Riding the Americas

by Alastair Humphreys

  In shops Tom would spot items of food and think excitedly to himself, “They have English food here!” But, in fact, many of the things Tom enjoyed eating at home – breakfast cereals, fizzy drinks, ketchup, hot dogs, burgers – all came to England from the USA.

  As Tom cycled through Arizona, he was looking forward to reaching the Grand Canyon, one of the most famous sights in the world. The Grand Canyon was formed over millions of years by the waters of the Colorado River. Slowly, slowly the river wore down the rock, carving out an enormous canyon. The canyon is 200 miles long and over a mile deep. The rock at the bottom of the canyon is much older than the rock at the surface. At the bottom, the rock is almost 2 billion years old (2,000,000,000 years)!

  It is no surprise that the Grand Canyon is the most popular tourist destination in the state of Arizona. What is more surprising is the second most popular tourist destination in Arizona: London Bridge! About 50 years ago this famous old bridge from the River Thames in England was bought by an American and shipped, brick by brick, across the ocean to the USA. Instead of battling a cold and rainy climate, it now stands across the Colorado River in hot and dusty Arizona. The bridge looked a bit odd so far away from home out under the blue desert skies.

  In California, the desert gradually gave way to green fields and palm trees. Snow-covered mountains shone in the distance as Tom rode towards the ocean and Los Angeles. He huffed and puffed his way up the hills above the city to take a photo of himself in front of the famous HOLLYWOOD sign. Tom smiled as he sent the picture to his little sister back home. She dreamed of being an actress and starring in one of the famous films they make in Hollywood.

  But Tom wasn’t crazy about all the traffic in Los Angeles and the fumes coming out of the fancy cars so he rode on up the coast, heading for San Francisco. The hills in that city are not very long – nothing at all compared to the Andes. But they were the steepest roads Tom had ever ridden. (This is because mountain roads zig-zag, but city streets go straight up into the air without curving. Steep city streets can be very hard work!)

  Tom had to share the roads in San Francisco with trams. These run on rails, like a train, in amongst all the normal cars and buses. There are poles on the trams so that standing passengers can hold on to the outside of the tram during busy periods when there is no space left inside. The people travelling on the outside of the trams would cheer at Tom as they overtook him up a ridiculously steep street. They cheered but they could not clap as they would have fallen off!

  Tom wanted to visit Alcatraz, the famous high-security prison on an island in the bay off San Francisco. Alcatraz is where the toughest and most dangerous criminals used to be kept, including the famous gangster Al Capone. The prison cells were tiny: a prisoner could stretch his arms out and touch both walls at once. It was almost impossible for a prisoner to escape from Alcatraz. Today, though, the prison has closed down and it’s just a tourist attraction.

  As Tom cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge, he looked down at the tiny prison island. From up high on the bridge, about 75 metres above the water, Tom could understand why Alcatraz used to be so feared by criminals. Alcatraz was more than a mile out to sea and surrounded by cold and dangerous water.

  The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most famous landmarks in the world. Tom had already seen its famous curves and distinctive orange colour in countless photographs. But it’s always better to see things for yourself. When it was built, this was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The whole weight of the road is suspended from two enormous cables. The cables are over 2000 metres long and almost a metre thick!

  After crossing the Golden Gate, Tom followed Highway 1, which hugs the Pacific Ocean on a winding, cliff-edge road. On his right hand side were vineyards and fields of flowers. On his left was the shining ocean. Each night Tom climbed down to the beach to camp. He watched the sun setting over the ocean from the open door of his tent and listened to elephant seals grunting noisily beside the water. This was one of Tom’s favourite ever roads.

  One of the highlights were the forests of giant redwood trees. Giant redwoods are really beautiful trees. They usually grow about 80 metres tall, though the tallest of all is 115 metres. They live for 2000 years, and weigh as much as 2000 tonnes! Giant redwoods are the tallest trees in the world.

  One of the redwoods in northern California is so large that a hole has been cut through the middle of it so that people can drive through it, just for fun. Can you imagine how big a tree needs to be in order to drive a car through it?! Tom grinned as he cycled through the tree. This adventure was so full of surprises.

  Cycling through the USA felt a bit like a holiday to Tom. It was beautiful, it was fun, it was easy. He enjoyed it very much. But he wasn’t trying to cycle round the world because he wanted to take it easy. He was trying to cycle round the world because he wanted strange and surprising cultures, and because he wanted huge, empty, adventurous wilderness and big, difficult challenges. So he rode on quickly towards Canada and Alaska. Tom was about to really head into the wild!

  The Sea-To-Sky Highway

  Tom couldn’t believe the size of Canada. It is the second biggest country in the world. Towns might be hundreds of miles apart, roads run on and on and on for week after week without any change of scenery. Wherever Tom looked, trees stretched off forever into the distance. He wondered how many trees there were in Canada. Sometimes he would cycle, counting as he went along: one, two, tree …

  To Tom, who had grown up in the small and crowded landscape of England, the vast emptiness was unbelievably exciting. The world felt enormous and wild and undisturbed. He was on a road called the Sea-to-Sky Highway. Cycling from sea to sky sounded as though it was going to be a lot of hard work! He rode through forests, past lakes and waterfalls and across cold rivers. Tom saw moose, deer, beavers, bald eagles, foxes and coyotes. Then, one evening, he saw his first black bear. A mother bear and two cubs grazed in a field of long grass. Tom stood still and watched, nervous and fascinated. These were the biggest, wildest animals he had seen since Africa. He was careful not to get too close or to make any sudden movements that might scare the bears.

  One night Tom heard rustling sounds right outside his tent. He sat straight up, eyes wide with fright. He was sure a bear was snuffling round right outside; it was probably sniffing him. He thought he was going to be eaten at any moment. Tom didn’t think he’d taste very delicious, but maybe bears think differently. There was nothing that he could do, he was stuck inside the tent. His heart beat faster.

  Tom was very scared. Bears are much bigger than humans. They’ll only attack humans if they are threatened or very hungry. If this bear was hungry, then Tom was in big trouble. He could not see the snarling head and the giant teeth and drooling mouth, but he could imagine them. And imagining is almost worse! Eventually he could not stand the uncertainty any longer. Time to come face to face with his fate. Tom carefully eased the zip on the tent door. The beast was just outside, only inches away from his face. The animal that had turned Tom into a wobbling jelly of terror. Right there, in front of Tom’s face was … a tiny little bird, hopping around in the leaves! He laughed, feeling very silly indeed. The bird flew away in fright as soon as it saw the giant human boy!

  Although Tom loved Canada, he hated the mornings in Canada. The mosquitoes in summertime are perhaps the worst in the world. Whenever Tom stopped cycling he was mobbed by clouds of them. They whined and whirred around his face, covering every patch of bare skin and sucking his blood. Tom swatted them and whirled his arms around his head, but it was no good. There were too many. The only ways to escape from the itchy torture were either to cycle so fast that the horrid little monsters could not keep up, or to fling up his tent as fast as possible and dive inside, zipping the door behind him. The first sight each morning was horrible. Through the thin fabric of the tent, Tom could see the outline of hundreds of mosquitoes. They could smell the juicy, tasty boy inside but they
could not get close enough to suck his blood. So they sat patiently on the outside of his tent, waiting for him to come out and serve them breakfast.

  This was a terrible way for a day to begin. Tom hated mosquitoes. The red itchy bites. The insect clouds in his eyes and nose and mouth. The high-pitched screaming sound in his ears. Before he could jump on his bike and escape, he knew that he had to climb out and face the evil little army.

  He got dressed, ate breakfast and brushed his teeth inside the tent. Then he had to jump out, waving his arms wildly, flapping and slapping his body as the insects swooped. Like a mad man, Tom pulled down the tent as fast as he could. He shoved it into a pannier, jumped on his bike, and rode as fast as his legs could carry him. The cloud of chasing mosquitoes could not keep up, and at last Tom would escape them and be able to relax a bit. It was an annoying, itchy beginning to each day. But at least it helped him get ready really quickly! At home, Tom’s Dad was always nagging at him to hurry up and get ready for school. Now, without his Dad to nag him, Tom was actually ready faster than ever before.

  The Yukon is one of the emptiest regions in Canada. It is twice as big as Great Britain, but there are 2000 times as many people living in Britain! Up until 120 years ago, there were no towns in the Yukon at all. People have been here for thousands of years, but they always lived in small groups, moving around in search of better hunting and fishing. They were nomads. Life was tough, but simple.

  The native people were very good hunters and clever at building different kinds of shelters, such as wigwams, teepees and igloos. They made clothes from animal hides and fur. They hunted animals and gathered and grew plants. They built canoes out of birch bark and caught fish using spears, nets and traps. But in 1896, everything changed. And it changed fast. One word transformed a way of life that had existed for hundreds of years.

  That word was GOLD!

  In 1896, Skookum Jim Mason, Kate Carmack and her husband George discovered enormous gold deposits in Bonanza Creek in the Yukon. Searching for gold is a hard life most of the time. Can you imagine searching for gold and day after day finding nothing but stones? You’re poor and bored and hungry. The mosquitoes are driving you crazy. Every day you think about giving up. Every evening you persuade yourself to try again, just one more time.

  And then, one ordinary day, you spot something shiny, glinting in the sun. At first you don’t believe what you are seeing. Gold! A pebble-sized chunk of solid gold! It really is gold! And then you spot another. And then another! Their luck had changed. Jim, Kate and George were suddenly rich beyond their wildest imaginations!

  It doesn’t take long for news like this to spread. The lucky three tried to keep it a secret, but word of their discovery soon reached the cities further south, and the stampede began. Tens of thousands of people rushed north to the Yukon, desperate for gold, greedy to be rich. The Gold Rush had begun!

  The crowds travelled by ship from the cities of the west coast of the USA. Then their struggles really began. The early prospectors had to be extremely determined even to make it as far as the Yukon. There were no roads or maps or shops. You had to make your own way cross-country, carrying everything, and you had to be able to survive once you arrived. They had to battle up and over a snowy mountain pass and down to the Yukon River. Every person needed to bring with them a year’s supply of food. Think about how much food you’d need for a whole year ...

  Once they reached the broad river, the excited gold hunters then had to build a raft and paddle downstream for 500 miles. To build their rafts, the gold hunters chopped down trees and lashed the trunks together. The rafts were huge, in order to carry all the food and equipment, and all the trees were stripped from the land. Everybody was in a rush to race down the river, and competition was fierce to be one of the first to arrive at the places where gold had been found. In winter the river was frozen solid, so travel was impossible. As soon as the ice thawed in the springtime, hundreds of rafts launched down the wild, cold river. Many people drowned or sank or capsized on the dangerous journey.

  So many people raced to the Gold Rush area that a new town sprang up, Dawson City. Many people arrived to discover that the best gold areas had already been taken. They returned home, sad and disappointed, having spent all their money on the gamble for gold. A few people did return clutching heavy bags of shining gold, but many did not.

  Tom was thrilled by these tales of the Gold Rush. And since he was there, he decided to give it a go himself. The simplest way to search for gold is called “panning”. So one evening after washing up his cooking pan, he scooped gravel and water from the river into his pan. Then he shook it from side to side, keeping a steady rhythm. Because gold is heavier than gravel, it sinks to the bottom of a pan, separating the shiny, valuable gold from the worthless stones. Sadly, Tom didn’t find any gold. But as he tucked his pan away, he realised he didn’t care. He didn’t need to become a millionaire. A life filled with adventure, nature, wilderness and challenges felt like a life rich enough for him.

  The Tom-Tiki

  Smoke! Tom smelled smoke. Then he saw it – flakes of ash falling from the sky, like black snow. It tickled his nostrils. It made him cough. Summer in the Yukon is fire season. The forests dry out over the warm summer months, and when there is a thunderstorm, lightning bolts can start a fire. Because the wood is dry, these forest fires grow and spread quickly. They become so large that it’s impossible for the fire brigade to put them out.

  The only thing to do is to wait for the fires to go out by themselves, either because they run out of wood to burn through or because the wind changes direction and stops blowing the fire towards new areas of forest. Tom arrived in a small town, wanting to find out more about the fire. The fire was north of him – the direction he needed in order to cycle to Alaska. He asked a policeman what was happening.

  “This fire is one of the worst we’ve had in the Yukon,” the policeman said. “At the moment it covers an area bigger than 2 million football pitches.”

  “Wow!” Tom gasped. He thought about how big a fire that covered even one football pitch would look. It was hard to imagine a fire covering 2 million pitches … Another way to imagine the size of this fire is that it was as big as Wales! He was really worried about his journey now. He asked the policeman for advice.

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t look good,” he said. “This fire will be burning for a long time, and the only road to Alaska goes straight through the middle of it. It’s not going to be possible to continue your ride. I’m sorry. You’ll have to give up and go home.”

  Tom’s heart sank. He had cycled so far. Surely his quest to become the boy who biked the world wasn’t going to fail now? But if he could not continue down the road then his adventure could not continue. His plans had fallen apart. He had failed. Tom was so disappointed he almost started to cry.

  “Cheer up!” said the policeman, when he saw that Tom was upset. “You’ll find a way. Roads are new things up here in the Yukon. It’s not so long ago that there weren’t any roads at all. And people travelled around just fine. Do you know how they did it back then?”

  “By river?” guessed the boy. Apart from the roads and rivers, everywhere else up here was totally covered in thick forest.

  “Exactly! In the winter the rivers freeze as solid as concrete. Folk used the frozen rivers to travel along just like a road …”

  “ … but it’s the middle of summer! I can’t cycle down a river!” interrupted Tom, who was really annoyed at the thought of his expedition grinding to a halt.

  “No, you can’t pedal down a river,” agreed the policeman, patiently. “But you can paddle …”

  At just the same moment, Tom and the policeman smiled and nodded their heads. The best adventures are the ones that sneak up on you without warning, the mad and exciting ideas that spring into your mind from nowhere. If you are brave enough to try new things and go to new places, then these are the best experie
nces to have.

  “I can paddle downstream until I get past the fires! I’ll travel by raft!” Tom exclaimed, excitement in his voice and with eyes sparkling. “That’s a brilliant idea!”

  Now that did sound like an adventure!

  The Yukon River is the largest river in the Yukon and Alaska. It’s almost 2000 miles long. Tom worked out that he would have to paddle for 500 miles before he was safely past the fires and could get back on his bike again.

  The River Yukon flows through the town of Whitehorse. Tom began to build his raft here. He bought a saw then headed into the nearby forest to cut long, straight logs. It was hard work, sawing away, then hauling the wood back to the riverbank. But it was thrilling, too. Starting a new project is always exciting, doing something new, something difficult, something with lots to learn from. Tom whistled as he worked. Local people in Whitehorse heard about the boy who was trying to travel the whole way round the world. They came down to the riverbank to watch him build his raft. Some thought he was brave. Many thought he was crazy. Most had words of warning and tried to put him off the idea.

  “The river’s too high …”

  “The river’s too cold …”

  “The bears will get you …”

  “The fires will get you …”

  “You’ll sink if you load your bike onto that raft …”

  But Tom was used to people trying to put him off hatching adventurous plans. He remembered being surrounded by children in the school playground, laughing when he told them that he was going to bike around the world. They called him a silly daydreamer. Tom was a daydreamer, that much was true. Everyone daydreams. But not equally. Those daydreamers who actually get out the door and make their dreams real are the ones who become adventurers.