Leaving the Watson Lake area, the pace is very slow going.
Slick roads make the road an entirely different environment. I can’t lean the
bike very far into the corners and leaning is what makes the bike go around. The
rain is just pouring from the sky and traffic seems to have abated some. The
road is very poor quality, gravel patches, no shoulders, no warning signs of
upcoming turns.
In the U.S., each turn in the road comes with a speed rating
and as a motorcyclist, you learn to gage your speed from this. The numbers 25,
35 or 40 are good indicators of how sharp of a corner is approaching. None of
that up here. I ride for an hour, two hours, and finally I reach clear skies.
The rain slows at times, the sun peeking out. Then the rain starts up again.
Other times the air is just filled in moisture. I also go in and out of the
Yukon and British Columbia seven times as the road twists back and forth across
the heavily forested border.
I stop at one of these border crossings and the sign says- The
Yukon Territory takes its name from the Indian work ‘Youcon’, meaning ‘big
river’. It was first explored in the 1840s by the Hudson’s Bay Co., which
established several trading posts. The territory, which was then considered a
district of the Northwest Territories, remained largely untouched until the
Klondike gold rush, when thousands of people flooded into the country and
communities sprang up almost overnight. This sudden expansion led to the
official formation of the Yukon Territory on June 13, 1898.
Rejoining the road, I realize that it was a huge blunder not
to buy a new windshield for the motorcycle before I left. This one can be very
difficult to see through in inclement weather. It wasn’t something I even
thought of. The 10 year old plexiglass grows more clouded as it ages. I don’t
notice it most of the time, but when it’s raining, it becomes very apparent.
I gas up in Coal River and am relieved to take the rain suit
off. I stay in full leathers head to toe. Leather is the one rule I’ve become
fanatical about. I even ride in full leathers on my 20-minute ride to work each
day. I gas up and chat with some other travelers. Everyone wants to talk to the
motorcyclist in this crazy weather.
The road is drying as I pull out of Coal River and head east
past Liard River Hotsprings Provincial Park. The ride is refreshing and I feel
more at ease. The road is still wet in spots, but that will probably dry up as
the day goes on. I run through some mountainous curves for awhile. At one point,
the bike and I are heading up a hill going at a moderate pace and round a tight
left-hand corner. Then the bottom drops out as the crest comes into view.
Normally when a rider comes to a corner that dips down and springs back up hill,
sort of a u-shape, the bike will be thrust against the ground creating a great
deal of traction, of stickage, and you power through the corner. However, on the
opposite side of the fence, if a corner is an up and over, and the apex is at
the top, the bike behaves entirely differently. And all of this is exactly what
happens.
I ride into this up and over hard left and I realize I am not
going to make it around. I am crashing. I am not going to be able to pull it
through. I’m going down. A million things could have been different. I could
have been going a little slower. I could have been at a steeper lean angle. The
tires were starting to wear and I am planning on replacing them in a couple
thousand more miles. A bike with new tires vs. a bike with tires in need of
replacement handles totally different. I was too hesitant, not aggressive enough
to hang on. The road was damp on the corner and maybe the bike started slipping.
I have been riding over patches of gravel for days. There wasn’t any shoulder
and the edge of the pavement was crumbled into tiny rocks of asphalt.
A million variables, but as a motorcyclist, when it’s your
time to go down, it’s simply time. I don’t know why everything happens in
slow motion but it does. I don’t understand why I can’t remember valence
shells of electrons for my chemistry exam yet I can recount every millisecond of
an event like this.
My first thought is instinct rather than panic. I know I am
crashing. The thought is to lay the bike down, get it on its side. The most
vulnerable part of a bike is the fork. There are no bumpers on these things, and
if you hit anything head on, it’s all over for both myself and the bike.
However, if you lay the bike on its side, the crash bars are there to protect
the motor and side of the bike. Save the bike. I could feel it, save the bike.
Lay the bike down, save the bike.
I fly off the road and hit sand like gravel that’s very
common up here. Suddenly the bottom drops out. The bike and I drop about two
feet below the roadway and down an incline. Still going full speed, I lay the
bike down on its left side just like at the races. I can actually feel myself
sliding along the ground. The next thought is get free of the bike. Separate
from the bike. Kick the bike free. Still moving at speed, the thought flashes
and I manage to get off the bike and behind it. In the next instant as the bike
slams to the ground, I realize my foot is trapped underneath and the momentum is
pulling me along.
The bike is sliding along- pulling me. I can’t break free.
I’m lying on my side sliding, when the bike hits something and bounces up into
the air. My left boot breaks free but we both keep sliding. Suddenly there’s a
clunk and as quickly as it began, it’s over.
I lay right beside the bike sprawled out in what I realize is
a thicket. The bike has slid over and through these bushes and barely touched
gravel. I just lie there for a second collecting my wits as to what just
happened. Then I stand up and become very angry. I don’t even think to look
and see if I am hurt or bleeding. I ride bikes every day, trip or no trip. I don’t
even own a car. I ride rain, sun, hot, or cold, but I am not supposed to crash.
Waves of anger consume me, even more so because I have crashed for the second
time this trip. Crashing sucks.
Looking myself over, it seems every joint is working fine. No
sharp pains, in fact not even a scratch. My leathers have protected me once
more. I take stock of my surroundings and smell gasoline. It’s pouring out of
the tank onto the engine and ground. I have just filled up an hour ago and the
tank’s rather full. I have to right the bike to get the flow of gasoline to
stop. I start pulling all the gear off the bike becoming even angrier.
How could I have crashed? How stupid, out here in the
wilderness, miles from anything to have ruined the serenity of my journey. The
adrenaline surges. How could I have made such a mistake! I throw the gear to the
side, struggling to pull the hard bags off. I am just seething. As I pull the
right side one off, it finally occurs to me where I am standing. I become aware
that the bike is perched on the edge of a cliff and the back tire is hanging out
in space.
Below where I’m standing is a 40 to 50 foot drop down an
extremely steep cliff. All the trees have been cut on the hillside and there are
tree stumps sticking out of the ground straight up. They're a clue as to just
how steep the hillside is. At the bottom of the cliff, tree trunks lay like
discarded Lincoln Logs.
The only thing that has stopped the bike and I from shooting
off the side of the cliff is a small stump. It’s the only one I can see on the
cliff edge where I am standing. It’s small, only about 4 inches thick. And to
boot, it’s sticking up from below the cliff edge. It’s been cut level with
the ground, the ground where I am standing. The stump has caught the bike by
becoming wedged in between the swing arm and the muffler. It’s the only thing
that stopped us from going over the edge.
Not really thinking, I climb down the cliff edge, hanging
onto the stump. It’s incredibly steep. I dig my boots into the soft earth of a
small dirt overhang, the first place wide enough even to get a foothold. The
tire is at the level of my chin. Looking up, the entire bike is perched ready to
go over. I push on the tire, trying to dislodge it to no avail. Each time I try
to lift upwards, I slide down the hillside. My combat boots sink into the soft
earth from all the rains and no traction forces me to clamor back up to the
cliff edge.
I again take note of my surroundings and become aware that I
can’t be seen from the road. Its surface is ten feet above me. I have slid off
the road onto an outcropping. If anyone notices I’m down here, they haven’t
stopped. The bike has slid over thick brush so there is barely a trail. There
are no skid marks on the road or nonexistent shoulder to show someone has even
gone off the road. Worse yet, and rather unlikely, if anyone also misses this
corner, I’m in their direct path. It‘s an odd thought. My body collapses on
the ground beside the bike, panting.
The world starts spinning. My whole body starts shaking. I
realize I could have been killed. Like for real this time, sure I’ve crashed
before over the last few years of motorcycling, but never this close. I sit
there slumping and stare at the stump. It really is the only stump on the entire
outcropping. I start weeping, shaking uncontrollably. I just lose it.
I have to pull myself together. Get the bike off the edge of
the cliff. It’s like a command. I can’t stand the bike up so I am going to
have to manhandle it off the edge. I tug at the bike grunting- it doesn’t
budge. I’m afraid that if I push it up, it’ll topple right over the edge.
The front tire has scooped up a small amount of fine dirt in
its landing place. I try the tire next. It too proves very heavy after I tug at
the rim and heave again and again. I collapse once more panting. Sweat is
running into my eyes. For a moment I can’t see through the salty solution. I’m
still wearing all my leathers and sweating profusely. I start pulling and
tugging off my gloves, jacket, and turtleneck as if I was chained to them. Now
down to just my black leather chaps and white tank top, I clutch a canteen
guzzling the water. Sitting down on the edge of the cliff, my boots hang off the
side swaying in the wind. The water is cool to my lips and everything stops for
a moment once more. I just sit there sweating and gasping for breath.
Odd thoughts run through my head like a herd of wild horses.
I’m done with motorcycling. I am going to push it over the edge and hitchhike
home. I gaze over the side and imagine my body lying down there. It’s as if I’m
looking down on myself from space again. My crumpled leathered body lies impaled
on a small stump or something. Or even broken bones and internal injuries would
leave me stranded to survive on the 20 pounds of MRE’s I have with me. I have
my K-Bar, my first aid kit, and the water in my canteens. The bike would lie in
a pile inches from me, a tire there, a motor there, surrounded by forest and
bears. I can just see my body lying like a rag doll at the bottom.
Survival stories rage through my head, every James Bond movie
I’ve ever seen where the car goes careening off the edge of the cliff, and of
course appropriately bursts into flames. Of every Drama in Real Life story I’ve
ever read in Reader’s Digest I used to read as a kid. Even if I had gone over
the edge, I could survive somehow. Eating tree bark and killing squirrels with
my bare hands, crawling to the nearest town a hundred miles away, I could
survive for awhile.
Suddenly the thoughts come to a screeching halt, and I pull
myself away from the cliff edge. It’s like somebody hit the reset button and
my brain started rebooting. I know I can’t budge the bike. I know I can’t be
seen from the road. But I’m perfectly okay, and so I have to get out of this
myself. I know the engine won’t start since it’s been dosed in gasoline so
my guess is it needs some time to dry off.
I pull on the bike once more, jerking, tugging. Each time I
get it to move, it springs back to its resting place stuck on the stump. The
front tire is buried in dirt and I have to lift the bike off the edge of the
cliff. It can’t just be tipped back upright because I’m still afraid I’ll
push it over the edge of the cliff. Also I’m afraid if the bike is disturbed
in the wrong way, bumped or something like that, I might topple it over the edge
also. I stand at the edge careful of where I am standing. One step backwards and
it’s open space. The area if overgrown so much, it’s hard to tell where the
vegetation stops and the cliff ends.
I finally move the front tire by dragging rather than
lifting. The bike pivots on the stump away from the edge. Think like an engineer
my brain commands. With that, the position of the bike changes. I pull at the
back end grunting and straining. Finally with a heave worthy of a groin pull, I
lift the 700-lb. bike off the stump and away from the edge. I collapse on the
ground in a heap panting and gasping for breath, sweating profusely.
With ground under the wheels, I push the bike upright and
just pause there balancing. The bike finally stands up by itself as I wedge in
the board to prop it up. I can’t get the kickstand out because between the
tires is a mound of dirt. I push the starter and the motor turns over but no
hint of starting. I better save the battery and let the bike sit awhile.
Walking back up the path of the slide, my little brain
realizes looking at the downed thicket that I came off the road at precisely the
right spot. It was just in the right trajectory to slide parallel along the
road. The entire path of the slide bordered along the edge of the cliff for a
good 30 feet. Somehow, the bike and I stayed on the side of the road. We should
have flown off the edge in any other circumstance. Where the bike came to rest,
that was the end of the available space on this cliff. And right at that point
was where the bike met the stump.
If there is any greater word for awe, even a sort of
spiritual thankfulness, I feel as though I am bathing in it. My brain and senses
keep trying to assimilate what just happened. It’s as though I just can’t
compute it all, almost like being in shock. I walk back to the bike retracing
the path. My head shakes back and forth, and here I stand, not a scratch. The
ground extends out 4 feet from the road at the start of the slide then drops
down. It extends to about fifteen feet wide and the bike rests at the widest
part, a cradle of sorts below the road.
Finally, I start assessing the damage to the bike. The left
mirror is broken off and the dash is busted up. I can tell I have bent the inner
fairing frame. The framework supports the fairings and windshield. The radio has
been demolished. I pick it up and a pile of dirt pours out of the tape deck.
That makes me laugh a little.
The bike is still propped up with the board that once covered
the rear seat. I have to move the bike further away from the edge. The only way
to do that is to pick up the entire rear of the bike and lift it to the left. I
heave squatting like a weightlifter trying to pick up the rear of the Venture.
Nothing happens. I lift again straining even more. It budges a little.
Then I lose my balance and the entire bike falls over landing
on my left leg. Trapped, my limp body just lies there panting and sweating.
Still able to wiggle my toes, always a good sign, I try but cannot even move the
leg. There is no leverage and the bike is now seemingly becoming heavier as the
pain of the weight begins to grow. Think like an engineer.
I swing around my good leg, prop my back against the ground
and push up on the seat as hard as I can. The bike raises just enough for me to
pull the leg out. I think I am losing a few pounds just from sweating. This is
turning out to be some day.
Once away from the edge, the bike starts right up and runs as
smoothly as it always has to my welcome relief. I let it idle to just hear the
comforting sound of the motor. Looking down, it occurs to me the gear shifter is
sort of wrapped underneath the motorcycle and it’s still in a high gear.
Pulling out some tools, I bend it just enough to downshift it into first gear.
I stand to the side and hold both handlebars. Letting out the
clutch, the tire spins in the soft dirt and begins to sink. That’s not going
to work. Letting it idle, I work around to the rear of the bike carefully
balancing. The weightlifter in me squats, heaves, and picks up the rear of the
bike. The back tire comes out of the hole and onto solid ground. Letting out the
clutch again, the bike moves a little as I roar the engine spinning the rear
tire. Dirt shoots out from behind in a rooster tail. The front tire plows
against the mound of dirt. These tires are designed for long distance traveling and not dirt riding. I find my trusty board and wedge it underneath the rear
tire. The route up to the road is very steep. The bike is going no where fast.
In all this time, well over an hour has passed; not a single
person has stopped. I am sure it is because I am below the surface of the road.
And strangely, my embarrassment is so great from crashing; I’m glad no one has
stopped. But with the bike now upright, and in a different position, I can be
seen. I wonder if it looks like I am supposed to be here, as if I pulled off the
road to hang out awhile. That would be the vantage of the cars lazily rounding
the corner to my left.
However, I now realize the cars entering the corner from the
opposite direction have a much better view of me and to my amazement, one
finally pulls to a stop. A thirty something guy in a Mercury Quest minivan jumps
out and hurriedly comes over to me. His wife is in the passenger seat and two
small kids sit in the back looking in our direction. After assuring him I’m
okay, (I leave out I’ve been here for some time) we muscle the bike up the
steep embankment. The rear tire spins fighting for traction. I gun the motor,
and we make it to the edge of the road.
I say heartfelt thanks. He offers to help me collect my
things. He can see the hardbags and all my gear strewn in a pile where the bike
was lying. I refuse politely and we wave goodbye as he hops back in his Mercury
Quest and goes on his merry way. I never even caught his name.
This blind corner is bad news as the bike now sits at
its apex. I walk down the steep embankment, across the outcropping and to the
edge where a pile of my stuff sits. Hauling it back up the embankment and
reattaching the gear to the back of the bike, there’s a jerry can missing
which I hadn’t noticed before. Looking over the edge, there it lies at the
bottom of the steep hillside. Hopping over, holding onto saplings, and shimming
along downed tree trunks, I clamor to the bottom. There it lies, not a drop of
gasoline lost as it tumbled over the edge in the crash.
For a moment, my mind pauses and drinks in my surroundings
where I could be lying right now. I am glad this is the only thing that flew
over the edge. My hand reaches for the red gas can. Holding it in one, clawing
with the other, I haul the 20-pound jug up the side of the hill. Thrusting the
toes of my boots into the soft dirt to get a foothold and grasping for anything
solid to pull myself along with one hand, I make my way slowly. Drops of sweat
roll down my face. On my hands and knees, I claw along, this isn’t exactly
something you can stroll or walk up. It’s so steep, while stopping for a
breath halfway up and standing erect, the ground is right in front of my nose.
Finally reaching the top edge, I heave the jerry can up over the edge as if it
were a grenade. I pull myself up collapsing on my back again, huffing and
puffing, sweating.
The bike loaded up once more; I ease off the clutch. Rolling
out onto the road, a wave of relief settles over me. Just to feel the motorcycle
moving once more is a source of comfort. My trip plans have been destroyed, not
that I exactly had a plan, but my reaction is just to head straight for home and
call it a day. Why tempt fate? From now on, my brain decides, I am just taking
it easy and making my way south. I feel like stopping at the first place that I
come to just pull myself together. As I pick up speed, I start shaking. I can’t
seem to stop. A few miles go by and I seem to calm down a little. The relief is
overwhelming. I feel like crying like a baby.
I lazily ride down the road as if the last few hours didn’t
even happen. Except for the rattling of all the broken pieces, I think it just
didn’t happen. It just didn’t. I’m not dead. I’m not lying in a heap at
the bottom of some wilderness mountain road. It just didn’t happen.
Muncho Lake Provincial Park is the first thing that looks
promising as a rest stop and I pull in. I feel as though the bike needs some
attention and my brain does too. So into a campground and a deserted site I pull
the bike into and shut it all down. It is only the middle of the day. Out come
the tools and the front part of the bike begins to be dismantled. The fairings
are not as bad as I had thought, just all the mounting spots are broken off.
That’s causing the rattling but the untrained eye probably wouldn’t even
know an accident took place.
I do my best to doctor it all up and begin to study the maps
on the picnic table and eat a light lunch. I write in the trip journal and try
to relax my mind and body after the series of events. After some time, the color
of the sky begins to rapidly change above me. I decide to continue heading east.
A storm is coming in rapidly as the smell and taste of the
air changes. I pack up my things quickly and pull out the rain suit. I am
beginning to dislike rain very much. The only thing to do is drive through it
instead of sitting here getting rained on. It would seem also, that I escaped
the site of my crash in good timing also.
For a moment, the rain is a sprinkle. Just as I finish
tugging on the rainsuit and snapping it up, there’s an all out downpour, the
sky is falling in huge drops. I pull on the helmet as the rain splatters off the
top and drips onto my face. A torrential downpour falls on me announcing the
arrival of this latest storm. Puddles quickly form around the bike as I start it
up. Time to leave. I have been parked at the campsite four hours. I feel better,
spiritually and mentally. The rain pours down as I pull out onto the road in
this first cloud burst. After a few minutes it subsides to just plain ole sucky
rain. Yuck.
Starting out on the 150 miles to Fort Nelson, the road
quality improves for awhile, then grows worse. Nothing is for sure up here. The
endless construction continues and there is gravel everywhere. The sky is low,
ominously gray and the rain pours forth. I realize that I am still in the Muncho
Provincial Park, which is long and narrow. The highway rides right through the
middle of it.
The view must be spectacular. I have been concentrating so
hard on the road, it didn’t even occur that mountains lift into the sky and
pines abound. Lakes nestle in and among the trees and in the valleys below. I
ride over an occasional stream underneath the road. The rain is now coming down
in torrents. Probably the hardest rain I have ever ridden in. For whatever
reason, the bike runs like a charm. The other day in Alaska remains a mystery.
The wind is blowing as if I was on a New England coast staring into the Atlantic
on a stormy day. I wonder if this is what Nova Scotia is like.
Rounding a corner reveals a peculiar scene. The pouring rain
is making mush of a hillside at the edge of the road and it is literally
disintegrating before my very eyes. The ditch beside the road is already full of
fresh rocks and boulders. Escaping stones roll unencumbered, tumbling down,
bouncing off the mound of boulders and into the road. The road by now is covered
in boulders, some as big as a foot in diameter. Stones and boulders continue to
roll one after the other, escaping down the exposed steep hillside. They pick up
speed and roll right out into the road. The dirt of the hillside has turned to
soup and is actually collapsing and oozing onto the road.
There is barely enough room for one vehicle at a time to
weave through 75 feet of rocks. A narrow path at the farthest left edge of the
road, one wheel on the shoulder, is all that’s clear. I wait my turn as
campers come the other way. When my turn arrives, I ride through the rocks
watching boulders plummeting down. No big ones make it to me, but a couple small
stones make it to the bike tinking against the rims.
My boots are soaked and rain is driving into the pavement
below me, everything is wet. The sky seems as though it is only 50 feet above
me. Haze and clumps of fog cling to the hillsides. I reach the far side of the
rocks and turn around parking the bike at the edge of the rapidly forming rock pile
in the middle of the highway. I let the bike idle and stand there
watching the hillside collapse onto the road in the cold pouring rain.
Five separate storms come and go that
afternoon. Never have I
ridden through anything like this kind of weather, it is bizarre. I’ve never
even heard of anything like this. Each downpour comes to a gradual end, and a
hole in the clouds appears. The sun even shines through. Then the sun suddenly
disappears and I am stuck in another torrential downpour of wetness. This is so
odd, five times over.
Later at another bend in the road, there’s a dry
creek bed that empties into a lake. The road runs right along the edge of it with
mountains to my left. It looks like a good place to stop and take a quiet serene
breather. The rain has stopped for a moment and I am thankful for a momentary
respite from the wetness. The bike is parked right beside a culvert where the creek bed
runs beneath the road. Pausing there and shutting off the bike, it is
so peaceful up here I think. After a few minutes, an odd noise like rushing
water can be heard. But it isn’t raining and actually it seems really calm.
Dark low clouds race by overhead but no rain.
I turn in the direction of the noise and a massive wall of
water is rushing down the dry creek bed toward me. It’s like something out of a
Hollywood theme park ride. Taken by complete surprise, I quickly run over to the
bike. Not even bothering to start it, I pull in the clutch and push it as
quickly as I can away from the culvert straining against the weight of the bike.
Just as I get clear, the wall of water slams into the
culvert. The level of the water rises alarmingly fast. Within minutes, I watch
in awe with several other people as the surface of the water quickly overcomes
the culvert. The rushing boiling water strains to rush underneath the road. The
bottom must be 6 feet below the road and 15 feet wide but in a minute or so, the
level of the dirty brown water comes all the way up to the edge of the road. It
was like a river you would go rafting on, pouring forth out of the mountains
violently emptying into the lake. I guess that’s what they call a flashflood.
Then appropriately so, the clouds opened up and another
torrential downpour came soaking down upon me. It sends the others scurrying for
their campers. I just stand there in the pouring rain. I already have my
rainsuit on and I stick my tongue out tasting the rain. I feel like throwing a
fist up in the air at the terrible weather. You want a piece of me? Come and get
me! Rain sucks.
A few miles later popping over a hill is a rather terrible
accident. As a pickup pulling a full-size camper crested the opposing hill, the
driver must have lost control or something like that. The truck is upside down
in the middle of the road and the camper looks as though it exploded. There are
pieces of it everywhere. White chunks of camper siding are strewn about both
sides of the highway and into the ditches. Even the axles to the camper are not
even attached to the frame anymore. Everything you’d find inside a camper is
lying all over the place- cups, dishes, pillows, firewood, and even bicycles.
It looks as though the accident was a short time ago. Cars
and people are everywhere parked on both ends of the accident and everyone is
pitching in to clean up the scene. The ambulance is not there yet but it doesn’t
look like anyone is dead or anything. No white sheets anywhere. I think back a
few hours to my own. Okay, so it wasn’t this bad. I roll by what’s left of
the camper on it’s side near the overturned vehicle. It must be a rather
terrible end to a vacation for someone.
Fort Nelson finally arrives and not quite sure what to do, I
ride through the town. I figure I am 5 – 6 hours from anywhere. I look up and
the sky is gray and dark in all directions. I know if I continue to head south
to try and find a campground, the storms will probably wash me away. Everything
I have is wet. I could use a good night’s rest. This has been a very hard day,
probably the hardest of the entire trip. The right thing to do is get a motel
room for the night and dry out. I hesitate to do that but it seems the best
choice. $45 Canadian seems like a lot of money although it is probably only
about $30 bucks. I am such a cheapskate.
When I rode into Fort Nelson, it didn’t feel very old like
up in Dawson City or in Whitehorse. There were plenty of pickups and that sort
of thing, but it feels much more industrial that historic. I always wonder what
people do up here in the middle of nowhere. I asked the desk clerk, and she says
that the town is actually pretty new in a sense. Even up into the 1950’s, the
town was a frontier town and didn’t even have electricity, telephones, running
water, doctors, that sort of thing. I must look a little surprised to her. It
wasn’t until they discovered all the natural gas underneath the town that
things really got cooking around here she adds.
I haul everything into my motel room and drape wet clothes
everywhere. I settle in eating a dinner of chicken and watch cable TV, all 12
channels. I read a couple brochures from the hotel lobby. The first one is for a
huge natural gas plant just south of town. The gas was discovered in 1960 and
the area has long been known for oil seeping right out of the ground. The
Westcoast Energy natural gas processing plant is the largest in all of North
America. The gas is pulled from the ground, purified, and then pumped south in
an 800-mile long pipeline. A lot of the vehicles up here are natural gas also,
and many of the area gas stations have natural gas pumps. Where there is natural
gas, there is sulfur as the byproduct. This gets made into pellets and trucked
southward. It says I can take a tour of the plant. A tour of a sulfur plant? I
think I’ll pass.
As usual there is a huge logging industry. In town, there’s a veneer plant,
a sawmill and a plywood plant. Huge quantities of chopsticks are made here and
shipped overseas to Asian markets. How’s that for irony. Sitting in Japan
eating rice and stamped on your chopsticks are the words, Made in Canada. I
think I can take a tour of one of those plants too. Sounds better than a sulfur
plant. |
