Hitchhiking the Alcan

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We finally escaped Anchorage on 21 July 2004 - a day almost as memorable as
11 June 2004 (last day at Bloomberg). Now, does anyone have any idea how far
it is from Anchorage to Vancouver? Nor do I, but it is a very, very long
way. It took us 7 days, 13 lifts, one 36 hour ferry and one 24 hour bus ride
to make the journey. The first flight out of Anchorage was on the 28th July
and we thought this was a preferable alternative to staying put.

I shan't bore you with the predictable and easy lifts we received, but a
couple stand out in the memory. First off was Kenny and Laverne who were
native Americans on their way back from hospital. They lived in Copper
Centre and drove a huge Chevvy people-van thing which was the messiest car I
have ever sat (perched) in and had an ugly plastic lion between the rear
seats. Kenny had been living in this car for the last two months and it
showed. The maroon fur seat covers were a delight. They drove us through the
Klondike for about 150 miles, laughing, smoking, downing can after can of
beer and were generally a pleasure to be with. Laverne was only 30, but
everything which could go wrong in her life had gone wrong. She was an
alcoholic, unemployed, her child had been taken away from her, she had
survived a crack addiction and she had just got out of jail (gaol?) for two
months. Neither of us asked what she had been locked up for.

High on painkillers and beer, she would break into gentle Indian chanting
before laughing and offering us another beer. We were given a dreamcatcher
(which we stupidly forgot on the back seat) and were invited to stay at
their house but since it was 17 miles in the wrong direction and did not
have water or electricity or a phone, I thought it might not be the quickest
way to get to Vancouver.

We had been waiting in Tok for about 5 minutes when our next lift arrived.
She was a friendly middle-aged lady called Jan whom I had met in the tourist
info office about half an earlier. She took us 2 miles down the road and
insisted we come inside and have a beer with her because "she never goes
into a bar on her own". We would later find out that she never leaves a bar
on her own either. So we're sitting in a bar called Gakona Lodge on Copper
River 300 miles from the nearest town with over 100 inhabitants. It turns
out that Jan and Jeannie are both divorcees (Jeannie is 70) and their
hunting ground is the Gakona Lodge bar and grill. Jeannie insisted that we
drive back to her homestead and spend the night at her home. Some of the
crew from the Alaska Pipeline had finished their 3 month tour of duty in the
Bush and were celebrating with some quiet ales. Jan set her sights on one of
them (Kurt) and so at 11.30pm, Karen, Jeannie and I waited to see if Jan
would get her man as this would determine whether Curt would need a lift
back to his tent in Jeannie's garden (are you still with me now?).

When we saw Curt at Jeannie's the next morning, he looked about as sheepish
as a 250 lb ex-hunter could look and so we chatted about fish and trucks and
the sheep-shooting season (I am not joking here) as I helped him load his
truck with box after box of salmon and heavy tools. Jeannie cooked us a
fantastic wild-west breakfast (moose sausages, eggs and hash browns,
delicious) and sent us on our way at midday with her homemade stationery,
postcards and best wishes.

Day two was easy by comparison. We travelled 300 miles with Jeff from New
Mexico in his fantastic new camper van. After 8 hours on the road we stopped
just over the Canadian border at a place called White River Crossing. Karen
and I wanted to catch a ferry at 4pm the next day so we continued hitching
for half an hour. The Alaska-Canada Highway (Alcan) is a grand road through
some spectacular scenery but mainly it crosses a green desert of bog, muskeg
and black spruce, a tree which we christened the ugliest tree in the world.
About 80% of the traffic on the Alcan is RVers (caravanners to you and me)
travelling from the Lower 48 States up to Alaska and they would no more stop
for a hitchhiker than vote Democrat. After half an hour of fruitless
thumbing, I walked over to the barbeque at the campsite to ask if we could
buy some water and camp there for the night. BAD MOVE!!!

"What the hell do you want?"
"I wanted to see if the barbeque was still open"
"No the barbeque is not open. Now get the hell off my property"
"But my wife and I want to camp here tonight"
"No you're not f***ing camping here. Now get the hell off my land. Are you a
limey? Are you a f***ing limey? I hate f***ing limeys."
"But where are we supposed to go? I'll pay you to camp here and buy dinner
from your shop"
"You've got a lot of front for an f***ing limey. Now get the f*** off my
land or I will call the cops and have you charged. I don't ever want to see
you around here again."

After this exchange I walked back to the roadside where Karen was sitting
with a lump in my throat like you get after a fight at school. Karen had
heard the whole exchange and knew exactly what to do: leave. You don't mess
around with unbalanced lunatics in the Yukon because you knew that sooner
rather than later, someone was going to pull out an enormous gun to settle
the issue. So we started walking. As we discussed who we could report this
loon to (caravan club? Lonely Planet?), a beige pickup approached us slowly
from behind. We stuck our thumbs out, but as it drew closer, it slowed down
and stopped and then pulled into a side-road about a hundred yards from us
and started driving behind us into the bush. This was perfect. We were being
stalked by a deranged limey-hating psychopath. We kept walking. We walked
past a deserted motel and campsite which looked like it had been wrapped in
aspic and was in perfect condition. Had this loony killed the owners or
forced them out of town? I had the feeling that we were being watched, but I
was not sure if I preferred to imagine it was bear or human that watched us.
We were clearly going to get no sleep that night if we camped rough, so we
decided to walk all night if necessary.

After 5 miles we got to another campsite. I have never been so glad to see a
dirty-looking scrapyard in my life. Jim and Dot Cook were the owners and
they were full of sympathy for our plight. They had taken the loony up the
road to court a few years earlier for threatening behaviour but he had paid
someone from out of town to lie for him and got off. We stayed with them in
their crazy, dirty motel which had been closed down by the Health and Safety
Officers for having an old-fashioned septic tank and they insisted that we
call the police in the morning, which we did.

We had plenty of lifts after that, met more dysfunctional people, stayed in
a log-cabin on a farm when the farmer took pity on us after we had been
hitching for 3 hours at the end of his lane in the rain and finally got to
Haines in a camper van on day four with a great couple from Oakland called
Alpha and Wayne and their two children. After our Yukon adventure,
everything else has been ridiculously easy. We are currently chilling out in
Vancouver and enjoying the variety, choice and ease of life. After 6 weeks
in the wilderness, it has been great to fill the cultural hole that is
Alaska with a visit to an art gallery and a dodgy performance of Macbeth at
a festival on the beach. Next stop Portland, Oregon and then Ecuador on
August 7th. Hope you are all well and enjoying our thrashing the West Indies
over the next few Tests. Bloombergers, Hope the equity research campaign is
going well.

All rights reserved
Alexander Hofmann,

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