Reaching the Arctic Circle on the second try: A father-son journey

Editor's note: Neale Bayly tells the story of a trip to the Arctic Circle several years ago with his then-teenage son — which in turn was an echo of another memorable but less successful trip 28 years earlier.

As far as my eyes can see there are no signs of man, and the wind starts whipping the surface of the water into what look like rain clouds across the bay. Moving my head alters the sound; I hear wolves howling as they did when I lay under the Northern Lights with my young bride, Karen, in the forests above Fairbanks nearly 30 years ago. Today, I watch my 13-year-old son, Patrick, learning about photography and life in equal measures from my travel partner, Ray, as they make their way along the shoreline. The moment moves beyond perfect, perhaps to that cosmic place that says if there’s no more, this is enough. This is it!

But as perfect as everything is, the deeper I look into my soul, it’s not the wolves that are howling but my soul itself, as if it were bleeding and crying out for the young men who will never travel this way. Who wouldn’t camp out here amongst the driftwood, with a young lover held tightly, alive and on fire for the world, as I had done 28 years earlier, with no other plan than to go further and deeper into the next adventure?

A second try to reach the Arctic Circle

To start this ride, Patrick and I met our good friend Ray McKenzie, the stalwart Canadian, in Calgary, picked up two Triumph adventure bikes, and rode north. In that earlier trip with Karen, we left Florida on a heavily loaded Honda 550 and stopped a few miles short of the Arctic Circle for fear of breaking the bike. It’s always been an ink smudge in my life’s travel journal and one I’ve wanted to edit. So, now I’m on a mission to rewrite that page with Ray and Patrick.

Minutes into the ride, cool, harsh winds start pushing us around, and occasional large, swollen raindrops threaten to turn into a deluge. Lady Luck has a way of smiling on this wayward traveling soul, though, and with the region experiencing torrential rains and flooding, we thread a small needle of passable weather as the Trans-Canada Highway draws us north. Rolling through open pastureland, I struggle to bring back memories of the original journey that seem like small fragments of movies now, each triggered by the title card of the original snapshot. These old pictures have now become rigid placeholders of thought, time, and space, and with their Kodachrome permanence etch that particular memory into my subconscious. So I tell the story now as a man hopping from boulder to boulder across a flowing river, while the millions of other moments from that ride float away.

With modern motorcycle clothing keeping us dry, we glide past Banff, Lake Louise, and the Columbia Icefield. Quickly immersed in towering snow-capped mountains, fast-flowing rivers, and ice-filled lakes, the temptation to jump off and photograph everything around us makes for some slow progress. Pivoting around the summer solstice, our days will be long, so we ride on with a plan to spend more time here on our return and roll into Grand Cache for the night.

The early morning temperature is too close to freezing to ride, which is perfect for Patrick as he continues sleeping, while Ray and I drink hot coffee and catch up. Through the window we see muddy trucks loaded with four-wheelers, all equally unrecognizable under the layers of dirt. It’s a solid reminder of the conditions we might find, and soon we are passing numerous oil refineries on very dirty roads. Most of our fellow travelers are in fast-moving work trucks, so we stay tight to the shoulder and keep rolling to Dawson Creek, where we find the start of the Alaska Highway.

There at the famous sign, fighting to remember my first visit, I realize I didn’t always photograph the best views. When I made love with my girl in the moonlight, or we argued in the rain, I didn’t record it. So perhaps the long miles ahead will unlock those memories, like a card-rescue program finding missing files, and I hope I’m not diluting the new experiences I’m having with Patrick as I try to recall the old ones.

The rain is now solidly behind us as we roll out under the clearest blue sky with a quick gas stop at Wonowon, named for its position at 101 miles along the old Alaska Highway. Buying snacks from an Indian cashier, with Canadian travelers, lumbering truck drivers, and American tree-planting hippies, it’s the new normal, as these gas stations will be the only civilization now for a couple of thousand miles.

Back in the saddle, we drop into huge chasms, ride across bridges of wood and metal, and cross the wide, fast-flowing Liard River. In 1986, a fire had taken out the gas pumps here, and I had to ride on in search of fuel, counting, calculating, and hoping not to grind to a halt with nothing but trees, mosquitoes, and bears for company.

Occasional squalls of rain hit, but never persist, and I’m pleased to know Patrick is happy and engaged as we park up for the day after notching 800 kilometers. We call a committee meeting and offer up the question: Do we push this hard to make the Arctic Circle, or do more sightseeing and go for it another time? Ray is up for the challenge, so the deciding vote goes to Patrick, who wants to push on. I’m the happiest man in Fort Nelson.

On a lonely road you're still not alone

Chance meetings that change your life are a mix of patience and timing, so our conversation with Bruce Heilman, an 88-year-old WWII veteran riding his Harley north, lets me know we are doing our job. As far as he knows, he is the only veteran left riding, and the picture I take of him and Patrick is the gold I’m seeking from this trip. Seventy-five years separate these two world travelers, and the more you look at the picture, the harder it is to draw that distinction. It’s as if my camera simply captured their souls and they appear as one on my laptop screen.

Using the throttle to pull the new day towards us, we start seeing black bear, and Patrick counts 10 in total. As I slow to observe them foraging beside the highway, he clicks away with his camera and I hold the engine at 2,500 rpm, ready to accelerate if the bears turn angry; I’m taking no chances. We also see moose, elk, and deer, before spending some time on gravel sections as we work our way down through a picturesque gorge en route to Muncho Lake.

At a small gas station stop, we take coffee and chat with the Dutch owner. As we look around his spartan restaurant, he moves slowly and deliberately and his words are carefully chosen. Everything is perfectly placed with no extra frills to be found. Out where life in the vicious winter depends on proper planning to keep the generators running, there is no need for frills. Today the temperatures are in the 70s with cool air from the snowcapped mountains, so we mount up and ride on in these perfect conditions. I’m pleased to note Patrick and Ray have already bonded as we pause to photograph Muncho Lake, and once more I grapple with trying to remember being here.

At times I want to be 25 again, to have a pack on my back and only an open horizon ahead, so I think of Patrick and his reliance on electronic devices. In 1986, we never dreamed of cell phones or the internet. We wrote airmail letters, or postcards, and didn’t know what our friends and family were doing. For the majority of us, we will never effectively break these modern chains. Like the bears endlessly foraging to fuel for the winter ahead, we must feed the technology beast and stay foraging ourselves to meet its demands. It enables us to avoid being present with our family, our friends, our surroundings, and if we don’t learn and grow it will outpace us and leave us behind.

We end our day in the small city of Whitehorse that sits on the banks of the Yukon River and share our favorite moments. For Ray it was a bear sitting back and scratching, for Patrick it was taking pictures of the bison, and me, I am still mesmerized by the reflection of the mountains in the still waters of Muncho Lake.

The going gets tough

The following day we leave northern Canada’s largest city and ride for Alaska, crouching low under leaden rain clouds that threaten a downpour that thankfully never comes. The temperature plummets and the road deteriorates as we slow for large potholes and other broken surfaces. We pass scrappy working towns, crumbling gas stations, and boarded-up motels; broken dreams slowly being taken back by the wilderness. It pushes me deep in thought about my previous passage, and we pull up shy of the border and dine at Buckshot Betty’s. The service is terrible and the food bland, but it fills our stomachs, and within minutes we are back in the United States, gliding along on the smoothest pavement of the trip. Our destination is Tok, and we roll into town to learn there is heavy rain ahead.

Within a few miles of beginning our new day, it’s raining so hard the raindrops are bouncing up off the road. Ray is not as well equipped as we are, and I worry for him as the temperature dips below 40 degrees. We are walled in with cloud and rain, and it’s reminiscent of my first ride this way. A gas stop introduces us to a group of senior ladies cycling to Montana. They have face-splitting grins, and we are all equally interested in each other’s travel stories. With the small store being filled with stuffed animals, the experience is both enlightening and surreal.

Reaching Fairbanks early allows us some time to dry and repack our gear for the last leg to the Arctic Circle. I’ve so often questioned why I didn’t push on the last time I was here. This time it will be an achievement bond Patrick and I can share for the rest of our lives. As a father, I couldn’t be more proud, and I quietly hope this experience shapes his adventurous spirit.

While picking up some supplies at the local motorcycle dealer, I learn that George Rhan would be at his local coffee shop the following morning. He is the man who bought the old Honda in 1986 before we hitchhiked back to the lower 48. He remembered the bike and the man who bought it, but not me. Ray is beside himself snapping pictures, and I realize that the most enduring memories I have from the past are the people. The scenery has melded into an indistinct blur of trees, mountains, and rivers, but the faces never go away. They never age, but they do fade in the way of an old photo in a tucked-away album.

Bison chili, salmon soup, and monstrous burgers fill our table at the Yukon River Camp. Located on the north end of the longest wooden bridge we’ve crossed so far, we are just buzzing from riding the Dalton Highway. Seeing the long dirt road disappearing into the distance ahead, with the sunlight glinting on the trans-Alaska pipeline, has me singing in my helmet. Built between 1974 and 1977, the pipeline carries oil from Prudhoe Bay 800 miles to Valdez. We have to be on alert, though, as there are work trucks and tandem trailers on the move, and they slow for nothing save the occasional black bear that wanders onto the road.

We met them as we left the restaurant. She was named Azure — of course she was — and he was almost as beautiful. Raul had been five years on the road, and she a year, making me think of my world travels with Karen. She and I were a wonderful team, quickly learning to support each other — at times our survival depended on it — and we lived more years in those months on the road than many couples live in a lifetime.

Patrick likes doing the math to convert kilometers into miles to gauge when we will make the Arctic Circle. The weather is spectacular, and the color of the sky and the bizarre cloud formations take my mind back to the Peruvian Altiplano. The terrain here seems so lush, so green, but in my memory I can recall only the dust, rocks, and barren land of the high desert of Peru. Ten miles later we have made the Arctic Circle, having ridden through some of the most stunning scenery in the world, and are all happy, healthy, and eager for more.

It’s well past midnight when my eyes finally close, as the last song on Patrick’s iPod ends and I feel him lean over to hug me goodnight. He is approaching 14 years of age, and his involuntary action caps off the day by letting me know that reaching the Arctic Circle and camping out means as much to Patrick as it does to me. We are tired and smell of wood smoke from the fire, and I drift off to the most wonderful sleep of the trip.

Turning south

Our campsite north of the Arctic Circle is the point where we turn for home. In the early days of the trip the neurons and synapses fly at the speed of modern life. Thoughts run far and run wild like the distant rivers we see to our sides. There is a sense of impatience to arrive, to reach our destination, but each day it changes. Almost daily, that thought process retreats, as the voice in my head fades to complete silence at times. The relaxed hum of the engine, the constantly changing conditions, and the need to find food and shelter take over. Soon there is no hurry, just a sense of engagement with each new view, each mountain range bringing something different: rain, cold and mud, or clear, blue skies with clouds that appear so perfect it’s if they were borrowed from an artist’s canvas.

Back in Canada, we learn that Buckshot Betty’s was closed due to a staffing problem, which causes some serious laughter. Further on, Ray spots a grizzly, so we circle around to see if we can get a shot. The angry bear rears up with a massive roar, but then backs away. I am in gear with the engine running, but Ray is parked taking photos, so it was a close call and a harsh reminder of our vulnerable place in this vast wilderness.

Why do more people not crave this? How do iPhones and drinking expensive beers in prefabricated theme pubs before uploading the photos to Instagram suffice?

By the time we roll into Whitehorse, I’ve blown a fork seal, it’s 10:30 at night, and we are looking for a hot shower and a meal. But even with our human needs calling, we linger for a few moments to appreciate the sunset. We’ve lost the midnight sun, but there will not be darkness for a while yet.

At Contact Creek, we stop for coffee and chat with Richard Hair, a 30-year resident on the highway. He points us toward the old highway and now my confused memories make more sense as we ride the old road I traveled on those years before. Soon we are riding an impossibly steep dirt road beside a dry river bed and taking some of the most stunning pictures of the trip.

At Muncho Lake, Patrick and I strip off and dive in. Glacier water doesn’t allow you to linger long, but it was breathtaking in more ways than one.

The road to Fort Nelson could be my favorite stretch of the whole ride, and even though we had come this way, it was as if we had never seen any of it before. Bighorn sheep, moose, elk, more black bear, and deer all give Patrick plenty to look at and all of us something to stop and target with our cameras.

After the ride

Back home, even months later, so many memories of the ride kept flooding back, and it’s clear the gods of travel were smiling on us. Patrick went back into his normal routine as if none of it ever happened and Ray and I talk now on Skype when we can. It was an incredible adventure, and certainly tough at times, but we pulled it off. We rode to the Arctic Circle and camped out, and hopefully it will imprint the spirit of adventure and the call of the wild on Patrick’s soul. For me, I have to hope it will inspire him to seek the desolate places in the world before they are all spoiled, and allow him some firsthand understanding of why his Dad chose a life of travel.