- "The hard life that never knows harness;
- The wilds where the caribou call;
- The freshness, the freedom, the farness--
- Oh God! How I'm stuck on it all."
- -- Robert Service
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-
-
- Ramshackled buildings with wooden boardwalks lined the
streets as we pedaled into Dawson City, Yukon on a hot day in July. Stooped
shouldered, craggy-faced prospectors shuffled along in the dirt without
giving us a nod. Bowie knives hung from their belts and they gripped rifles
in their hands as easily as a Chicago businessman carries a briefcase.
Their faces reflected the rough life that hadn't changed since the days
of Jack London.
-
- Ever an optimist, but I didn't know how anyone could
live in that place where the winter winds bit like driven nails.
-
- My brother Rex purchased a gold pan and caught up with
me at the Klondike Grocery Store. I crammed apples into my panniers.
-
- "Ready to camp?" Rex asked. "I'm itchin'
to hit the stream for some gold panning."
- "The storekeeper said we could find a place a mile
from here on a tributary of the Yukon," I said.
-
- "This buckeroo is gonna' make the big strike,"
Rex said, joking.
-
- We pedaled our fully loaded mountain bikes out of town
to an abandoned path overgrown with bushes. The rutted trail led through
deep woods and several times, we got off the bikes to hoist them over fallen
trees. We followed the path down a ravine until it stopped at a wide, shallow
stream. A sandbar stood in the middle of the slowly gliding current. It
was one of those places where tranquility kept a vigil and only the whisper
of the wind broke the silence.
-
- "This is the perfect place to start the next Klondike
gold rush," Rex said, slapping his pan. "You want first chance?"
-
- "Go ahead," I said. "I'll set up the tents."
-
- Rex took off his shoes and waded into the water. I pulled
the panniers from our bikes, pitched the tents and had camp set up in 30
minutes. After starting a fire with deadwood, I boiled some water for tea.
-
- With a steaming cup in one hand, I grabbed my journal
and walked down to the river's edge. Sitting against a rock with my socks
off, I wasn't paying much attention to my gold panning brother. Overhead,
white clouds skidded across the sky and a cool wind whispered through the
pine trees. This was a serene place--the dark soil, the rocks, and a pine-scented
forest--and beyond, a river that crawled between sandy banks like escaped
quicksilver.
-
- "You rich yet?" I yelled at Rex as he dumped
another pan-full of muddy water.
-
- "Any minute now," he said, standing up to rub
his back. "This gold panning is hard on my back."
-
- Rex continued his task while I wrote a few lines in my
journal. That journal had been a part of my bicycling travels for 20 years,
but every time I began writing, I still wondered what to write. That shatteringly
beautiful waterfall we had seen last night, turned to molten gold by the
sun? The slow dark glide of that bald eagle on his dinner patrol? The salmon
lashing upstream toward birth and death?
-
- So absorbed was I in my thoughts, I only partially heard
the harsh crackling of nearby brush and breaking limbs. But what happened
next brought me leaping to my feet and turned my blood to ice. The journal
fell from my hands.
-
- Terrifying roars and bellows filled the air, and sounds
of snapping limbs echoed across the river. Whatever it was, it was BIG--and
the battle was being joined.
-
- "What the hell was that?" Rex shouted, dropping
his pan and scrambling out of the water.
-
- "I'm not sure," I said, as he stopped beside
me, breathing hard.
-
- "I don't think we should wait around," Rex
said--and at that moment a bull moose stumbled into view, head erect and
blood blackening on his torn shoulder. He lowered his rack, as an enormous
grizzly rushed at him and swatted the antlers aside. The grizzly charged
with his thick neck lowered and extended, and his jaws opened wide as he
lunged for the moose's throat. Somehow, the moose avoided the grizzly's
teeth, and dug in his haunches so that the muscles in his legs were cable-tight.
He countered with a lunge at the bear's chest. Horn ripped through his
brown hide, hit bone--and the grizzly roared, but the killing lust was
on him.
-
- In he charged again, half-rearing on his hind legs, both
paws swatting at the moose like a boxer, staggering the animal. The moose
bellowed, gave ground, came back again--and suddenly both animals reared,
hooves to fangs, one desperate to live, the other intent on killing.
-
- "Let's get out of here," I whispered. "Leave
the gear. We'll get it later. This is not time to worry about the small
stuff."
-
- Rex needed no urging, and although every nerve in my
body-- and probably Rex's-- screamed at me to run like hell, I forced myself
to walk my bike into the tree line. There, back in the shadows, we watched
the brutal drama unfolding on nature's stage.
-
- The moose suffered the worst of things, yet he battled
gallantly, keeping his antlered head low and catching the grizzly each
time it charged. But the bear was the size of a VW Beetle, almost as heavy
and as solid as the moose. He towered higher when he stood--so that he
could strike downward with his razor sharp claws, ripping his prey's shoulders
like a toreador lancing the forequarters of a bull to weaken it--and make
it lower its head for the matador's sword thrust.
-
- A bull moose weighs a ton and a grizzly can reach 1,500
pounds. These two seemed evenly matched in size--which meant that the bear,
with his four-inch claws and two-inch teeth, had an advantage. Barring
some stupid move, like allowing his jugular to be pierced by an antler,
the grizzly's victory was a certainty.
-
- From our hidden vantage-point, looking out between the
limbs of trees, we saw bright rivulets of blood running down the bear's
chest. The moose was now a pitiful sight, staggering with weariness, backed
into the shallows where the water was turning reddish brown, and a large
piece of antler was broken off by one mighty blow from the grizzly's paw.
In came the bear again, roaring so fiercely it was almost a scream, and
the exhausted moose bellowed back its defiance.
-
- Now, however, the battle's balance had shifted. The bear's
sharp claws ripped into the moose's ribs, laying them bare. Then the bear's
teeth sank into the neck, and only by a supreme effort was the moose able
to shake him off again.
-
- I didn't want to watch any more, yet my fascinated eyes
were ready for the final drama. After five minutes that seemed like hours,
the bear made one last head down charge--and sent the moose sprawling into
the river. The moose made a final bellow, a last exhausted attempt to rise,
but it was hopeless. The grizzly had him by the throat, and the moose thrashed
erratically for a minute, then died.
-
- "Oh, my God," Rex whispered, gripping my arm.
-
- The bear held his grip until the moose stopped quivering.
Then, raising his massive anvil-shaped head, he let out a roar that shivered
the forest air, and began feeding.
-
- I felt as Rex did, as any human being would--it had been
a frightening scene. Savage violence unleashed beside a beautiful stream
in the wilderness. Yet no one had committed a crime. Life sustains life.
-
- The grizzly, blood mixed with froth lathering his jaw,
raised his head and looked right at us. Whether the wind had shifted or
not, I was leaving.
-
- "Come on," I whispered. "Let's get back
to town, not that anyone there is going to believe what we saw."
-
- In the morning, we rode back to find our gear still intact,
but on the sandbar a partly devoured moose carcass was the only indication
of the battle.
-
- In silence, we folded the tents and packed our gear.
- "I guess you're out of a gold pan," I said.
-
- "I don't care," Rex said. "Money can't
buy what we saw yesterday."
-
- We pedaled our way out of the woods. The gravel road
wound through the mountains like a lazy serpent, bending and slithering
its way along the Yukon River. We pedaled our bikes up a long grade to
the 'Top Of The World Highway'. No telling what lay ahead. That's the way
it's been for my bicycle and me--always the promise of a new adventure
around the next bend....
-
- _____
-
- Excerpt from the book: Bicycling Around the World:
Tire Tracks for Your Imagination. Copies available-1 888 280 7715
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