Yukon Ho!

July 30 – August 4: Ketchikan to Prince Rupert

The ferry docked in Ketchikan at 330am the next night and Sean and I rode off into the mist and the rain in search of a good place to camp. Luck was finally with us as we rode right past a high school that had covered, outdoor, end-to-end basketball courts. The inverted wooden “V” of roof came right down to the ground around the courts, sheltering the inside from both rain and view. We didn’t even set our tent up -just threw the mats on the concrete and laid our sleeping bags on top of them.
In the morning it was sunny, so we packed up and rode downtown which was rammed with people. Ketchikan is a huge port for the Alaskan cruises. We talked to a teenage crossing guard who told us Thursdays are the worst -on Thursdays, the massive, white luxury liners unleash 10, 000 tourists on the town.
We asked about breakfast at the tourist info centre and they told us the Pioneer Diner was the cheapest place to go. The Pioneer was a little off the main street, away from all the tacky gold stores, so it was full of smoking locals (I know -weird) scarfing greasy breakfasts. We slid into a red vinyl booth and scanned the menu. I’m no scientist, but I’ll hazard a guess as to why America has an obesity problem: all their omelettes contain four eggs, and the standard breakfast comes with three eggs on top of buttered toast, bacon and hash browns. If you want an egg less, you have to pay extra. Sean and I also realized that the price of veggies in Alaska is through the roof, while chocolate bars and candy are dirt cheap. You do the math America.
While we were waiting for our food, a tall guy with a huge grin and brown rubber boots came over and  asked if we were the bikers cause he’d seen bikes out front and no one else in the place looked like they could’ve been riding them.
His name was Rhett, he was into biking, and within five minutes he was sitting with us, chatting while he waited for his daughter, Colleen, who was visiting from Texas. By the time she showed up the restaurant was at capacity and there was nowhere for them to sit so we invited them to eat with us. Rhett was friendly and outgoing, and Colleen was this super-smart, polite 12-year-old so they were a pleasure to eat with. By the end of the meal Rhett wanted to know where we were staying and offered us his condo when we said we were considering the basketball court again. He had a condo right behind the diner that Colleen and her friends had stayed in the last couple days but they were all flying home to Texas at 4pm. He didn’t live there anymore because he was staying in a house he’d recently bought and was fixing up so the condo was just sitting there. We jumped on the offer and paid for their breakfast as a thank-you. After that the four of us walked up to the condo, Rhett gave us his keys, then showed us to the building’s garage where we locked up our gear and bikes.
He went off to hang out with his daughter and we went to explore the village. Ketchikan is funny because the whole place seems to live to service the ferries. There’s an awesome little arts community there, but other than that -the place is full of gift, gold and pawn shops and one lumberjack show that takes place in the middle of town a couple times a day (log-rolling, log-climbing, log-chopping). When the ferries dock the stores open up. When the ferries pull out the stores shut down. The store hours depend on the ferry hours. It’s weird but kind of neat because what’s the point to being at work when there’s no work? Exactly. The houses in Ketchikan are built right into the sides of the mountains, and any that aren’t are built on stilts, boardwalks and gangplanks along the water.
So we wandered and toured and checked out some shops, then called BC Ferries again. This time they told us they had a deal going with a charter airline and we could get a flight to Port Hardy for the cost of a ferry ticket so, problem solved, we booked and went back to investigate the condo. It was quite nice, had a sweet view of the forest and creek, and there was unlimited free internet that Rhett had insisted we use. We geeked out for a few hours to make up the serious internet time we missed out on all summer. After that we watched “The Money Pit” and passed out.
We spent most of the next day doing the same thing we’d done the day before and just killing time until we had to check in with the ferry docks at 9pm. We had dinner at a place called the New York Hotel Diner, which had a comfortably low-brow and laid-back staff even thought it was stylishly decorated and only served from a tapas menu. Tapas is frou-frou for “appetizer” so we had to order five or six of them…plus two bottles of wine (that kind of happened by accident). We were a little tipsy by 845 (well maybe just me) but we packed up all our things and rode down to the ferry where we made our boat even though there was absolutely no announcement for it and as far as any terminal staff were concerned, the boat wasn’t even there yet.
We boarded and ended up on the empty diner level where a cashier struck up a conversation with us and, with very minimal prodding, opened the bar “but just for us guys.” She was very nice and fun to talk to so the three of us spent about an hour in the dark, cozy bar together.
After that we went to bed.
When we woke up at 6am to disembark I wasn’t feeling so hot. We moved through customs pretty quickly because the guard who inspected us was a biker himself and in awe of our sweet rides. We biked all over Prince Rupert looking for the Black Rooster Inn. Again, the plan had been to camp but I was feeling like crap so I sprung for a private room at a hostel. The Black Rooster was sooooooo much better than the Pioneer Hostel where we stayed the first time we were in P.R. First off the staff were pleasant and smiley and secondly, they didn’t give us any attitude or grief. They had a little cafe that made delicious Nutella/strawberry crepes, and the rooms were awesome. The private room we had there was $50 -same as any other hostel’s private room- but there were two beds, extra pillows, shampoo, soap and conditioner, towels, an alarm clock and a TV with cable, including (BA BA BA!) The Movie Network. We rode around town a bit but were back at the hostel by mid-afternoon to spend the rest of the day and night watching movies.