I’ve Lost My License Plate in the Middle of Nowhere. Now What? | S1E17

We're supposed to get a lot of rain here, you know that? Yeah, yeah, so I'm a little worried about the ride out. It will be very, yeah. Is it a bit sketchy? Yeah, I don't think you'll get out. I know you'll have to see, we're supposed to get more rain than we've gotten like in a year. Oh really? Yeah, when it rains like that the road gets really... Oh, my plate's gone. My journey around the planet begins at North America's most northern drivable point. The plan is to ride through Canada and America before crossing over to Europe. From there, I'll make my way through the Middle East and Asia. After island hopping through Indonesia, it'll be Australia and finally New Zealand. The end of my journey will be marked by the southernmost point of the South Island. I'm calling it the big spiral and this is act two to an Alaskan beginning. Well, it pretty much rained all day yesterday and I'm worried about the road. It's clay and clay turns to mud when it gets wet. And it's also 100 kilometers to get out to back to the highway. So it could be a bit of chaos today, but we'll see how it goes. Let's check out the map and I'll show you what the plan is for the day. So I lost my sharpie, so the map's not super updated. But we're in Telegraph Creek and then I want to head back to the highway. This is all clay dirt to Dease Lake. And then from there, I'm going to head north, north, north, north, north and to Boya Lake. It's a really beautiful lake. There is a possibility that it'll be so bad that I'll just have to stop and turn around or camp somewhere and wait for it to dry out. But I'm going to at least try. It'll be a learning experience. Either I'll get better riding in the mud or I'll learn not to ride in the mud. So anyways, let's give it a try. All right, time to head. So the owners were a little worried about the driveway because it's not all gravel. But we'll see how it goes. Actually, so I went to check my tire pressure this morning because I wanted to run low pressure. And my back tire only had like 5 psi in it. So that was a little concerning. Now I have it up to a bit over 20. All right, so this is like clay. Oh, it doesn't feel so bad right now. Oh, I see those footsteps there though. Oh god, it's definitely sliding around. Oh god, dog, you don't... This is the worst time to come. Yeah, it's definitely skidding around. Worst comes to worst, I'll ride on the side there. Oh yeah, it's 121 kilometers to Dease Lake. Oh god. Oh, into the bushes here. Oh, it's not so bad so far. Bit of a rut. The ruts are maybe the most scary. Oh god. Because you have no kind of... Once you're in there, you're gonna just slide off the sides of them. So... Oh god. Definitely slippery. And strange to the rut. I should be in the middle there. Can I get up there? Nope, I was too scared. But the bike does want to stay upright. So I want to shift, but... Okay, I shifted. Another thing I should mention is my back tire doesn't have a ton of tread left on it. Oh god, it's moving around. It doesn't have a ton of tread left on it, so I'm kind of a little worried about that. I actually ordered some tires to get to arrive in Whitehorse, so... The main road should be a bit better, I hope. It's funny, usually I'm like avoiding the gravel, but now I'm like, oh, gravel, great. All right, let's see how this road is. Definitely looks better. Let's put my... Oh yeah, the road is great! Okay, let's go. Last time I came out of here, so I just want to go straight and see the town, because I never saw on the way in. Oh, some old buildings up there. Some old buildings here too, wow. Cafe and Lodge. Oh, there's the church. And the museum. But cool. So, Telegraph Peak was the... It's most famous, I guess, for being a resupply hub during the Yukon Gold Rush. So, a lot of people would come up here with the river on paddle wheelers, and Telegraph Creek was a stop along the way. They also had a telegraph line come through here, which supported the Gold Rush, and that line actually started in Quesnel, which I visited, I don't know, four or five videos ago? Something like that. So, the telegraph line actually came up a long way, well, it eventually made its way to the Yukon, so it's fairly long. But yeah, thousands of people came through here because of that Gold Rush, which must have been quite the shock to the local people, the Tatlin people, because obviously they've been living here for millennia without any sign of river boats coming down the river and things like this. But people did first start coming in the 1860s because gold was discovered here around then, and the Hudson's Bay Company set up... Actually, they first set up a supply station downriver, or upriver, I'm not sure, that way, in Glenora, and then they ended up moving it here. But now it's mostly the First Nation living here, and I have to say, it is definitely a beautiful part of the world. I'd never been here before. Actually, I had not even planned to come here, but the lodge had availability, so I drove 100 kilometers out of my way to come here, and I'm kind of glad I did, although I'm not sure about the road, how the road is going to be going out. Already, it was a little bit wet on the way in, and I was already moving around on the bike a bit, so we'll see how it goes. I may have to take it easy, but... God. Yeah, whenever I see chunks like this, I worry it's mud, but I think it's... Well, maybe this is mud. Oh, yeah, it's moving, sliding around. Get to the side here, the gravel. Oh, God, it's so muddy. Oh, it's bad. It's the flat spots that are bad because it doesn't drain. This is a good practice for me, though. Yeah, it gets better here. But yeah, it's even... It's still that sandy material, but it's just so saturated. But if I keep rolling, the bike wants to stay upright for sure, so... But yeah, it's funny. Now I'm looking for the gravel. It's the known enemy. Oh, that's a long section of wet. It's always better if it's more wet. Oh, God. Back end stepping out. The good news is that as I'm riding, the road is drying out, so... Like here, it's like really good. Oh, this is super muddy. All right, heading down to the river. See how the road treats me. Oh, God. Maybe it's just scarier than it looks. It wasn't too bad, that. Tatvan River. And now I'm on the other side of the river, got a hill climb. It's so muddy here. All right, I'm on this long road. And it's pretty cold out, actually. I'm going to put on my rain jacket. Maybe rain pants, too. We'll see. Maybe I'll check the tire pressure as well. It's the first time I haven't needed to bundle up. It's... I think I might... When I get to Whitehorse, I might have to buy some warmer gloves, because... Oh, did I forget to zip up my jacket? Is that why I'm cold? Yeah, 21, 22, 23. Pressure's good. This is my super cool... Super cool jacket. It's bright yellow, as you can see. It's... Makes me look like a pylon. It's first time wearing it, actually. I assumed it was going to rain at some point. But it's not so much rain. It's cold. At the moment. Anyways, the internet said this is a good jacket. So I got it. Good rain jacket. All right. I now look like a traffic cone. And... I've had a little bit to eat. So, ready to continue on this very long street road. I'm doing a burnout up the hill. Although it's muddy, but I'm getting more comfortable with it. It's a bit like gravel, where the bike just kind of moves around on you. And you got to be relaxed. You can't try to manhandle the bike. Otherwise, you're going to get into some problems. But still, I'm... Oh, oh god. Jeez. There's a little edge on the mud there. And the front tire is trying to climb up it. Oh, it's not my... Doesn't feel so good. Oh god. Huh? Oh, I felt like I was going down there. Just like an ice rink. I don't know if my tires just suck or... It's just the conditions, but... It's funny. You get a little confident. And then something happens and you're like, oh god. And then you just slow right down. All right, we're hitting Indy's lake. Look, it's paved. All right. I think, now that I'm in Indy's, I'd like to get something to eat. And maybe warm up a little bit. I think I gotta close the... Close the vents in my helmet. I know there's a food shack thing here. But it's outside. And I think I might go to the grocery. I think I'm just going to pop in and see what they got. Oh, my plate's gone. Oh my god. I just noticed my plate's gone. Oh, I gotta figure this out now. Oh my god. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna go to the other, the burger shack. Oh, I can't believe my plate is gone again. I'm gonna look back at my footage and see if I can kind of see where it was still on. All right, so I just figured something out. I can get a new plate here in Indy's. But first I have to go to the police station. And file a police report. Which, where is the police station? Oh, it's right in the corner. Okay. Yeah, I looked at my footage on the laptop. And the last time I could see my, my license plate was 66 kilometers away from here. 66 kilometers ago. All right, here's the police station. I suppose. Under construction. Not sure what they want to see. But I'll just go inside and look. Hello? Hi, um, I was just riding my motorcycle from, uh, Telegraph Creek to Dease Lake. And, uh, lost my, uh, license plate. Um, and I have to apparently file a police report to replace it. Um, I have the papers, one sec. 4-2-2-5-A-9. No, I, I can't replace it until I do the police report. In, in 2004? Uh, let me just read it again. Yeah, license plate number 4-2-2-5-A-9. A is in alpha. It's a BC plate, yeah. Oh, man. Uh, okay. Okay. All right, thank you. So my plate, apparently the plate on file does not match. Oh, my God. I'm gonna go to this government broker office. All right. New place! Oh, God. All right, all worked out. I think the first police officer I spoke to, they must have misheard me reading the license plate or whatever. I called again, um, from here. And, uh, yeah, they just gave me a file number. And then I gave that file number to the very nice lady here. And, uh, she gave me a new plate. So, uh, now I just got to put it on. And I got to put it on well and properly. And so it never, ever, ever falls off again. All right, here we go. I've never been so happy to get a new license plate. All right. New, uh, plate installed. Uh, just got to get some gas. I heard you can wash, wash, uh, cars and motorcycles around here. Uh, because apparently they put calcium on the road, on those gravel roads. And it's really not good for your bike. All right, got the gas. Now I just got to wash the bike a bit. So many motorcycles here. What are they doing? I don't know why they're all up here. Wash Bay. Yes. So much mud. What? It only lasted two dollars? What? I feel cheated. Oh, it's muddy in there. I think it's a dollar a minute. Oh my God. All right. Well, I think that's going to have to be good enough, but I guess that's their water tank. In the center of this lane is like a really thin layer of gravelly marbles right here. And it's almost invisible and it's freaking me out. Cause if I'm going through a corner, I hit that. I probably slide and then catch once I hit this bear spot. I don't know. Maybe I'm just paranoid. I just saw a sign for Jade City. I'm not sure if the store is going to be open right now. It's seven o'clock, but it's, uh, I guess they, they mine Jade out here and they have a whole store full of Jade artifacts and things. So yeah, we'll go check it out. I'm a motorcycle. I can fit in small spaces. So check it out. Lots of Jade here. Very green. Looks a bit better if it's wet, maybe. Oh, here. There's a polished one. Still warm from the sun. And then I guess, yeah, where they do all the cutting. Cool saws in there. It's a blade sharp. It's almost more like a file, I'd say. It's kind of an interesting place, this Jade City, because the people that run this place actually have a show on YouTube. I'm not sure if it's still being made, but the show is just basically about them extracting Jade from the mountain and then turning it into, uh, you know, little trinkets and stuff. A common thread in the show, I watched a couple episodes, was always like, oh, we got to impress the Chinese buyers. We've got to impress the Chinese buyers and all this stuff. It's, um, very much cut like a reality TV show. Lots of drama and, you know, just like, even the smallest little moment gets like blown up into, you know, just something crazy. So, um, but yeah, they've made their own little Jade empire here. And I think they mostly depend on like just the tourists that happen to pass through. So I don't really need any Jade things, so I didn't buy anything. But, um, but it's, it's kind of like when you head so far out, there's so many like little quirky places you can go visit, like Jade City. Population, I don't know, 12. All right. Next stop, Boya Lake. It's a camp for the night. Hopefully they got space. It's kind of one of the nicer campgrounds on the route. How's it going? What are they working on? Seal coating. Coating? Yes. On the road? Yes. Oh, okay. Oh, I guess to keep water out and stuff like that. Yeah. Ah, yeah. You've been out here for a while? Oh, I just arrived at six. Oh yeah? Oh, does it go all night? Yes. Oh, wow. Anything interesting ever happened out here? My last night, my brother and the pilot seen a couple of things behind them. Oh, like bears or something? Something big. Oh. We're standing over the light over there. Oh, really? Yeah. Like a grizzly or something? Bigfoot? Something, uh, seven foot. Yeah. Oh, really? You've seen wolves here? Timber. Oh, that's cool. Oh, they're big, huh? Oh, I don't think I've ever seen a wolf in the wild. Seems like pilot just left the other side. Oh, yeah. Cool. Well, I guess I better get back to the bike if they're coming. Yeah. All right. Have a good one, man. You too. Gravel. Oil Lake. I hope they have space. All right. I hope they have a spot. Oh, there's one there. All right. Number 44 is going to be the spot. Okay. I promise you, I'm not normally a chaotic person, but these last, this last week, it's been pretty chaotic, to be honest. Like things have not been going right at all. Maybe this is just the learning curve or whatever, but, oh man. So the, the license plate thing, like I was pretty sure it was on there, but one of the plastic bolts on it backed out. So maybe I forgotten to tighten it or whatever. And I'm just lucky that, that kind of, it was like a government office. This is not typically a place you'd go to where I'm from because it's a bigger city, but I guess all these smaller towns have like a small office that kind of does everything. That might be the northern most place in BC. You could get a license plate. Actually. I'm lucky I didn't lose it anywhere else. I'm lucky I didn't lose it out of province. Otherwise I would have had to get one mailed or something. I don't know. But yeah. Oh man. And then I feel like I'm getting better with this like gravel road mud. So basically the problem is, is like you have this layer of mud over, over top of this hard pack and it just like squirms around, squirms around, squirms. It's a lot like riding deep gravel, I think. And you just got to get comfortable with it. Although at one point I definitely like my tires trying to climb up onto over this rut and I, I near, I got pretty close to bending it. I think I don't know how to read the surface yet. And I think over time I'll figure that out. Like in mountain biking, I can read the surface. Like I know exactly what to do on a mountain bike, but on this thing it's, it's fairly different. So, but I have to say, I think I'm falling for this motorbike travel thing. Like I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn't know if I would like it. And now I'm pretty sure I like it. It's just such an adventure every day. So yeah. Um, anyways, if you guys would like to watch more of this channel, I'm always super awkward at this part, but it's, it's kind of an awkward thing to ask. If you want to subscribe, just, just do it. And if you've already subscribed, thank you very much. And if you don't want to, then it's okay. But I'm sure YouTube's going to recommend another video of mine after this. And then I'm going to ask you in that video too. So you may as well just do it. So anyways, um, uh, thanks for watching the video and I'll see you next time. I guess I'll see you next time.