North to Alaska, 5,000-plus miles

• By CAREY J. WILLIAMS
• Associated Press writer
• Published: May 4, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05am

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Tired of stressing about what your pale skin and flabby muscles are going to look like on the beach during your summer vacation?

Then do what I did. Trade in your shorts for a pair of long underwear, jump on your motorcycle and head north to Alaska.

For 15 days, traveling 5,133 miles, my dad Tom, my uncle Tim and I were covered head to toe in winter clothes — despite the fact that it was July — and only during the harshest of downpours did I wish we had started the trip with a left turn — to sunny California.

Instead we took a right-hand turn out of Spokane, Wash., with the goal of making it up to Alaska in six days, spending three more touring part of the state before returning home.

We crossed the Canadian border in the middle of Washington state, and spent the next two days riding north through lower British Columbia to reach Kitwanga, the town at the start of the Cassiar Highway.

This remote stretch of pavement, also called Highway 37, runs for 456 miles and joins the Alaska Highway in the Yukon Territory. The key term here is “stretches of pavement.” We were warned there was plenty of road work under way.

What we didn’t expect was for a major rainstorm to sweep through the area, making the conditions miserable.

During a second day of rain, there were discussions of turning around and heading home. But we pushed on.

My uncle Tim was riding a bright red Harley Davidson, with shiny chrome pipes and tassels hanging from the handlebars. It was clear it was never going to look the same after this trip.

For the most part, the only scenery we saw along the Cassiar were the bushes along the roadside. There were a couple of breaks in the weather, just long enough for us to gaze up at the Coast Mountains and realize what a beautiful area we had just gone through with our heads focused on the ground.

Tenting with mosquitoes

Once we hit the Alaska Highway, we headed east to a small town called Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, where we would camp among mosquitoes that almost carried our tents away.

The town is known for its Sign Post Forest, which is filled with over 50,000 pieces of metal in the form of license plates and street signs from all over the world. But I searched about a third of the area in 15 minutes and was unable to find evidence of my hometown, Spokane, Wash.