So if you are following along, just find Alaska on a map and look at the right hand edge of the state. It is a straight North|South line that looks pretty artificial to me.  It couldn't have grown like that.  Anyway, about half way up you can see Dawson City on the Canadian side. I haven’t made it there yet. I’m putting along with about twenty miles to go and I get to, as Johnny Carson says, the fork in the road. Pause with me awhile, I need some advice.

That intersection is the South terminus of the Dempster highway. I pull up at the gas station, but with all I have on my mind, I just idle through the parking lot but do not stop. So I get a few stares. I roll slowly up the road to the left just to take a look. There are some signs, and a goofy looking bridge, but I stop before I get to it and walk around. I get an uneasy feeling and make a U-turn back to the gas station. Why am I so uncertain? This is why I came up here after all, and I’m a big tough biker with a Harley. Well hell, I’ll tell you why.

First of all, I took a good look at what they call the "gravel" surface of the road. Imagine some flint arrowheads that have been smashed up with a hammer. Or, if you have roamed Glass Mountain in California, you will recall the chunky obsidian that glitters there. All the pieces have razor sharp edges. My big ol’ bike doesn’t have a spare tire.

Secondly, one of those signs says the next gas is 230 miles. Not bad in a big vehicle, but my tank is 3.3 gallons and my normal driving in mountains gets me about 50+ mpg. That will run dry at 165 miles including my reserve. Who’s idea was this? I actually have a red plastic gas can strapped to my duffel bag. That 2 ½ gallons more makes my range out to be about 290, but that is still tight, since I have no idea what my mileage is for long sections of loose gravel.

Third, my Milepost guidebook and all the people I’ve spoken with say this is desolate country. There is nobody around and the road can wash out completely, forcing you to double back.  Remember old Dave?  He lived up here and worked on the pipeline.  He said it happened all the time.  So what if it happens at about 200 miles up the road?  Think about it.  Getting back to desolate, if you break down, the tow truck needs $5.00/mile to come and get you. Then they charge for services, and more if they actually tow you back.

Lastly, the warning signs for bear are really insistent. Now, some of you may know I’m a pretty good shot with my .450 Casull magnum, but I left it home, all five cartridges in the cylinder. So what do I do, zip the door real tight on my tent?

I brood about all of this in the warm sun (it’s  always sunny) and go back to the junction to think some more. Now the guy  who operates this outpost is a character. He runs all the time, I never saw  him walk at all. When he finally stopped to talk with me, my fears were  moderated a little. He offered me this huge 7 ½ gal. red plastic can,  but I said it was too big to carry. Then he said "don’t worry -   The trucks will ALWAYS stop for a stranded person, and they always have radios."   The worst horror stories are the ones about the renegade truckers who violate  this rule.  They DO strange things to retaliate up here...   He told me I shouldn't ever call the tow truck anyway, just call him. He knows all the kids around - with pickup trucks; and they would be glad to throw me and my bike in the back in exchange for some beer. The worst thing that might happen is they would go fishing instead of taking me right back home. That’s better, I decide, and mount up to go. I drip every drop that will fit in both tanks, and promise to visit on the way back. He says he’s sure of it, because when you go up there, there is only one way to get back out and its right through here. He knows I’ll be short on gas! Everybody is a comedian [and it's my job to give them straight lines].

So, come on with me on the back.  Your butt is sore, you have no clue what's going to be on the other side of this rickety one-lane wood plank bridge, and the whole herd of griz are just over the next rise.  Hey, if you don't fuck up, you're not trying hard enough.  Let's go!

The weather is fairly cool, and that's good because this gas I am now fascinated with is just regular, and my kickass high performance Gnarly Davidson air cooled stock Evolution engine is usually fed the best of the premium.  One of these days, ask me how I prepared my old '66 Sportster.  It had the "P" cams, then known as street racing cams, high compression flow-bench heads, and sorta straight pipes fed by a custom Weber side draft.  That carb only stayed on for about three days, after one trip, but that is a long story.  Then, I told old Harry Molenaar to make it run on any crud-goofy gas I might find in Europe, for like a year with no access to his racing mechanic.  Go ahead, just ask me.  Remember, you old farts, that was a kick-start, so the story does go on.  Right now, we just have the platinum tip plugs to decide to not-knock.

Each one of the road rocks are taking a slice of our rubber.  You, with your big butt on the back, are not doing much good on my new cool back tire {if I lost about 130 pounds, the effect would be the same as not carrying you} and so that's another reason to reduce speed.  Nah, I'm just puttin you on.  The real reason to go slow is:  the more time you spend at about 1950 / 2250 rpm (I figure) uses the best of my thermal efficiency range on this engine.  I'm more worried about running out of gas than blowing out a tire, so don't worry, I won't abandon you to the griz lunch-bar, trust me. Pay attention, mikey, and don't lug down pulling the grades, you can drop a gear but just keep the speed smooth and steady...

We start by just following the North Klondike River valley.  Seem simple enough for a new kid.  Then, the road climbs rapidly.  The country is open, the air is as crackling crisp as any old air cleaner would want, and life is good.  We stay in the lower gears, yup I know it costs gas mileage, but the curves are tight and the game is frequent.  Not the really big stuff, but enough 'scamperers' to keep me nervous about what might be chasing them.  Within an hour, the fog and mist starts closing in, so you don't have any spectacular pictures here.  Visibility drops to where I am slowing down just because I can't see how the next curve tightens or just feathers out.  When I get surprised, I'm sure you can feel the back settle in a squat when I dig the throttle to drift the back through the rocks instead of playing on the high-side...  OK, I'm making you {and me} nervous so I'll slow down even more.  Wimp.  There is a place a few miles in that does a lot of bragging that these mountains have seen glaciers sometime since the world was formed.  Now, I'm old, but you get the idea that most of the countryside has-not seen a glacier, so if you can claim one, you're cool, no pun intended.

The ruts are here, I didn't plan on this...  Hey; it's the middle of the tourist season, where are the road graders to smooth this stuff out?  Um, wait a minute, it has been quite a long time and there has been not one other vehicle on this road.  Where are these big, regular, friendly truckers I was sure would rescue me if I was hanging by a twig on the canyon side of the drop-off?  The Klondike {cold} river crosses my driving line several times.  Oh sure, now, as we play nice with tributary streams and cricks, we enjoy mud bogs right through the road.  I hate to admit, the rocky stuff is better traction than this sinking snot-sliding glue that makes us keep up a minimum of  'too-much' speed to be relaxed.  Too much?  Hell, we haven't seen 40 mph for so long I forget about the apparent wind [oops, I fell into a sailing term, sorry].  Hey, fine now, we are getting above the tree line and the ground is stable and seems to be well drained.  We can cruise up here easily, the air gets in the cooling fins, the jacket is open, and the traction is as reliable as Pikes' Peak in the '60s.  Pretty cool, huh?

Hoop? What's this, we're going back down and the whole cycle starts again.  Who delt this mess?  This time, again but not to remind you, we are now going downhill, curvy and bad traction, in the rain with poor visibility.  Now I know I should have stocked up on tequila.  This is nervous.  What happens is we work through the valleys, then climbing up the far side is fun because you get to use power [a shaddup about the gas] to get around the slippery corners.  Up and down.  The greenest places are where some huge fire burn is just growing back fresh.  So, I can't count.  After a few of these we get to the Summit, 4,265 feet - which doesn't sound like much but it does provide a break in the weather.  I'm already getting used to this, and we have only come about 50-60 miles since we started on the old Dempster Dumpster.

Sun, actual dust again, and birds are in abundance.  Why are the ravens so huge?  I think it is radiation.  What the hell is that?  I snapshot the image in my tiny digital memory, for later it is identified as a Peregrine.  My God, where am I?  The impact of the change is with me to this day, a year later, and the thrill is as good as almost any on the trip.  You gotta try this stuff!  Now, we are on the up-and-downs, the foxes and mooses are just posing in their comfort, not really caring what I do or if there is a baffle in my tailpipe.  I see my first truck, blasting along like some video rental about Australian land trains, but when he sees me he squeezes over on his side as much as humanly possible, and waves to the goofy biker hugging the right berm.  Holy shit, a caribou is sitting there looking stupid, and as I am convincing myself that this is the archtypical image of the day, here comes some kind of an F15 fighter-bird.  Do you realize how big a gyrfalcon is?  We are doing about 35 and he passes us from the back to the front on the right side like we are a dried up mudhole.  He makes another pass and I figure, even with my helmet on, he is defending some choice territory and will knock me down if he can.

This cannot be appreciated by anyone in a vehicle with a roof.  The bird zooms around like he might attack, and his flight track takes up all of the sky in the whole hemisphere above the ground.  So I'm put-putting and doing so much neck-swivelling I almost crash.  Are you comfortable back in the back seat?  I slide to a stop, whip out the big 200mm bird shooter, and by the time I get the lens cap off the skies are clear out to the horizon.  I cannot even tell you which direction he chose to disappear into.  We gotta go back.

I collect my amazement and regain my concentration.  This was the first, big bird experience and it was like Star-Wars the first time you saw it.  I twist the noise thing and move off down the road.  Actually I didn't go far, I stopped the bike and took a break, wishing the fighter-boy would come back, and having my camera all unhorsed and ready.  Not to be.  Catch you later.   Oh by the way, to my brother Rick (he's a trained observer), I didn't bring the bird-book, I asked the lady at the interpretive center and we picked it off of the drawings she has up there.

After a leisurely snack, I motor on to a little creek and wash my dirty face.  Just a bit down past that, I take a contemplative half-snooze propped up on a rock about 100 feet off the road.  The only sound is a steady breeze.  Not one car or truck from horizon to horizon; nothing.  The air is clear, and so is my head.  Here now comes a new bird, lyrical and mythical and otherworldly.  Am I dreaming?  I couldn't have seen something like that gliding by.  The breeze is left-to-right for me and what I later identified is a long-tailed jaeger is pulsing by, slowed by his headwind so I get a good look.  I figure this is a moment I wouldn't trade, for I can't imagine what's maybe better. ----  Oh my, come on.  We gotta do some more, and if we leave it now, it will be smooth in the memory and nothing will intrude to push it around.  OK, we got it.  Onward.  No, sorry, I can't describe it better than that.  You had to be there.

Somehow we are now following the Blackstone river.  Just as nice.  The ups and downs continue.  I see a pickup by the side of the road, and a guy sitting on the tailgate.  I ask how is his trip going, and he says fine, he and his buddy are looking for butterflies.  Now, I may have given my innocence away with my look of incredulity.  This is only the second motor vehicle I saw on the Dempster.  It, unlike the highballing trucker, is stopped.  Why am I surprised, when he starts up with butterflies?  Not only that, he starts connecting his butterfly story with the ice age and glaciers and tundra.  It's too much, my head is spinning.  I cannot remember much, but it seems a million tons of ice can kill a butterfly, so if the glacier doesn't blast through at full glacial velocity, the butterflies don't have to race out of the way, and can continue breeding amongst themselves.  They ought to make a movie.  No, fool, I still have no tequila, I am not making this up.  He does offer me some tea, and when I ask where his partner is, with a twitch of his eyes he says "out there" and he might be back today or tomorrow.  Now, If you were me and had seen too many of the wrong kind of movies, what would you think?  Be honest now.  He goes on to observe my traveling mode and asks whether I have made room reservations at the Eagle Plains Hotel, just up the road.  I say no.  He says "but where will you sleep?  Do you want go like under my truck?"  I say no, if it rains I will just use the little teeny tent I brought along.  He says "No, rain is nothing, these are grizzly hills!"  Before I finished one cup of tea, he had me in a full anxiety attack.  The stories were full of arm-pointings and started like - "Not too many years ago, just over there, a couple of ... "   and so on.  I was sure Judy would get most of the bike back, but with tooth marks in the engine and claw ripped tires.  They would never even find my elbow.  I bet it's going to hurt, too.

My psyche is rattled.  Judy is going to be pissed.  I rumble on in a quandary.  You still with me?  Ups are more than downs, and we start mostly following the tops of these rolling ridges.  Clouds and little squall fronts march by in full view, since the country is open and the road stays on high ground.  It is not too cold, but the wet cycles are enough to make me keep my rainsuit on, if not all zipped up.  I wonder how to not get a grizzly on the outside of me.  See how it goes?  But then I think.  I have been seeing the scare-signs [I thought for the tourists, not me] warning about bears for hundreds of miles now.  Where the hell are they?  The baddest thing was that moose, don't remind me, and from what I've read moose are just a big lunch for the average griz.  That moose didn't look scared, he looked like he owned the joint.  Where are these big bad bears?  Hell, it's probably just a rumor.  I can look bad too, I bet.  So this nice looking building and grounds, well kept, comes into view.  I am ready for a stretch, and pull in.

I'm quietly looking at the exhibits.  This ranger comes out and says 'Hello'.  I observe that I've been on the road a few days, reading about the big bears, and wonder if there are any in these parts.  She says, just like it was nothing, "want to see one?"  Wow. You bet (she is carrying a gun).   She says it will be a little walk, over there, and she points her arm up just like the butterfly guy did!   Have you seen the movie where the traveler is trapped by this old loony and she breaks his knees?  I'm already committed.  I take off my rainsuit, leave my leather jacket and chaps drooped over the bike, and follow her across the road and through this tall, dry grass.   I didn't even wear my helmet.

I'm just carrying the camera with the 80-200mm zoom.  I have my cool canvas hat on because the sun is really intense and the temperature is actually hot.  The sun is behind us and the little air is coming up in our face.  Do you remember where we are?  This is weird.  We go over one long, gentle rise and as we top it out, there is another like it just again.  She is walking slow, so I can keep up without too much gasping for air.  We go down and up, and then, just by a hand gesture, she stops me and points ahead.  About 350 yards, ambling slowly from right to left, is the biggest bear in the world.  He is glowing straw/tan, and has a light sort of gray frosting on his back and neck.  This is a big grizzly.  I aim the 200mm and he is just a gnat in the split image focusser.  I start to stalk up, and she says just "no -  this is close enough".  I never got close enough for a picture, but just find this outpost and the hills are up to your right.

Just at that time, I was glad I decided to actually do this road.  It is now worthwhile.