Dance of the Damned

This photograph, another “selfie” from the 2-month, 3600 kilometre Three Borders Tour, was made in a hole in the bush somewhere between 40 Mile Flats — a short stretch of the Stewart-Cassiar Highway in Northern British Columbia that can claim to be horizontal — and Bell II, another hole in the bush, now enlarged to fit a lodge.

Truth be told, I’m putting on a brave face for the camera. I’d spent the day battling ferocious headwinds, driving rain, and sleet. I was mildly hypothermic. Accordingly, this stop to fill my water bottles (wasn’t I absorbing enough H₂O through my goose bumps?) had to be kept short. But I shivered through the process of setting up the tripod, just so I’d remember I wuz there.

June 16, 1994
I very nearly came unstuck today.

Secret Agent Dave

After the rain in the night, the day dawned promisingly with some blue sky and sunshine that augured better things to come. It was all a sham. As I climbed up and down alongside Eddontenajon, Tatooga and Kinaskin Lakes, black and white clouds boiled around Mt. Edziza and adjacent peaks, showering rain. A brutal wind hurled itself down the valley into my face.

It was a plot hatched by the the evil anti-bicycle police who have seeded the clouds and planted bugs everywhere, especially in my eyes and up my nose. They know everything I think, so I must be careful …. I am even beginning to suspect Dave, my handlebar mascot, who has been looking at me strangely the last few days.

June 17, 1994
By the time I had climbed up to the pass at Burrage Creek it was bitterly cold. By now I had put on my fleece pullover under my wind jacket, my neoprene booties and my full-finger gloves. I could see my breath as I panted up another endless incline.

The Iskut burn likewise seemed interminable as I punched — or should I say wobbled — into the numbing wind, staring blankly, unimpressed by the cloud-wreathed peaks scarred with dirty avalanche debris.

A hundred creeks in spate passed under the road. I passed over them, counting off the kilometres, calculating my destination time at Bell II, over and over. “Being here now” meant only burning legs and freezing fingers. Just after Bob Quinn I stopped beside a motorhome, parked by a rough air strip, as driving sleet burned my face. Bob and Selma of Phoenix, Arizona treated me to hot chocolate and cookies inside the cozy RV.

Then it was on once more: climbing constantly along the Nigunsaw River to 466 metre Nigunsaw Summit, the divide between the drainages of the Stikine and Nass Rivers.