The Continental Divide

Another message from Ken, Malkolm's father. I got a message last night that Malkolm and Wendy had made it as far as the "Continental Divide" last night. They had helpful (unusual) tail-winds which helped them travel 120 km - great going for fully loaded bikes on the Alaska Highway.

Small note - it seems odd, but they cycled south from the Pacific watershed into the Arctic watershed. The Yukon River flows north and west to the Bering Sea (Pacific), but now the water where they are now flows into the Liard, the Mackenzie and north to the Arctic Ocean.

I expect Wendy will be tired today . . . (Malkolm wanted to go further yesterday, but she put her foot down (off the pedals).

The photo is of Malkolm's friends who joined him for Day 1 ride to Teslin (John Streiker, Peter Heebink, and Ann Middler), with the respective distances they each cycled . . .

Pedaling for the Planet

Hi, I'm Malkolm Boothroyd and I just finished grade 11 in Whitehorse, Yukon. I'm very concerned about climate change and try to reduce my personal carbon footprint. I recently collected more than 400 signatures from concerned northern Youth on a petition asking the Canadian and Yukon Governments to do more about climate change. We presented the petition to the Yukon Minister of the Environment. I've been an avid birder since I was 7, and last year my parents and I cycled more than 20,000 kilometers during our "Bird Year." I identified 548 species and raised more than $25,000 for bird conservation. I also hope I helped to raise awareness about climate change.

I'm excited to be joining "Pedal for the Planet." I'm leaving on June 28th from Whitehorse, aiming to join others in Edmonton on July 16th . . . and then on to Ottawa to light a fire (or is that put out a fire?) under our government. We need to take climate change seriously!

Note from Ken (M's father) - Day 1, Malkolm made it 180 kilometers through the wind and rain to Teslin. His blogs will be sporadic until he gets off the Alaska Highway . . .

Ski-cycling (Ken)

After returning home from Bird Year, we’ve decided to continue our car-less, though not necessarily careless existence. We aren’t sticklers for traveling solely by non-fossil-fuel power, but usually we hop in a vehicle with someone only if they are heading the same way we are anyway.

A couple of days ago I decided to cycle through Whitehorse and up to the cross-country ski trails. With 13,000 miles of cycling behind me, I thought that the trip would be easy. I shoved my boots in the bottom of a backpack and wedged my skis and poles in beside them. I wobbled out of the driveway with the ski tips wobbling above my head like willows bending in a stiff breeze. A flock of Bohemian Waxwings in the spruce trees across the street ignored me as did a solitary Raven out on business of its own.

The side streets were clogged with snow – no problem for the trucks and snow-machines that whizzed by me. I tried the sidewalks which were mainly clear of snow. That worked well, until my skis listed to the side and smashed into a road sign. I slithered to a stop. I never had to cope with this problem last June in Texas.

After that I paid more attention to my unwieldy load, weaving carefully around signs and overhanging branches. I only made as far as downtown on the bike. I locked it outside the grocery store and hike the last few kilometers to the trails.

The next day our friend Lewis cycled to our place with his skies safely and cleverly bungee-corded along the frame of his bike. I’ll try that next time.

Haines Report (Wendy)

YA-HOO! We just returned from a week in Haines, Alaska. We picked blueberries with the determination of blueberry lovers who didn’t get to pick last year. Now we have 18 “blueberry pie equivalents” neatly stacked in the freezer. Also, sour cherries and pesto made from beach lovage. We have jars of dried mushrooms –cauliflower, chanterelles and boletes.

Ken usually catches enough pink salmon to fill a cooler. Last week a young brown bear with blond ears interfered. This bear swam out to the island where Ken was fishing, chewed on his box of lures, and then returned to shore and lay down at the place where he would walk back. Ken realized if he caught anything he couldn’t bring it home. Our friends made up for our shortage of pinks. They gave us sockeye salmon, halibut and crabs. We are lucky ducks.

The front page story in the Chilkat Valley News was about the outdoor ping pong table that our friend Eric built out of concrete. We helped rig up a canvas tarp over it – the tarp weighed about as much as the concrete table. We had a table tennis tournament while a winter wren chirped from the wood pile.

When we landed in Haines, curtains of rain glistened in front of the dark green forest. This has been the coldest summer there since 1974, with only 16 days reaching 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I put on all my long underwear. I thanked Malkolm for reminding me to bring rain pants. I got chilled, riding the ten miles out to our friends’ place outside town.

Cruise ship passengers also cycled in Haines that day. One guide led a bike tour along the Chilkoot River.”I apologized about the rain,” he said. “But they did not mind it at all. They were happy to experience rain. They were from southern California.”

All Media is Good Media (Malkolm)

“Admittedly, there are few would ever undertake a year-long journey in search of different species of mice.”

That was printed in the Yukon News, just after we arrived home in Whitehorse, Yukon. We were joined by friends and family for the final 70 mile ride back home, after we cycled over the White Pass from Skagway. Then we were greeted by a flurry of interviews. But that whacky statement in the Yukon News was not the first of its kind.

Supposedly any press attention, whether it is positive or negative, accurate or riddled with errors, helps your project. We’ve been blessed with plenty of media attention during our travels, but nearly every time there have been mistakes, such as:

A TV program from our home in Whitehorse superimposed a silent clip of us all chuckling, when our voices were discussing the decline of Spotted Owls.

A news station in Florida showed footage of a Turkey Vulture while I said, “There’s a Bald Eagle!”

A newspaper in Florida wrote that the big year world record holder traveled 100,000 miles, (he traveled 270,000 air miles) and mentioned that he raised 60,000 dollars (as far as I know he raised no money, though probably spent way more than that amount on travel expenses).

An article that was syndicated to big city papers throughout Texas diminished Ken’s 57 year old age to 16.

But not all articles about us are flawed. Jane Braxton Little, the author that wrote the Audubon Magazine article (March/April 2008) meticulously went over every quote with us, and Audubon’s fact checker made sure the article was completely accurate.

If you find any inconsistencies in this blog, shhhh!

Memory Lane Blues (Ken)

Yesterday we cycled north down Memory Lane. Memory Lane, aka Chuckanut Drive, just south of Bellingham, Washington. The Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Swainson’s Thrushes and Winter Wrens were singing, just like a year ago when we were heading south.

“Today I feel sad,” Wendy told us. “When we were here before we had a year of feedom before us, and now it’s almost over.”

Malkolm looked into his bowl of cereal, bananas and orange juice. We had forgotten to buy milk yesterday. “I don’t know if I can finish this,” he said, gazing into the brownish-orange glop in his bowl.

I didn’t ask him if he was missing the freedom of the road.

Later today we are boarding a ferry north to Skagway. We’ll taste freedom again for a couple of days when we ride over the White Pass back to Whitehorse. Then, I hope, we’ll start thinking of the next adventure.

CBC, Kiwis & a Coincidence (Wendy)

A security guard buzzed Malkolm and I through the bullet proof doors at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Vancouver building. He directed us down a long corridor to Studio 5. We passed a lot of other studios on the way, but what I noticed was the large room for storing bikes. At studio 5 we met Rick Cluff, who has a huge smiling face. He interviewed us for “Sounds Like Canada”. It airs right across the country.

Think globally, act locally. Neil and Hazel MacMillan are sheep ranchers near the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. Hazel volunteers in the annual kiwi census, sitting up at night and listening for the whistles of these rare birds. They wrote to our website. “We have fenced one area of native bush this year (from our stock getting in there ) and are about to do a second one where we often hear the kiwi” Habitat protection at home....Way to go, Neil and Hazel!

Flashback - We rode the Greyhound bus from Ft Stockton TX to El Paso. Lugging my bulky, heavy carry-on bags, I sqeeezed into the last empty seat, near the back of the bus. The bus was full of young families. A baby squawked. Beside me sat a friendly young man heading home from auto mechanic’s college. “Where is Albuquerque?” he asked. Anticipating the long ride to Vancouver, I had decided this was the right time to tackle my book club’s chosen book. I pulled out War and Peace. Pencil in hand I started to read, scribbling notes in margins and cross referencing names. The man behind me tapped my shoulder. “Want to see something funny?” he asked. He showed me his book: War and Peace. Two War and Peaces in one Greyhound bus. What are the chances of that?