Can’t you hear the Wild? – it’s calling you. Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us; Let us journey to a lonely land I know. Let us whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us, And the Wild is calling, calling…let us go. -Robert Service Where the Mountains Have No Name

Story and Photos by Aaron Teasdale In the far, far north, where the wilder- This description appealed to me greatly. northwest to the border of the Northwest size of dinner plates. We’d gotten a late ness is vast and the hand of man is light, a I moved from the urban confines of Territories, a 285-mile earthen ribbon start that morning, and by the time we set dirt road wanders off from the Alaska Minneapolis to Montana, the place with the through some of the most scenic, untamed up camp on an open ledge over the road and Highway and carves a pathway into the hin- wildest country I could find, for those very country in North America. cook dinner, it’s 11:30 at night, which, terlands. A sign here reads, “Caution: nar- things. Yet here was a place that promised We never do see a grizzly bear that first given that it’s still light out, doesn’t feel all row, winding, wilderness road. No services the sweet rewards of wild nature on an even day, but as we climb into the mountains, that strange. next 232 kilometers.” On August 1st, 2005, greater scale — a kind of uber-Montana. griz tracks running on the road’s edge con- “What are we, Spaniards?” Ron asks three cyclists at the beginning of their jour- The challenge, of course, with a place like firm that we haven’t missed it by much. about our European dinner hour. ney take pictures of each other in heroic this is finding a long-distance mountain bike Flaming red explosions of fireweed line the Our perch overlooks a sprawling, poses beneath this sign. At that very route, but as soon as I heard about the Canol road like fireworks of welcome as we ride bowl-like valley, its forest of shadowy-green moment, a battered sedan comes speeding Road, I knew I’d found my ride. Starting in deeper and deeper into a boreal forest of subalpine fir rising to verdant meadows and down the dirt road, slowing just enough as it the lake country of southern Yukon, it runs aspen, black spruce, and mushrooms the bald, snow-patched mountaintops. Treeline passes for the driver to call out, “Hey! comes quickly this far north, and at 4,000 There’s a big grizzly up the hill.” feet our camp is only a couple hundred feet “Are you serious?” blurts Ron, one of below the treeless alpine. Caribou tracks the cyclists, in the disbelieving tone of some- lead through our campsite and huge one who is only hours removed from the mounds of grizzly scat litter the road below. suburban confines of New Jersey. But the Nowhere is there any sign of human activi- car speeds away onto the Alaska Highway ty except for the dirt road that delivered us. without another word. “Well, we made it,” I say quietly, as Ron looks at my Dad and I. We look up the prolonged dusk of the northern night the dirt road that climbs and turns out of settles over the forest and mountains. sight. “We’re in the Yukon.” “Let’s hurry up so we can see it!” I say. Dad and I both have longstanding love “Where’s my pepper spray?” Dad says, affairs with mountains and wild country. and starts rummaging through his pack. He started taking me backpacking in Ron does the same. The bear is a good real- Montana when I was ten, and we’ve taken ity check for us. We’re not in New Jersey, backcountry trips together nearly every Minnesota, or even Montana any more. summer since. His best friend Ron has We’re in the Yukon, and it’s time to make often joined us in the years since Dad first sure the pepper spray is close at hand. took him backpacking in the 1970s. Born As each of us figures out our own and raised in Brooklyn and now living in method for securing the pressurized cans of New Jersey, he’s come to love the moun- high-powered critter-repellent within easy tains too. Last year we took our first trip reach, a red fox — way larger than any red biking instead of backpacking, where Ron fox I’ve ever seen — trots across the road. overcame his total lack of cycling experience “Was that a wolf?” Ron says. and we had a glorious mountain-bike tour And so begins our journey into the in the mountains of British Columbia. After Yukon wilds. that success, I thought we were ready for Sharing a common border with Alaska, something more adventurous. We were Cottony Camp. Blooming cottongrass carpets roadsides and campsites along the Canol. its more heavily-traveled sibling, the Yukon is defined by its wildness. A full eighty-per- cent of its land is wilderness, and the rest isn’t far off. Consider that it is larger than California, but with a population of only 33,000 people — 24,000 of whom live in the capital city of Whitehorse. Befitting its frontier character, it’s not even a proper Canadian province but rather a territory, which struck me as having a rugged, roman- tic ring to it. As one longtime Yukoner described it to me, “the Yukon is all lakes, rivers, and mountains.” Giant steps. Fresh grizzly tracks have a way of commanding attention. Note claw marks.

12 ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2006 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2006 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 13 ALASKA North Canol Rd. Carmacks Nuts & Bolts: Riding the Canol l Ross South River Getting There: AirNorth Maps: Mac’s Fireweed Books: YUKON Canol Rd. l (www.flyairnorth.com), Yukon’s (800) 661-0508, www.yukon Whitehorse NORTHWEST airline, offers connecting books.com. Located in down- TERRITORIES l flights from Vancouver and town Whitehorse, it has a com- Calgary to Whitehorse and plete collection of Yukon topo- Alaska offers friendly, professional graphic maps available in- BRITISH Highway Watson Lakel service. For getting to the store and on their website. COLUMBIA start of the Canol from Map Town (www.maptown. ALBERTA Whitehorse, contact Kanoe com) is another good source MANITOBA People: (867) 668-4899, for Yukon maps. For the South www.kanoepeople.com/sales. Canol we used the Quiet Lake SASKATCHEWAN USA ONTARIO html#3 or UpNorth: (867) 105F and Teslin 105C maps. 667-7035, www.upnorth.yk.ca. Guided Trips: Skagway, Co: (877) 292-4154, cyclist with camping gear Bikes: Bike rental options in Alaska-based Sockeye Cycle www.cyclealaska.com. Leads a could ride the South Canol in Whitehorse are limited — ten-day, van-supported trip five days. But what’s the you’re best bet is Kanoe over the South and North hurry? You could easily spend People, where you can rent Canol from August two weeks exploring every- 25–September 3. They also thing here. The North Canol is Backcountry byway. Harold Teasdale threads his way though one wild mountainscape after another on the Canol Road. serviceable Kona hardtails. (Check over your bike thor- rent bikes, panniers, camping less-traveled and even more oughly before leaving). You gear, etc. remote than the South; the ready for the Yukon. moral dimension to the age-old man versus ect of the United States Army to access oil- drive-able portion ends just The morning finds us descending from mosquito struggle. “At least that’s the way I fields deep in the Northwest Territories. can also rent bikes and gear from Sockeye Cycle (see Tourism Information: beyond the Northwest the mountains into a broad, sylvan valley see it.” The road and accompanying oil pipeline Guided Trips below). Tourism Yukon: Territories’ border. In the NWT, rich with crystalline creeks, deep-blue lakes, On the afternoon of our third day, the (“Canol” is short for “Canada Oil”) fol- www.touryukon.com. Has a the Canol Heritage Trail is and the largest, most bloodthirsty mosqui- forest opens to reveal Quiet Lake, a twenty- lowed native First Nation travel paths and Shops: Phillipe’s Bicycle helpful website and visitor’s unmaintained and rough, with toes the world has ever known. For the next mile-long valley of water ringed by blue were monumentally difficult and, at a cost of Repair: (867) 633-5600, 508 center in Whitehorse. many river crossings. It’s two days, we pedal through deep forest mountains. The riding has been unrelent- $134 million, expensive to carve out of the Wood St. rumored to be somewhat bike- under overcast skies, the trees only occa- ingly hilly all trip — the lakes are practically wilderness. They proved equally difficult to Icycle Sport: (867) 668-7559, About the Canol: Stout tour- able for one hundred miles or sionally parting to glimpses of high peaks or the first flat places we’ve seen — and we’re maintain, especially in the Northwest www.icyclesport.com. ing bikes are possible (knobby so, before the rivers crossings the serpentine Nisutlin River. happy to flop down on the pebbly shoreline. Territories where annual spring floods had a tires are a must), but the become too severe to attempt “I don’t know why I derive such pleas- A formal campground behind us hosts a few habit of carrying away the road’s many Canol is best enjoyed from a with a bike. mountain bike. The average fit ure from killing mosquitoes,” Dad says, dusty pickups. We’ve seen about ten cars a bridges. The pipeline was removed and the while vigorously slapping his arms one after- day, mainly locals in well-used trucks driving road abandoned at the end of the war, after noon. in to camp and fish. only two years of use. “Because they’re evil and you’re on the Now a lightly-used recreation corridor, Today, the Yukon divides its stretch of (in the Northwest Territories the road is site if we could?” Sure, it’s sacrilegious, but sweeps up mountainside after mountainside. side of good,” Ron replies from inside his the Canol Road was born in World War II the Canol into north and south sections and not maintained and is known as the Canol the climbing is spanking us too. Dad and I Cool and overcast with sporadic rainshow- head-and-helmet-covering bug net, adding a as an ambitious (many say foolhardy) proj- keeps them in remarkably good condition Heritage Trail). Our plan is to ride the 125- agree we’d do it. ers, a ragged blanket of low clouds conceals mile South Canol, which looked eminently “Ohhhh, my butt hurts!” cries Ron the most distant peaks. The sole sign of reasonable when the map was spread out on while getting on his bike the next morning. humanity is the Canol, its meandering path my living room floor. I’d even hoped to “I’m trying to shift from cheek to cheek, but visible in the distance cutting a sinuous sliv- explore a side road or two. But I’d complete- it doesn’t help.” er through the boreal carpet. It’s as if the last ly underestimated the savage hilliness of the Nor does it help when the riding day four days have been a prelude to this road, and at our current rate we’ll be lucky begins with the most crushing climb of the moment, to this ridge, and we’re all awed by to make it to the town of Ross River, the offi- trip. We’re all reduced to pushing our bikes the sheer magnitude of the landscape. cial end of the South Canol, in time for our and Ron, who somehow seems to attract Plunging down the descent, we let grav- arranged pickup. twice the number of mosquitoes as Dad and ity pull us into rolling blurs and I’m filled Fortunately, Ron, who is running out I, goes back in the head net. When the climb with a sense of giddiness — both because of steam on the climbs, has been formulating tops out on a low ridge above Quiet Lake, all blurring down dirt roads is really fun and a strategy. Over dinner that night he asks suffering is forgotten as we marvel at the because I can’t get over the fact that we Dad and I, “Would you guys throw your new world opening before us. could walk east or west for a hundred miles bags in the back of a truck, along with me Everywhere are rivers, sprawling mead- without coming to another road, or even a and my bike, and ride to meet me at a camp- ows, and a dark mat of boreal forest that trail. Head north and there’s 500 miles of

14 ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2006 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2006 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 15 wilderness, and only one dirt road, between enthusiasm that he promptly topples over insignia on the door and a driver with a han- Or had it heard us coming and lumbered off us and the Arctic Sea. onto his back in the middle of the road, his dlebar mustache and a black bandana the road? Could it hear us now? Then, down in the valley bottom, we hand frantically motioning in the air for the wrapped tightly around his head who would At this thought, we all start hollering, hear a truck, the first of the day. At the driver to stop. look right at home in a Hell’s Angels rally. just to clear up any sliver of ambiguity on the sound of its approaching rumble, Ron, who The orange pickup does stop (which is Would he mind carrying Ron, Ron’s bear’s part and to let it know that, yes, we are is still getting the hang of clipless pedals, good, since it’s either that or run Ron over). bike, and our bags up the road thirty miles or here. I point out that if we’d been early risers, whips his head around with such speed and We see a Yukon Highway Department so to our campsite? There is a pregnant we might have met this bear on the road. pause while the driver considers this, before “So you’re saying we’re on a good sched- he nonchalantly shrugs, “Sure.” ule then,” Ron says. Ron instantly springs into action, load- If there was any doubt about our prox- ing his bike and trailer in the back of the imity to large, carnivorous beasts on this trip, truck. Dad and I bid them farewell and then it’s been erased now. Seeing the tracks infus- ride for hours through a landscape that’s es the air with electricity — our senses are equal parts Switzerland and Alaska. Our dirt heightened, our eyes and ears alert. Then we artery weaves back and forth across the Rose come upon a pile of bear scat so huge and so River as it climbs into a cluster of tightly towering that it can only be the work of a packed mountains filled with whitewater truly monstrous colon. creeks and sawtooth summits. When we “Just think of the hole you’d have to dig pause for a snack, Dad, with a distant look in for that,” Ron says, referring to our back- his eye, says, “It’s great to be in a place country practice of burying our own, er, piles. where no one has gotten around to naming Then a branch snaps in the brush on the the mountains.” roadside. If, as some suggest, naming a mountain “Did you hear that?” I say. somehow diminishes its stature and stunts “Yeah,” Ron answers quickly. “It was its wildness, then many of the mountains in nothing.” the Yukon are still raw and wild, possessing “What, the branch just snapped on its all of their original dignity, grace, and might. own?” Sure, here and there a peak has been titled, “Yeah, it happens all the time,” Ron but most are nameless. And why wouldn’t replies with an unconvincing casualness. they be? Naming all of the mountains here “Trees fall. Branches break.” Then, after a would be like trying to name all the trees in pause he adds, “It could’ve been a squirrel.” a forest. Some people might call this wishful “I was wondering when you guys were thinking, or even denial, but not wanting to going to show up,” Ron says, putting down derail Ron’s valiant effort to allay his carnivo- his book as we finally roll up to the shore of raphobia, I stay quiet. And keep listening for Rose Lake and our campsite. We’re just in more snapping branches. time to duck into the tent and pass out dur- The road leads us further and further ing a two-hour rainstorm. After five days of back into the nameless mountains, its surface hard riding we’re tired, but thanks to the riddled with moose tracks, wolf scat, and extra ground we covered today, there’s time fresh bear diggings from the morning’s trav- for an exploratory day-ride in the morning. eler. There are only a handful of side roads “It’s like being in a giant zoo,” Dad says. that spur from the Canol into the mountains “Except there aren’t any cages.” beyond and one of the most promising fol- Entirely too soon, the time comes to lows Upper Sheep Creek. After rolling out of head back to camp, but before we do, we the tent at a decidedly unambitious hour the pause to marvel at the unruly majesty sur- next morning, we start pedaling up it. It rounding us. Never have I seen a land so pris- doesn’t take long to realize that sleeping in tine on such a scale, its vastness nearly was a good thing in more ways than one. A incomprehensible. This is our furthest reach short ways up the doubletrack we find the into the back of beyond, our deepest explo- largest grizzly bear tracks I’ve ever seen — ration into the world poet Robert Service and they’re unnervingly fresh. We stop to described as the “land where the mountains marvel over them, speaking in hushed tones. are nameless, and the rivers all run God Making the leap. Hopping side-channels to an island campsite on the Lapie River. Had it come through an hour or two before? knows where.” The effect is humbling and

16 ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2006 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2006 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 17 exhilarating at the same time. It’s also a milk-white carpet around our tent site, quite window into the past, as Dad reminds us possibly the finest tent site in all of the when he says, “Imagine when the whole Yukon. I add my own tracks to the moose West was like this.” and wolf prints in the sand while gathering Back at Rose Lake that night, cooking river-smoothed wood for a fire, just another over the campstove and watching an arctic species passing through the wilds. tern fly laps around the water, I take out We stay up late talking around the fire, my binoculars and begin glassing the no one quite ready for the trip to end. I want mountainside across the lake. It’s one of nothing more than to keep pedaling, explor- the few times in our trip when the clouds ing, and slicing through clear mountain air part and the steep, alpine tundra slopes are with the grandeur of the Yukon rising up on bathed in golden light. all sides. Though it’s only been a week, the It only takes about thirty seconds Yukon has already cast its spell on me. With before I call out, “Griz! Huge griz!” wilderness on a scale beyond my knowing, There, high on the mountainside, it’s helped restore my hope for this paved- rooting around on an open slope, is a behe- over world. If it’s true, as I’ve long suspected, moth golden-brown bear. We quickly pass that there’s something inherent in the the binoculars around. It’s Ron’s first griz- power of wilderness that elevates the spirit of zly sighting and he seems comfortable with man, then the Yukon is our spirit’s paradise the distance. “How do you even know it’s and to ride here is to rejuvenate the soul. Its a bear,” he says, while looking through the landscape — so vast and untamed and binoculars at the distant animal. “It could whole — is the wild, beating heart of our be a cow for all I can tell.” planet. Minutes later I spot a half-dozen wood- Sitting on that gravel-bar in the middle land caribou grazing higher up the moun- of the Lapie River, the only sounds are the tain, not far from the griz, but neither seem- rushing of water and the crackle of burning ingly aware of each other’s presence. As the driftwood. The paved-over world beyond the sun slips behind the mountains, I wonder Yukon has ceased to exist. There are only about the other wildlife we’ve unknowingly rivers, mountains, wilderness without end, passed or camped below on this trip. You’re and the three of us sitting contentedly probably always in site of something up around the campfire, watching the flames here, I figure, if you just look hard enough. licking at the slowly darkening Yukon As dusk settles over the mountains, night. “Then I grabbed the bear’s neck.” Heroic tales are recounted at the last night’s campfire. we realize we’ve seen no other people today and sit back in our campsite feeling There are three guys on mountain bikes Determined to find a special campsite Currently based in Missoula, Montana, Aaron Teasdale like the only three souls in the Yukon. Just who would beg to differ with that assess- for our last night, we hoist the bags from our plans to someday move his family to a cabin in the us and the tern, grizzly, and caribou. ment. Sure, $134 million might be a smidge trailers and hop across shallow rivulets to a woods and is keeping an eagle eye on Yukon real estate The next morning dawns magically as expensive for a nice path through the woods, gravel-bar island on the Lapie River. listings. Besides being Deputy Editor of this publication, we stumble out of the tent to find a family but the end result is today one of the finest Blooming cottongrass (a permafrost plant he is also Photo Editor for Outside Missoula maga- of four loons swimming by only a few feet mountain bike tours in North America. with a cottony flower) spreads a luxuriant zine. from the lakeshore. The road that day unfurls with its own magic — and, thank- fully, no big climbs or hordes of mosqui- toes — as it curls and twists through an undulating valley bottom dotted with a necklace of clear, subalpine lakes, each one dotted with emerald islets and stadium- sized beaver lodges. This road, so sublime to ride, was considered a massive boondoggle in its day, with Robert Patterson, Under Secretary of War (perhaps bitter about his less-than-cheery job title) describing it as “useless and a waste of public funds.”

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