It pays to make the right decisions in the battle of motorcycle versus Mother Nature.

The rain was steady. It wasn’t a hard downpour, but that consistent fine precipitation that soaks you to your core; the type that chills you to the bones. The temperature had dropped below 8 C and the heated vest and hand grips were no longer keeping up. The fog that started about 50 km ago was now so thick, visibility was limited to less than 10 metres. 

I was concentrating on keeping my BMW upright on the slick muddy road as I followed the flashing hazard lights of Ed’s Africa Twin ahead of me. Ed’s bike slowed and he pulled off to the edge of the ditch. I pulled up next to him and flipped up my fogged visor. “I’m out of gas,” he yelled through his helmet. I was now questioning all the life choices that led me here.

Five years earlier, mid-winter, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, I suggested to my brother Floyd that we ride the Dempster — mostly joking, but with a little seriousness. Even though both of us grew up riding off-road, neither of us had an Adventure bike or even a dirt bike; both of us rode sport tourers. Soon, we were searching KLRs on Facebook Marketplace and watching YouTube adventure riding videos. By spring, a new BMW F850GSA sat in my garage, a KTM 1290 Super Adventure R in his. Our eyes were opened to the capabilities of the modern Adventure motorcycle: Did you know they go around corners with insane lean angles and don’t hurt your sensitive wrists?

GO WHILE YOU CAN

We now had the rides to embark on our adventure. Then life got in the way: family commitments, economics, work commitments and the general concerns of life delayed our plans, and we started to doubt if we would ever ride the Arctic. 

We did manage to make several weeklong trips with our friends and most notably our father, who was then in his late 70s. After turning 78 he, however, sold his last motorcycle and hung up his helmet for good after 60 years of riding. If we were going to do it, we had better do it sooner than later, so 2025 was decided on the year we would go. 

As we started to make our plans, our father, who had missed the comradery of group rides, volunteered to join and drive a chase/support truck. Maybe this was cheating, but if Ewan and Charley get a chase vehicle, who are we to say no? 

PLANS MADE

We booked two weeks for our adventure. Floyd would start in the Fraser Valley, meet up with our friend Ed from the Okanagan and ride to my hometown of Quesnel, in central B.C. The next morning, we would join my father in my GMC truck with a motorcycle trailer in tow, and our friend Bob on his GS, and head north. Four bikes plus the truck. The total 7,500 km…