Step 2: Panic

So ups and downs. Ups and downs. That's what this is going to be about. I'm in Dawson City (yay?) my all-along, right-now goal. I got a ride here from a friendly Swiss named Christoff.

Christoff and I shared a hotel room. I'm not supposed to need a hotel room, because I'm going to be camping, but that will come, I swear.

Anyways, my first step here was to look for a job. Down-low on Dawson: 1200 residents en hiver, thousands, thousands more during the tourist summer. For many tourists, many minions are needed to provide hot towels, strawberry daiquiris, sausage rolls, and foot massages.

Or if you're me, you get hired in a general store stocking shelves. Which is aight, honestly. Plus it's a general store. Which is kinda exotic in a home-country kinda way right? Right? Anyways that's where I'm at, looking at some other stuff too, but I'm up in the air.

What reaaally is getting to me is the reason I need to stay in a hotel room. I shall explain.  Also, rule #1 of my life is that there will be segues and literary walks into nothingness. I swear it all ties in somehow
1) There are two ways to get to Dawson, three if you count the plane, which I'm not because anyone with a wallet anything like mine never counts the plane.

Route #1 goes through Alaska. Route #2 goes straight north, and is shorter. Christoff and I, who met in a hostel in Whitehorse, were leaning towards #1 because it would be longer, but prettier and then I could say I'd been to Alaska. Anyways that was our plan, until we realized something that (luckily) made us change our minds, but (unluckily) has me in a hotel room right now.










I know this makes no sense, but bare with me. Dawson owes its life, its love, its history and its future to this lucky lady, Kuigpak, Lewes, and most recently anointed heroine, the Yukon River. Wonderful, especially if you happened to be a down-on-your-luck 1898 gold miner, but more importantly, kinda a barrier.

Anyways, lacking a bridge Dawson relies on its ferry to shuttle people across, completing route #1 and also providing a handy way to get to some cool attractions.

Among those attractions? My camp site! Now I know all of you are burning up wondering where I'm going with this, so I'm going to draw your attention to this:

This is my town. At midnight. In other words, we are north. Very north.

And this is why it matters. The ice broke on the river just last week (and it snowed this morning) and the ferry isn't running yet. Soooo here I am. Paying good money when I carried my (heavy, absurdly heavy) life on my back.

Anyways, that's one thing.
The other might be bigger in the end. I'm sorta remembering all the things I don't like about small towns. I appreciate the wonder of everyone knowing everything, but that's a double-edged sword, and I'm not in the habit of grabbing those (insert inappropriate sexual comment here. Except don't. My mother reads this. Sicko)

Also I don't really have any friends here yet. I met some Germans in a Safeway parking lot in Thunder Bay who ended up following my advice and I re-met them again in Dawson. So we hung out, as did Christoff and I, but I'm pretty lonely. I've thought about packing up, and may yet do so, but for now I'm sticking it out. Today I cooked a sausage in a coffee machine because I got tired of eating vegetables and the General Stores complement of no-cook-necessary food. (read: bread and vegetables). I really want to get across, and I want to taste the amazing that was promised me.
Kisses, hugs and my ablutions

Colin

Step 1: Leave stable ground

There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land — oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back — and I will. 

  Robert W. Service, The Spell of the Yukon

I'm sitting in my hostel in Whitehorse, Yukon, after a day's worth of hiking and exploring. Successful besides one mud-puddle that I-swear-to-Sam-McGee snuck up on me.

 I had a bit of that familiar unfamiliar-place feeling yesterday for the first time. That feeling that sneaks up on you and grabs ahold of your heart and lungs, giving it a little squeeze before relinquishing its grasp and letting you sink back into comfort again. It just hit me that I was all alone, that I didn't really have a plan, and that there was no turning back, at least not yet.

I was landing in Whitehorse after an amazing first week away. Pulling into a wilderness so much more wild than anything I'd ever seen. Minden aint seen nothin' yet.

I got a ride up here with my lovely friends Paul and Ashley, camping out along the TransCanada Highway. We completed what I'm calling the HillBilly Trifecta. Night 1: Gravel Pit; Night 2: Church Lawn (I don't know how United Church fertilizes, but their grass was a dream to sleep on); Night 3: Farm/Truck Stop, complete with abandoned ice cream shop and broken bottles. Besides one memorable turn-around and some friendly Germans along the way, it was uneventful, beautiful and looonng.  Like really long. But I'm very glad I did it, even if my legs never uncramp again. Especially wonderful: Lake Superior and the Prairies by night, serenaded by Neil Young and the Tragically Hip.

We got to Calgary on Friday at 2:30, almost exactly 4 days from departure. I had an incredible weekend hanging out with my friend Nick, who I met at Explore in Trois-Rivières a couple years ago. From there I flew out to Whitehorse, in the land of the midnight sun.

Woolen Hat only slightly necessary. +9 with a wind

Anyways, pictures and more posts are to follow, although to expect them more than sporadically would certainly be a mistake.

All my love to all who want it,
Colin

PS. Got winked at by a cutie working at the grocery store. Who knew our kind hid out this far above the warm, bustling city ;)