7/20 to 8/8/2019 – Slow down. Life gets away from us quickly and time slips away. Close friends move and shake and, suddenly it seems, they haven’t seen each other in a year or more. Jonny and Leslie have been two of our closest friends for a gosh-darn long-while and are so close they’re really just family (especially after those couple of seasons of bus building outside our rental house). We hadn’t seen them since their wedding in the previous spring, and although we catch up regularly, we missed quality time with them. The outdoors are where our relationships were forged and where they continue to thrive. Thankfully, we all recognized this deficit in our friendship and decided to act on it… by drawing a big ol’ bicycle trip out of a hat of adventure possibilities.

Slow down. The draw of long bicycle trips with Grete is always the chance to disconnect and live simply. To wake, explore, eat, sleep, and repeat. The opportunity to forget about bills, to-dos, and other miscellaneous responsibilities, but instead to immerse ourselves on existing in the moment, experiencing the place, and interacting with those around us. With big life changes on the horizon, this trip’s timing was seen as both recklessly close to the change and yet exactly what we needed before moving to Bozeman and pursuing graduate school.

Slow down. Whether we wanted to or not, pedaling bicycles along the dirt roads of the north end of North America is slow. The terrain demands a pace that is respectful of the incredible landscape laid out around us. This challenging world has been travelled by humans on foot for far longer than the roads that now traverse the land, and it felt right to move by our own power through heat, smoke, wind, and rain. We didn’t move fast, but we kept moving.

Slow down. With a set deadline for flights out of Inuvik, we had to hold a certain pace. This daily push was more than our previous bicycle tours and sustained for longer than other adventures. Slowing down seemed like a dreamy non-reality, and yet the idea held solemnly in the forefront of our thoughts.

Slow down. We were pedaling forward – day after day – together. We finally had that chance to talk about life, hopes, challenges, and whatever drew our attention along the way. There was a natural ebb and flow to the daily journey with our group moseying side by side in comedic discussion or spread out and wandering in our own thoughts. These juxtaposed periods of the day slowly but surely filled the my soul to the brim.

The arctic trip was very unique when compared to previous rides due to its remote nature, its constant forward progress, and our shared experience with close friends. Joining Jonny and Leslie in Fairbanks (after they had pedaled the Haul Road from Prudhoe Bay), we travelled east to Tok, over Top of the World Highway to Dawson City and north up the Dempster Highway to the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyuktuk. We will never forget this trip with Jonny and Leslie and feel very fortunate to have had the chance to slow down.