Cross Continent Superlatives

I've actually been off and on working on this for months, only never to finish. I figured that being snowed in is a good enough reason to complete my unfinished business.

These are the highlights and best of from my road trip to Alaska and back in July and August of 2009:

Best City:Madison, WI- University of Wisconsin, bike friendly, nice weather, scenic. Very nice people, good food, tasty beer. What's not to like?


Honorable Mention: Calgary, Saskatoon, Edmonton (below)


Best Town: Jasper, Alberta- near perfect town nestled in the splendor of the Canadian Rockies. Every turn is a postcard. You have glorious peaks, glaciers, sparkling rivers and picturesque lakes. Moose, bear, marmot, dall sheep and elk. Can't go wrong with Jasper, unless you don't like pretty stuff in nature.


Honorable Mention- Mineral Point, Wisconsin; Sitka, Alaska (below); Haines, Alaska


Best Campground (Public owned):Wasagaming - located in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba. Run by Parks Canada, it is large, but it has clean facilities, close to the town of Wasagaming and pretty Clear Lake.

Honorable Mention-
Gordon Howe Campground, Saskatoon is run by the city of Saskatoon and simple and nice. I stayed in overflow and was the nicest overflow camping that I have ever been pushed to. Plus, how can you not like a placed named after a Gordie Howe?

Juniper Campground, Teddy Roosevelt National Park (North Unit). Isolated, quiet on the banks of the Missouri River with the bison.

Best Campground (Private owned):Robert Service- close to Whitehorse, it is clean, efficient and full of fun people. I stayed there twice. Most vagabonds that venture through Yukon end up at Robert Service sometime.

Honorable Mention- Garden City Campground, Skagway- Okay, it really wasn't that nice, but the owner was accomodating and pleasant, the showers hot. Plus, Emily made some friends the morning we started riding who fed us donuts and coffee.

Favorite Hostel: HI Edmonton- Great location, awesome staff, nice people staying there.

Honorable Mention- Maligne Canyon Wilderness Hostel, Jasper - No running water or electricity. And where else would you get awaken by the proprietor shouting, "There's a bear outside, don't panic if you hear a lot of noise!" Then he goes outside and starts banging pots together.

Favorite Quote:
"Everything sounds better with 'Photograph' ". -Jim Rome.
I was listening to "Rome is Burning" on an Edmonton sports radio station and Rome was talking about how if you put Def Leppard's "Photograph" in the background, everything instantly sounds better. He proceded to do that with some of the show's worst call ins. It worked. See for yourself, play something terrible and put this in the back:



Honorble Mention:
"North Carolina! Did you get lost?" - Random motorcyclists looking at my tag at a gas station in the middle of nowhere on the Alaska Highway.
"You didn't come all this way to sit at a redlight" - Emily's friend, Glenn (below, with Emma), as he sped through a red light in Juneau. Glenn picked us up on our ferry layover to take us to lunch and for a quick tour of Alaska's capital city.


Best Beer: Alaskan Amber - Juneau's best export. I snuck two cases home. The Smoked Porter is delicious.

Honorable Mention:
6060 Stout by Jasper Brewing Company. Tasty, especially after a day of hiking and golf. Plus, the bartender kept offering free drinks to us sitting at the bar.
Amber Ale at Brewery Creek in Mineral Point, WI. They brew good drinks but also serves up good food there too.

Favorite Road:Haines Highway from Haines Junction, Yukon to Haines Alaska. It was the most scenic. You had Kluane National Park as your view. It wasn't bad.


Honorable Mention:
Stewart Highway from Stewart, BC to Yukon. Lonely and Isolated, which I deem perfect.

Canada HWY 16: one of the trans-Canada Highways. Between Winnipeg and Edmonton, it's tiny towns and seemingly never ending canola fields. Beyond the Rockies, it is isolated ranches and large expanses of space between scenic little towns.

Best Meal: Frosty Freeze, Haines Junction- I understand that leather would taste good after 101 miles on a bike, but the fries and shakes and Frosty Freeze were divine.

Honorable Mention:
33 Mile Restaurant, 33 miles out of Haines, Alaska- not really the best food, but a great meal because of circumstances (cold, wet, tired), company (Emma and Aaron) and timing.

Innisfree Cafe, Innisfree, Alberta- tried pyrogy for the first time and had great conversation with the owner, Grant (below).


Favorite Cafe: Sticky Buns- near Carcross, Yukon. This alone is almost reason enough to come to Yukon.


Honorable Mention: Highliner Coffee, Sitka. Good coffee, the staff was nice and they had wireless for me.

Favorite Hike: Skyline Trail, Jasper National Park - 44 km (about 27 miles), most of it above treeline. Experience alpine meadows, glacier fed lakes and spectacular views of the Canadian Rockies. Hang out with marmot and goats. Get your ass kicked climbing up to the "Notch" (below).


Honorable Mention:
Verstovia, Sitka- lots of climbing to gorgeous views of Baranof Island and Mt. Edgecumbe. Plus, I had nice company on the walk.


Favorite Structure: Trestle at Lethbridge, Alberta:


Honorable Mention:
High Bridge, Edmonton


Spillway and Dam, Fort Peck Lake, Montana


Provenchar Pedestrian Bridge, Winnipeg


Favorite Church: Christ Church, Whitehorse- nice sermon and the priest remembered my name after the service.

Honorable Mention- City Church, Edmonton

Things I miss: CBC- like Canadian NPR, the canola fields of central Canada, the freedom of being on the road.

Would I drive 4,000 miles to Alaska/Yukon through desolate roads and isolated communities again: In a heartbeat.

Across the Border

So I hate crossing the border. More specifically, I hate customs. I always feel violated by all the questions and random searching. I know that they are keeping our borders secure, but whether it's the international terminal at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, a big one like El Paso, Texas or Blaine, Washington or a simple outpost near Lancaster, Minnesota, the customs experience is always a hassle.



Stayed at the Hostelling International in Winnipeg. Okay place. Nice people. Decent location. I like Winnipeg for it's location on the "Forks" (where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet), the cool French neighborhood of Boniface (where I had a terrific Tunisian meal-- eggplant tajine), the murals all over the buildings downtown, the Fringe Arts Festival that was going on and the diversity of the city that includes Aboriginal, Middle Eastern, Asian, and East African.



I did not 'connect' with Winnipeg the way I did with other Canadian cities such as Calgary, Victoria and Vancouver. Winnipeg felt more like an American city than a Canadian city in some ways. A fellow hosteller described it best: "Winnipeg is edgy." Not that Winnipeg is a bad city, it really has some things to offer and it tries hard. While other cities are able to hide some of their rough edges, Winnipeg does that less well and has fewer shining spots. There's no Stephen Ave or Saddledome like Calgary, or Pacific Ocean and funkiness of Victoria or Stanley Park, Whistler and trendiness of Vancouver.

Also visited Riding Mountain National Park. Spent the night at the campground in Wasagaming. I wish I had more time at Riding Mountain. There are some nice trails that I didn't have time to explore. I also regret not playing golf on the golf course inside the park. But the town, though touristy, is nice and quaint with it's spectacular location on Clear Lake. It's a lot like the lake communities in upstate New York or Michigan, except that it's in a National Park.


I'm in Saskatoon. My first introduction to Saskatoon was in a magazine that said this town was thriving amidst the recession with jobs and growth. It's a cool town on the Sasketchewan River. Clean, lots of greenspace and a nice respite from the prairie. Plus, I got to experience "Taste of Saskatoon".



Quick Thoughts:

1) Why we are not on metric, I don't know. It only makes sense. How many feet are in a mile? A stupid number. How many meters are in a kilometer? 1000! I attribute this fact to the reason why we are lagging behind other countries in math and science.

2) It was 4 degrees this morning. That's about 40 Farenheit. Cold. The high in Winnipeg was close to 55. Apparently, the summer has been cold and wet. Bad for two reasons: farmers are not able to plant and the tourism industry (Winnipeg is located close to two massive lakes) is suffering.



















3) Central Canada has a large Ukrainian influence. From Dauphin, Manitoba all the way to Saskatoon, every little town, no matter how small, seemed to have an Orthodox church.



4) In the tiny town of Wynyard, I had lunch at a bakery/cafe. The ladies asked about my trip and I told them. They told me to be safe and responsible and that they would ask a prayer for me. When I saw them before I left, they told me I was safe now. I consider them to be angels.


5) Gas is killing me. I am paying 99 cents (CAD) per liter for gas. There are 3.8 liters in a gallon, meaning that I am paying about $3.80 (CAD) per gallon. The Canadian dollar is trading at .89 to the US dollar, so if I figure it right, I am paying about $4.40 USD/gallon for gas.

6) I must look French. Three times I stopped and the person helping me started speaking to me in French. Then I talked and they immediately switched to English. This was in Manitoba. Even the locals were surprised that conversations were initiated in French.

7) Why I love Canada: Manitoba has an area 649,947 square miles (twice the size of the United Kingdom). Population is 1.2 million. North Carolina 48,843 square miles and a population of 9.2 million. It's not just the vastness, it's the density too. Sure, we have our Wyomings, Montanas and Dakotas (and Alaska!!!), but Canada is an entire nation of this.

8) Why I love Canada II: "First Nations". Not "Indians". Not "Native Americans". The various aboriginal peoples of Canada are referred to as "First Nations", a term I find not only much more respectful to the people, but also more in tuned to history and the European influence on North America.

0) I wish I would/could have: gone to Churchill. See map above, it's one of Manitoba's northernmost towns. It's terribly expensive to get there, the mosquitoes are torrential and the ground is all boggy in summer. But you see the famous Hudson Bay, polar bears and close-up the effects of climate change. Another trip.