When Vy and I travel, I like to get photos of motorcycles in the area to share. We recently found ourselves in Fairbanks, Alaska to ring in the New Year and catch the Northern Lights but the temperature ranged from a toasty -5 degrees to a less-toasty -38 degrees the whole time we were there and as you can imagine, I didn’t really see many bikes out and about.
Here’s hoping I will never be this cold again.
In fact, I only saw one the entire time, and it was in a museum.
This is a 1939 BSA C10. It was the steed of Clyde “Slim” Williams, who made two trips down his proposed Alaska Highway route to show that it was feasible – in 1933 he did it via dogsled and in 1939 he did it on this BSA with John Logan. “He said he never missed a meal, but sometimes he got a few days behind.”
Here is an image of him refilling gas somewhere near Telegraph Creek, British Columbia.
Photo from Alaska’s Digital Archives
The route was built in 1942 but it was a bit east of what Slim suggested.
So there you go – that’s the only motorcycle I saw during my trip. The display was set up to look like a garage, so there were several old-school parts on the wall.
Here is an image of something that makes me laugh because I am immature.
This was a really fascinating museum – other personal highlights included a Minke whale skull (all the way on the left), which I think is one of the meanest/coolest looking skulls of all time:
There was also a reminder that Alaskans are a different breed – this photo is called “Ben Chugaluk Moves a House to Toksook Bay“:
To wrap things up, here’s why Vy and I went up to Alaska, and it was well worth it. See you on the road!
