Going The Distance

Hmmm. Those overalls do not provide adequate protection from the wind. After 8 hours riding, we’re both freezing. Crawl into Fairbanks cold, tired and crotchety.

After a day with Mickey, the bike is finally ready to hit the road. Many tears on departure, Mr Sherfield has shown us real kindness for our time in Anchorage.

We set off for Sheep Mountain and the home of Momma Dove and Pappa Hawk, homesteaders who welcome us into their home (and a family reunion) for the night. The US Federal Government allowed homesteading of federal land to US citizens until the early 1960s: one homestead was allowed up to 160 acres of land for each person in a family. The homesteader had to locate the land, stake it out, file it with the government. The homesteader was required to “prove up” the land to be able to purchase it: they had to build a home, clear some of the land, plant a crop. This was intended to encourage people to come up to Alaska and to help cultivate the land.

In a classically isolated dwelling – which now has electricity and running water and has been made lovely over the years by the couple’s efforts – the Wrights welcomed us in.

Set off back from the land at the back of beyond, 6 hours driving back to Anchorage. I can now sleep in the sidecar.

Back to interview Helen and Isaac, a Native Alaskan couple – he’s Inupiaq and she’s Tlingit. We interviewed them at the Heritage Center, outside a traditional Inupiaq dwelling. They’re from the far north so have to contend with extreme cold. She’s from the Tlingit in the South East who have a (relatively) milder climate to live with.

Mickey suggested that we take a test drive of the bike. This being Alaska, our test drive was 500 miles in 24 hours.

We’d found a community of Russian Old Believers, who have set up a community near the bottom of the Kenai Peninsula, remote and still living simply in line with their faith, wearing traditional Russian garb. So we headed off to find them, specifically Nina and Dennis Fefelov, son of one of the founders of the community. Nina is a life force to be reckoned with.

9th: THE BIKE ARRIVES IN ANCHORAGE

We’re getting closer to setting off. Four days of Mike and Mickey unpacking and prepping the bike for departure. Lots and lots of work.

The bike is laden like the donkey on Blackpool beach with the fat kid on it.

The team in action:

The uniform, modelled by Mrs A.Clear:

Bud and Carol (owners of the Icecream shop in Girdwood and Bud & Carol’s B&B) take us shrimping in Whittier. 7am start. Out to the submerged pots on Bud and Carol’s boat. Lift up pot. Shake out. Then behead and count shrimps.

It’s all about the technique people… you hold the live shrimp with the right thumb at the top of its chest, then twist of its head with the left hand and throw it back into the sea.

Am curiously delighted with my brush with killing live beasts. They’ll make an Alaskan of me yet.

150 of the enormous suckers. Saweet.

Determined to find a Native Alaskan couple to interview, we head to the museum www.alaskanative.net/ – what a fascinating place. Melissa gives us a full tour and we meet Helen and Isaac, a Native couple – he’s an Inupiaq from the far North and she’s a Tlingit from the South East of the country. Both have very different traditions and practices, so we wanted to get to the bottom of what that meant for a couple.

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In full tourist mode.With Jamie and Mark, good folk from Toledo and our new BFFs, we head down to Seward to take a boat trip out into the Kenai fjord. Ticked off much wildlife: whales, sea otters, sea lions, puffins, fat Americans…

Touch the toe of the Exit Glacier, Seward. Had to take off shoes and walk through glacial meltwater. Full body pain.

There’s really nothing like being a Brit in the US on the weekend when they celebrate their independence from the English… that said, we’d plumped ourselves in hippy central Girdwood for the annual Forest Fair. Laidback Alaskans congregate in the forest of Girdwood to sell pottery, drink, play music, be in union with nature. Kids run around, beards flutter in the wind, Alaskan pale ale flows freely and all is well with the world.

Girdwood is magical, and we’re staying in the best place in the world: the Girdwood Alaska Backpackers lodge http://www.hostelgirdwood.com which was still in the process of being built. So the wonderful Amy and Brandon let us kip in the construction site for $5 a night. Nights by the campfire with a group of wonderful and hilarious new folk, learning how to toast marshmallows without looking like a tourist (if it sets fire, DO NOT wave it around to put the flame out – that shit burns people. And find a growing, long stick – that way it won’t set fire itself)