The Hitchikers Guide

Put yourself in my stinking battered shoes for two moments will you?

You're in the snowy wastelands of North Canada. You have made it here through your own feeble expenditure and superbly disorganised travel planning skills, intelligently arriving in the arctic during the winter season when everything is brilliantly closed and everyone is fantastically hibernating with an adequate stash of liquor, salted meat and crosswords to brave the season.

It is too early in the morning to be carrying my pack. My pack is heavy and gravity is a wanker.

But, but, but you've made it this far; give yourself a pat on the back son.

Now, you have a ferry to catch. It is from Skagway, Alaska at 5.25pm on Monday 23rd of April. You are 125 miles away in Whitehorse, Canada at 7.00am on Monday 23rd of April. There are no buses. There is no shuttle. No planes trains or automobiles for hire.

Option Uno: Taxi= $350.

Option Dos: Get those funky fresh marker pens out and make yourself the best damn charity sign you ever done made.

I find that a yellow highlighter and a bit of glitter allows letters to stand out from twice as far. Lovely.

Big breakfast and out I walk wrapped in the well-travelled rags I call clothes, feeling the cold like an ice-cube down my back, or did the waiter do that? I didn't leave a tip.

Nevermind, Skagway 124 miles that-a-way, stick out the sign fool.

And, quick as that, someone pulls up. A red-pick up. Wicked-cool.

"Hey buddy, I can take you aboot ten miles down the road in the right direction; Skagway is the other way..."

Wise guy.

Whatever, count your chickens and all that malarky. I jump on in.

The dudes a mechanic who services hummers and is violently eco-freindly. I don't question the beastly pick-up truck we are cruising in. His ambitions include an open-air car surgery if you will; allowing an audience to look in and check they aren't getting cowboyed. Sounds sensible to me.

Twenty minutes later we're at my stop- Carcoss Junction. One road that leads to and from Skagway- very very helpful. I say thankyou and get walking with My Pack. It is too early in the morning to be carrying my pack. My pack is heavy and gravity is a wanker.

A car comes along heading in my direction. It has to be going to Skagway. I stick out my sign saying 'Skagway. (please).' The car going to Skagway passes me. Fine. They don't pick up hitchikers on a tight schedule like me. No worries, I don't blame him. InsensitiveSonofaBitch.

I'm knocked down a notch on my good-start scale. Then a nice family pick me up in a flatbed and take me ten miles down the road.

In the back of the truck it is cold and my brain freezes, but I'm making progress.

I get dropped off further down the road, say thankyou, carry on, then stop. Listen.

It is quiet. The road is a silent tongue lolling away into the gaping mouth of the white mountains. To my left, pine trees and snow. Hundreds of miles of it. To my right, pine trees and snow. Hundreds of miles of it. Charlie in the Middle, a shoddy stain on this pale landscape. And that is all.

The quiet, seriously, was so loud, it explodes in your eardrums a mute noiselessness amplified by a white carpet of snow. It was magnificently beautiful and meditative, but too bloody scary to be Zen at the time.

I stuck out my sign and walked. Bushes ruffled every now and then with beasts.

The pale tarmac road mimicked the stale milk skies of smoky grey.

Two hours passed and I saw no cars. In either direction.

Uh-oh.

Then, a truck, an eighten-wheeled man-made machine of steel and smoke. God Bless America. Just like the films- the freindly driver picking up the bedraggled traveller and sharing stories.

Stay calm and don't look like a mad-axe murderer.

The trucker saw a weird looking shape run into the middle of the road and wave his arms like a derranged chainsaw killer. He span the wheel and swerved off the road to make sure I stayed as far away as possible.

Bollocks.

Live and learn- it won't happen next time because you'll be calm and presentable you dumb schmuck.

It happened seven more times.

I think I was picked up out of pity.

A nice first nations woman took me as far as the town of Carcross.

I looked at the sign- 75 km from Whitehorse. I started hitching three hours ago- despite the bad craziness, not a bad-crazy start really.

The town of 75 people was boarded up and clogged with the few native inuit villagers left milling about with fat frostbitten noses. A town of good, honest, hard working types like that. I approached a man on a roof in a cardigan and said I'd pay for a lift to Skagway.

'I would young fellow, but I am an undesirable aboot the United States of America. They would most likely shoot me eh.''

A town of good, hard working criminals like that.

I changed tack and worked the petrol station. I didn't care anymore. My pack was still heavy and gravity still existed to kick my arse.

The golden rule- be direct.

'Where are you going?'

'Skagway.'

'I'm going with you.'

'Errr...arrr.'

Too late mate, three-second rule.

'As long as you behave.'

Easy. I got there in one hour straight.

The best feeling is seeing that sign from Skagway to Whitehorse and not the other way around. One hundred and fifteen imperial metric miles and not a penny, nickel, cent or bhat spent. That's the way I like it.

I pat my pocket full of cash.

Oh.

I pat my pocket.