Day 43
   
   6/9/01
   Mile 4026
   Near Champagne, Yukon
   
   I went to the bike shop in the morning, and it was crowded.  Next
   weekend, as turns out it, is a relay race of about 170 miles, and
   everyone was getting last-minute things done.  I left the bike with them
   for a few minor items, the most important of which was brake pads, which I'd
   worn to the bone.  That would give me time to see the town while they
   worked on it, and I could leave later and get a half day cycling in.
   
   The name Whitehorse has nothing to do with any horses around; people
   just remarked that the rapids on the Yukon river there looked like
   white horse's manes as they shot into the air.  Riverboats plied the waters
   during and after the gold rush era, and I took the tour on the
   drydocked paddlewheeler S.S. Klondike.  It was much larger than I had expected
   for a boat this far north.  Drafting even the four feet of water it
   did seemed optimistic for many of the sections of the river I'd seen.
   Passage to Dawson had cost $35, a lot of money at a time when wages
   were often 10 or 20 cents per hour.  It was a woodburner, using two cords per
   hour when fighting the current upstream.
   
   A tour bus of retirees had also been on the boat tour.  The host asked
   me if I was the biker with orange-and-black clothing they had passed a
   couple of times on the road.  When I told her I was, she said, "Oh,
   all the women on the bus were saying 'He has so little on the bike, where
   is all his food?' They were all doing the Jewish Mother thing - you
   know, 'You're so thin! Eat! Eat!'"
   
   They're big on Robert Service here, the "Bard of the Yukon", author of
   the poem I previously sent as a supplement.  There's a street called
   Robert Service Way, a Robert Service campground, and the actual cabin
   of Sam McGee, who inspired the poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee".  If you
   haven't read it already and like the macabre, read it sometime.  I listened 
   to it read aloud in front of the McGee cabin.
   
   I picked up the bike, went back to the hostel.  I had to tear myself
   away, as I very much wanted to stay another day and rest up.  But
   there would time for that later, so I packed up, ate, and loaded up on
   groceries.  I finally left town about 5pm, starting my cycling day
   when most people would be ending theirs.
   
   The road out of Whitehorse was, on a relative scale, about the worst
   I've seen the whole trip - but on an absolute scale, still quite
   usable.  There were many sections of gravel several hundred feet long, and
   passing traffic threw up large clouds of dust.  Where it was paved, it
   was back to rough-surfaced.
   
   Mosquitoes rule now.  They provided plenty of incentive to keep moving
   - stop, and you'd have a dozen bites within five seconds.  I found the
   magic number to be 12mph - maintain that, and you're bite-free.  Of
   course, that's not always easy on the hills with a heavy bike.
   
   This area is slightly dryer than others.  Not much muskeg, and in fact
   some sand dunes.  It lies in a bit of a rain shadow of the mountains.
   
   I went about 50 miles and pulled off into the woods for the night,
   around 9:30pm  'Skeeters, holy smoke, most I have ever seen in my
   life.  I immediately put on long leg pants and jacket, plus for the first time
   I used my head-net that I'd carried since day one.  I haven't opened my
   bottle of DEET yet, but I probably will tomorrow.  Until then, I'll do
   it the old fashioned way - only because it was cool enough to allow
   putting on that many clothes.
   
   There is a new sound now to accompany me as I go to sleep - the
   endless buzz of a cloud of mosquitoes trying to get into the tent.  Away,
   parasites.

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