Well, what do you want for your birthday? There isn’t much around here to get you, but if your wishes are modest we might be able to fix up you up a piece of Mississippi mud pie… So it happened that Michiel and me, along with fellow Transamerica cyclists Devon and Jessica set out from Stewart on my 28th birthday.

We made good time, maybe because I received a boost from the many congratulations awaiting in my Inbox (thanx everyone!), maybe because of the terrain and the helpful coastal tailwinds. Whatever the reason, we cycled all the way back to Meziadin Junction, about 60 kilometers to the east, in no time at all. The stretch of road between this junction and Stewart is absolutely spectacular in its scenery as it takes you really close past several glaciers, of which Bear Glacier might be the most impressive one. Well worth the detour.

We had clocked about 100 kilometers before we even realized it and found a great spot to camp close to a creek somewhere out in the bush. That night we built a really nice fire on which to make the birthday hotdogs and topped those off with a couple of generous swigs of rum and whiskey. After having enjoyed this meal, which was fit for a king, I suddenly realized that for the whole coming year I will be on the road cycling down to Argentina. It’s almost surreal to think about it. Better not then and just try to focus on little, manageable stretches at a time.

As good as my birthday was, the next day might have been even more idyllic. We put in about 110 kilometers and found a great place to camp close to a nice flowing stream called Cranberry Creek. We pitched our tents a little bit away from the road, in the bush (on what turned out to be a bear trail judging by the many broken sticks we found scattered around the next morning), and waded across the water carrying our cooking equipment to get to a small gravel island on which to prepare a well-deserved dinner.

This time of year the Sockeye salmon are running upstream to spawn and it didn’t take too long before we saw the first one of these big, pink fish cruising by. We all quickly grabbed the nearest big sticks and ran into the water, eagerly anticipating the sweet taste of freshly caught salmon cooked over a roaring campfire. Unfortunately none of us proved to be very skilled hunter/gatherers and the slippery, fearsome-looking giant geared into overdrive, never to be seen or heard from again. I, however, still blame the unexpected appearance of a giant beaver, which, while leisurely drifting along, seemed to give us all the ‘evil eye’. I think this critter just scared away all the fish spreading its bad mojo, and he was lucky none of us are any good at cooking beaver…

So, we were stuck eating canned salmon instead. There was something very wrong with that; us being in maybe one of the richest salmon grounds in Canada and eating salmon from a can…

After a few more days on the bike enjoying and soaking up everything the Cassiar had to offer we finally came to the end of this extraordinary road, at Kitwanga. With a pain in our hearts we said goodbye to this path we’d been following for the last fourteen days and set out on the Yellowhead Highway going west towards Prince Rupert.

On this road we had two more brilliant camping-out-in-the-bush days, which came very close to those we experienced on the Cassiar. The first one was a very beautiful spot along the fast flowing Skeena River, about 50 miles before Terrace. The water was cold but the fire, marshmallows and whiskey were warm. The second was about 30 miles outside of Terrace, a town in which we had stocked up a bit on food and condiments. So this night camping out we were able to conjure up a makeshift barbecue and, at long last, cook some proper steaks to go with our fresh vegetables. Scurvy successfully avoided once again

It seems the more time we spend on the road, the more dominant our search for, and thoughts about, food becomes. We seem to be going back to basics and catch ourselves at times longingly pondering about what to have for breakfast while we’re still eating dinner. Food rules and calories burn quickly!

All in all, by the time we reached Prince Rupert on Sunday we had all become, at least to some degree, experienced and hardened woodsmen. Bathing in icy-cold streams and lakes wherever and whenever available, camping out in the bush and being vigilant for bears and moose, we are now ready to enter ‘civilization’ once again. Tomorrow we will be taking the ferry through the Inside Passage down to Vancouver Island, after which we will reenter the US in its Lower 48. Can’t believe how quickly these past six weeks have gone by… just 65 more to go