb Boothroyd, a young environmental activist, whom I had ridden with a year before from Chicago to Washington, DC. I am friends of the family. He's a take charge young man working on a campaign to set aside the Peel River watershed from mineral development. The public and First Nations people want it protected but the government supports development, an all too familiar circumstance where values clash.
I intended to catch a Greyhound Bus to Ft. Nelson the following day but at the terminal I was told the northbound bus had broken down and the next bus wasn't leaving until Monday. My friends in Ft. Nelson were leaving on Wednesday, I had learned, so it was back to the Highway and hold up a sign. It started to rain and still no ride. It didn't help that two people were trying to do the same thing within site of me. They were also stuck. They left under a steady rain. Shortly thereafter I caught a ride to Marsh Lake and accepted an offer to sleep out of the rain for the night on Ian McIntyre's shop floor. The next morning Ian drove me to a likely spot of the Highway and I alternately held up my sign, jogged back and forth to stay warm and uprooted invasive White Sweet Clover at road side. A couple of hours later an RV with a family from Minnesota stopped and I was south bound to Watson Lake. They were headed down the Cassiar Highway which turns off just short of there.
On my winter ride in '09 I had stayed with a Warm Showers (volunteer hosts for bicyclists) in Watson Lake and called ahead to see if there was room "in the inn." There was. Joe and Nicki Schmitz and four children had a sign to add to the many thousands at the Watson Lake sign forest in town. I got off there and Barry Drury picked me up. His wife Susan had left to pick up their son Jason and girl friend in Whitehorse. When they arrived back in Watson Lake, it was they, I learned, who were ahead of me on the road out of Whitehorse also trying to hitch a ride home.
The next AM Barry dropped me on the edge of town near the weigh station and 13 cars later I was south bound at a high rate of speed to Ft. Nelson. Kenny Gilmore a contractor from Deese Lake was kind enough to drop me at Liard Hot Springs for a quick soak while he ate lunch at the lodge on the other side of the Highway. The burger was greasy and expensive but the soup edible he angrily related when we were back on the road.
Even with construction of a new access platform and change facility the springs are wonderful and I was grateful of the opportunity. Had I travelled by bus I would have missed it. South of Coal River a small herd of bison was bedded down on the shoulder and grazing on grass in the road right-of-way
Mid-afternoon we arrived in Ft. Nelson and I connected with John Brucker and Vi Anderson. I had met John and his young family 46 years earlier in Nahanni Butte when I set out on my first long distance kayak trip in the north. I planned by route to at least pass by the "Dangerous River," the Nahanni described by Raymond Patterson in his book of the same title.
I'm in Ft. Nelson at this posting leaving 9/13, with John and Vi for Grand Prairie where his daughter lives. They are continuing on to Calgary where John will catch a plane to Europe. Vi will go to Vernon,BC to see her daughter. The plan of the moment for me is to start bicycling from there to Hinton via Grand Cache on the Big Horn Highway. A few miles north of Hinton is the Exchange Ranch and another friend to reconnect with from my winter trip.
The route beyond is less certain but the destination for the near term is a friend's place outside Denver, Colorado.
I regret you weren't with me to savor the brief peak I had at the lives and circumstances of the folks who cared for and helped me.
The Why of It
I suppose some might shake their heads in wonderment at someone riding a bicycle working to bring peace on earth and peace with the earth. But here's the thing, each of us has a larger purpose in coming to this life. And as I said to a group of high school students you can live an ordinary life revolving around yourself or you can live an extraordinary life dedicated to something larger than self. Perhaps it's less important that you ultimately succeed at the latter than having the courage to set out into the unknown in the first place. It's a choice. Once you've taken that first step all others that may become necessary down the road become just a little bit easier because you took that very first step.
But how do you know then if you've found yours? Does it expand you, put another way is there juice in it for you, does it give a sense of inner peace even though your outward circumstances may require changing?
The Universe exists to support you. It is one of the three principles of happiness according to Shimoff I've found true in my own life. This is not left brain logic show me the facts and proof beforehand way of perception but rather apprehended by right brain intuitive sense of things reinforced by first hand experience. In the end it is the willingness to proceed and overcome in the face of one's fears and the unknown trusting that events and life will unfold in a manner that work to the higher good.
In the way of the seeker you can avoid slamming the door in your face at the outset by aligning your life with universal values of honesty, integrity, courage, compassion, love and kindness. A large injection of humility and open mindedness are help aids in the process of discernment.
It's all too easy to look at the state of our world and outward circumstance and conclude it's hopeless. I wouldn't be on the road again if that were the case. Clearly there are formidable challenges not the least of which is climate change. But there is always more going on than meets the eye. We are a race awakening to an expanded view of who and what we are in relation to All That Is. We know things can change overnight and it will not take a majority to cause that shift. The problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of conscious (Einstein). This is what awakening is about and many have already made the journey or already arrived.
More about the Way of Peace and my understanding of it down to road. But in short it remains the Way of Love spoken of by spiritual masters through the ages.
Peace Rider
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