Hello all! I think it's about time to fill you in with an update of my trip.
Here is an approximate map of the terrain covered so far:
http://tinyurl.com/m83cqt6Once in Ontario, as usual, I veered toward the North. As I searched through some dumpsters for a nice piece of cardboard to make a sign, the guy that was cutting the bushes around looked puzzled. I asked him some directions, and ended up telling him my story. He ended up giving me 20$. Right after that, as I walked toward my hitching spot, I found this very hilariously-typical-Canadian store sign:
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10511293_10154262208805076_4665001290685443507_n.jpgOnce I hit the Prairies, I got picked up by this young travelling girl. Another hitch-hiker was in the car. We had a blast together until she dropped us off:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/10384470_10154262208620076_6178086367475658137_n.jpg?oh=4817b01ddf4771be727e1fa5575b68de&oe=54583886&__gda__=1413203819_013afd5d4ac3615aa245d7bb5e6cea7aThat other hitch-hiker was about 50 years old and had decided he would just try to hitch-hike across the country to go say hi to his mom in a hospital in Vancouver. He didn't know how to do it properly so I helped him out and actually got him a ride directly to the hospital! I also hosted him in my tent for the night, and hooked him up with some herbs.
That trucker guy was a -big time- Christian: no music in the car, only gospels! Luckily, when he stopped for me, I mentionned that "we" had slept around last night (at that time, the other hitcher wanted to hitch on his own). He asked who was "we", and I pointed at the poor guy he had just skipped to stop for me. He backed up to him up. The guy sat in the front, talking Bible-stuff the whole way, and I stayed on the bed bunk, sleeping and chilling the whole way. I hooked them up with some interesting riddles that occupied quite a bunch of time (very good trick for the long rides!).
I was planning on stopping in Medicine Hat to say hi to /u/Thumbs_Away, but since I had my ride all the way to Chilliwack, I decided to just skip through. Sorry!
Arrived in Chilliwack, I used the trucker's cellphone to give a call to that guy I was supposed to meet there: I arranged a lift right from where I was dropped and once at his home, I was offered to stay there for a little while. So I get a nice warm shower, my laundry done, and waited for /u/thewindandrain to cross the border to reach up with me. The communication between us 2 was hard, but it ended up working and he showed up at the door! We spent one more night there (
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/t1.0-9/10259799_10154262216000076_3211269007610673654_n.jpg), and then the guy that was supposed to sell us all this extra equipment we needed for the kayak trip ended up just giving it away to us. And we also got a ride all the way to Hope from there.
We got picked up pretty quickly by a guy hauling a huge trailer:
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10407513_10154262216970076_7647157376356179544_n.jpg?oh=36c18e53d7c0aab4f6fdceb83c23dc4b&oe=5443CCDFWe chilled in there for a while, with the 3 stray dogs that just hung around. We smoked some herbs too (TWAR was given a nice nugget as he was dropped in Chilliwack). The goal was to finish the whole damn thing before crossing the Alaskan border, obviously.
We got smoked out a bunch of time (one time, from a detour off the highway, up into the mountains, around Williams Lake area: beautiful detour), and were even offered to take a handful of herbs from a particularly testosterony guy in Northern BC, but we refused, thinking we had enough of our nugget. We ended up regretting that decision, but oh well!
Later on onto the road, we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, at a junction where a highway turns into the North-West Territory. Not a lot of traffic there!
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10478225_10154262218225076_4753209868306671409_n.jpgWe launched a Bear Banger to see what it sounded like, and to entertain ourselves a bit. We eventually got picked up by a girl that was going all the way to Homer (Alaska), but stopping at Liard Hot Spring for a night first! Exactly what we needed. So we hung out, and then convinced her to stay at Long Lake, next to Whitehorse, for a night. I bought a bottle of Whisky, and a score followed.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t1.0-9/1623692_10154262242075076_570971199443998740_n.jpgOn the way to Alaska, TWAR even got to drive her car:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10402708_10154262223725076_3950727820446468877_n.jpgWe separated in Tok, to veer toward Prudhoe Bay. The hitch to up there was quite easy, and very scenic, but coming back from there took a little while (6 hours to wait for one car, but that one car brought us all the way into Fairbanks). On the way, we got picked up by an absolutely amazingly cool dude that paid our lunch at some point. We asked him to be dropped at some random spot so we could go for a hike.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t1.0-9/10418145_10154262250305076_5152410733648352779_n.jpghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/10389498_10154262254975076_5685122935176077554_n.jpghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/10463877_10154262255525076_639032153024067547_n.jpgWe continued toward the North after that hike. The drive was amazing:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10406615_10154262257195076_544358151661148133_n.jpgWe also asked that driver to drop us off somewhat at a random spot to start heading back:
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10432097_10154262260800076_4163471183711300447_n.jpg(You can see TWAR's legs sticking out of the mass of stuff in that last picture.) We ended up getting stranded at that very spot for at least 6 hours before we finally saw someone going our way! We had to sleep under a tarp, directly on the road, because of the weather conditions (rainy, cold, windy, some times buggy, and the region around was all flooded).
The partners, on their way to Homer (we had forgotten some stuff in the car of that girl):
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10346453_10154262400565076_8809439129343819877_n.jpghttps://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/1601425_10154262406765076_6294757130192929864_n.jpgWe got picked up by 3 somewhat-weirdos and were jammed in their car the whole way. The one guy sitting next to us was quite the ass-hole, and God knows what he was smoking the whole way, but we sure didn't want to try it out (we'll always remember his saying "You guys have lost your fun-spark half-way through this trip"). Oh, and TWAR somehow managed to successfully ask two different persons of that ride if they had diabetes!
Homer ended up being full of let downs and was quite a bummer, but The Spit was amazing! I have no pictures, but TWAR does have some. Here is a picture that frames our mood quite well when were leaving Homer:
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10492078_10154262407520076_8623322875649798664_n.jpgA nice lady picked us up on our way out of Homer and smoked us out:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t1.0-9/10487361_10154262409875076_3832769538411806429_n.jpgThen we got dropped at a magical point of view for the night by some nice fireman that bought us some beers:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10428054_10154262411045076_5483305899857635105_n.jpgGetting out of Alaska was decently hard, and those signs didn't help very much:
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/1526423_10154262412720076_7305987598798644443_n.jpgFrom there, we got a ride with a cool red-neck that had apparently killed a black bear with a spear with one of his buddy. He dropped us off at some place where we got stuck for quite a while. TWAR, on the next day, decided to start walking, and I decided to stay there. I ended up getting picked up by a woman with a dog. We crossed TWAR on the way, and she stopped for him. We ended up both being squeezed one onto the other, with a backpack on us, into the one passager seat in the front. She dropped us off at a point we thought was close to the border, but which ended up being a few miles from there. We had to walk all the way. Once we reached the American border building, we wanted to ask for a ride to the Canadian border building to the border patrols there. We ended up facing that one ass-hole that had passed by us earlier where we had been stuck for a day, trying to discourage us to pass the border ("This is one of the hardest borders to go through: 9 out of 10 hitch-hikers are turned over. You have no money, no identification, and warrants against you: it will not work." This is litterally what he said, and he believed every word of it.)
Luckily, TWAR got us a ride through the 20 miles that separated both buildings by running up to a car that had stopped to take a picture of some sign saying the speed limits were now indicated in kilometers per hour. We ended up getting picked up by that same guy later on. (He dropped us off right next to the crossing.)
That nice couple picked us up after the border crossing (we walked through it):
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t1.0-9/10325128_10154262416040076_1550002420669648811_n.jpgThey gave us beers, and they had amazing music. Our next ride was that guy that gave us a lift to the border building. We discovered he had sneaked herbs through the border, and he smoked us out.
Next destination: Carmacks, to pick up the kayak.
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/t1.0-9/10488128_10154262416425076_638939724235021742_n.jpgWe didn't have time to drag the kayak to our hitching spot, that we got picked up by 2 germans moving an antique car from Dawson to Teslin:
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10352399_10154262416805076_8436895888054920371_n.jpgThey brought us into downtown and gave us time to do our groceries, and then dropped us off at the Carcross Junction, where we had a beautiful sunset:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10417622_10154262417560076_5837255297788689175_n.jpg?oh=a5e9ef59a5befb95fb8a60a887d5f597&oe=5447F7C6&__gda__=1413689808_9dafa00e044879e608d26ce364acf91cThe second ride was from a guy that owns some hotel in Tagish:
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10329238_10154262417825076_5644156999374594164_n.jpg?oh=3a3600598670c0cd644bab074a496fc5&oe=54368C45He brought us to Carcross, and told us we could get a free hotel room for a night if we ended up passing by Tagish at some point.
From there, TWAR crafted an amazing sign:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10463952_10154262418085076_466349759805276623_n.jpgAnd we got picked up by a nice old lady:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10501713_10154262418810076_237752561770396115_n.jpgThere was no room for TWAR, so we had to separate, but right as I was entering the car of the lady, TWAR had already managed to find himself a ride to Skagway as well! That's him waving at me from the other car that followed us the whole way:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10429831_10154262418885076_2754558259887505849_n.jpgWe were dropped right at the harbour:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10474242_10154262422540076_3311017468335257055_n.jpg?oh=554ea8b7c7cf9969cb120a34d1ecf771&oe=543BAF90&__gda__=1413314438_9071a9e1e654e3fd574e9ce5b3cc5645https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10492199_10154262426910076_6328552998285836778_n.jpgWe got stuck in Skagway for 2 days due to bad weather, and decided to launch on a day that ended up being perfect! During those 2 days, we fooled around. One night, we found some abandonned bikes at a bike rack in front of the harbour and started riding the rusty bikes. Someone called the cops on us thinking we were stealing them. The cop ended up being super chill, and he even held onto my backpack during the whole duration of the kayak trip. He also gave us some tips and equipment.
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10402662_10154262428865076_2502805292308993168_n.jpgWe reached Haines in one day. And then got stuck there for 5 days due to bad weather.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10514552_10154262429260076_2895528528462272595_n.jpghttps://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10437368_10154263089505076_2723079614320964559_n.jpghttps://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10486464_10154265878405076_3562390905888468184_n.jpgWe finally had a weather window and decided to leave! The trip to Juneau was filled with beautiful scenery:
https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t1.0-9/10390894_10154263001600076_8973381025592785078_n.jpghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10440970_10154263004500076_4386714396166948077_n.jpghttps://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t1.0-9/10354737_10154265898580076_6178477510814713827_n.jpgOnce in Juneau, we hitched into town and hung out there for a while. We hiked to what must be said to be one of the greatest wonders of the world: the Ice Caves of the Mendenhall Glacier!
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10404219_10154263006720076_4498905510280215629_n.jpghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/10468205_10154263007735076_5115957932294070691_n.jpghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10419559_10154263008085076_1176506963382583950_n.jpg?oh=04e778e581d793d394073b7c06509c62&oe=54542110&__gda__=1414888047_d825d09f8c7d26ca3fd83940c66e79bbhttps://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10421557_10154263013920076_256841949998934803_n.jpgWe were lucky enough to see a big iceberg flip over, and witness the glacier calving at about 10 meters from us!
We then left for Taku Galcier: we had to hitch to where the kayak was hidden, and then hitch the kayak back down to as far South as possible.
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10409269_10154263076565076_7154564010889128127_n.jpghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/10385492_10154263077210076_8038651679412145753_n.jpgWe squatted a cabin that was there, where TWAR had the occasion to split some wood with a shovel.
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10426866_10154263078090076_7163795182670106254_n.jpg?oh=781bcc6de3a6c4296d1f6a9d3fff5ea2&oe=5447A4DBBack into Juneau, we were proposed a free ride up the gondolla, and a free all-we-could-eat restaurant at the top. And then we hiked around and met some people.
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10509644_10154263082635076_3366411897364986595_n.jpg?oh=79dc059f726142d7aaa80bbabc74245c&oe=5454291Ehttps://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10417746_10154263081045076_6039148074935057427_n.jpg?oh=629926760cc5a9fafe81475f2e0f4ad6&oe=54534E0B&__gda__=1413308782_efab66a891c596f68b3225a48382c631Juneau also offered us an amazing free bluegrass show.
Kayaking back to Haines only took us 2 days: we had the wind in our back for once!
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10478164_10154263084050076_6027789051911672992_n.jpgAnd we ended up being spared the last few miles by getting picked up by a nice native fisherman:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t1.0-9/10449929_10154263085370076_679357709111163632_n.jpghttps://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/l/t1.0-9/10450344_10154263086720076_5765911911936041175_n.jpgWe then got stuck in Haines again because TWAR had lost all his money and I needed my backpack to go anywhere (which the cop in Skagway was holding onto). I tried to hitch a boat or plane ride, but no one was headed that way. I ended up realizing the cop could send me my backpack for free through the fast-ferry system. And that's when me and TWAR separated.
I left for Whitehorse, and ended up picking up a job, working at an airport for 20$/h. I worked for a bit less than 2 weeks, and then quit the job to travel some more. Went to the Atlin Music Festival, snuck onto a stage, heard awesome music, and met amazing people, and then was given a whole bunch of weed, and proposed a free fishing-guide boat-ride in Tagish, and a possibly free plane ride in Whitehorse!
Now I am back in Whitehorse to try to claim my plane ride, and then I'll head for Tagish for the boat ride.
That's it folks. Sorry for loving descriptive walls of texts.