Tucker's Drive North
/Thanks, Tucker, for sharing your movie-worthy tale of your drive up to Two Rivers! Settle in for a good story folks!
As the newest member of Ryno Kennel, this blog post will be less about the kennel, the dogs, and the deer. Instead, it will be a perspective story about how a person might try to cover a thousand miles to get to them all. A thousand miles is the kind of distance we think about in flights, car rides, and if you run a dog kennel, races. It’s a subjective piece of ground to cover and I'd never truly appreciated that until I was stranded in Canada.
Two Rivers, Alaska: I’d google mapped it. And from Kim Creek, Idaho, where I was working as a mule packer for the summer, google told me that it would take 45 hours (roughly 2,500 miles). “Alright,” I figured, “four days or so.” Having cultivated a nomadic style of travel with a little, built-out Tacoma, I’d made drives that far before with little thought or planning required, easy. I loaded up all the gear and left from Idaho on the opening day of hunting season. A puppy for company and a good song on the radio, bouncing merrily down the road.
A day or so later I texted Ryne from the roadside: “Hey Ryne. I just hit an elk outside of Fort Nelson, BC. Damn! No airbags but the whole front is pretty beat. I’m getting a tow right now. I’ll let you know more when I do.” Two Rivers was just over 1,000 miles away.
For those who haven’t made the journey along the Alaska Highway, Fort Nelson is a place where google begins to fail. It’s a place where you can wreck your car and interestingly teeter on the brink of being lucky that you’re in a town and unlucky that you’re in that town. For perspective, it has about 3,000 people living around it. The next closest towns are either a five hour drive South to Fort St. John, BC, or a ten hour drive North to Whitehorse in the Yukon. Fort Nelson sports a lovely Main Street that you might not notice, a daily commercial flight, and a classic crap-load of drama. So, in the beginning of my vacation there, as a stranger to the place, I often agreed with a local saying to me: “Well you’re lucky you didn’t hit the elk somewhere North. There’s nothing up there, eh.”
A young-looking man named Kyle picked me up in the tow truck. He was nice enough, told me there wasn’t anyone local who’d do auto-body work like I needed in Fort Nelson. Oh, except one guy, “Gary, who is on vacation, buddy. Trust me, though, you don’t want nothin' to do with those other guys, bud.” Kyle dropped me off at the Motel 6 and double checked that the front desk was open (it was 10 p.m. by now) before he left with my truck. “What a nice buddy,” I thought.
I threw my stuff into the hotel room, grabbed the leash with the pup, and went in search for a beer. I figured I needed at least a beer after all of that. I wandered across the street to the liquor store and over to the boarded-up door. It said: “Closed Due To Fire.” Dang.
The next day, from my Motel 6 base camp, I began to scrap with the insurance. Explaining to the monosyllabically-named men of State Farm, sitting in Maryland or Pennsylvania, just what kind of place Fort Nelson is turned out to be the ultimate struggle. Because, “Mr. Costain, according to google there are three auto-shops in Fort Nelson.” Well, ya, but it’s the weekend, they’re all closed, local knowledge is telling me there’s actually just one, and Gary’s on vacation, buddy. And when you tell Tom, John, Scott, and so on of State Farm that the cheapest quoted tow to the next town is well over a thousand Canadian bucks they all make the same in-pain, sharp inhaling noise and hoo-haw about coverage. Needless to say, I was on the phone a lot. In the meantime, the dog and I walked around town a lot — enough that we became locally known.
“Hey! You’re the one that hit that elk. I was in that car that stopped to see if you were alright when it happened.”
“Oh, hey! Ya, thanks again for checking in that night, I appreciate it.”
“I saw you walking down the street the other day and was surprised to see that you’re still here.”
“Yep, my truck is still over at Kyle’s. I’m just trying to figure out how to get all my gear out of it and up to Alaska. Looking at buying a cheap local car if I can.”
“Your truck is at Kyle’s, eh?”
“Ya. He’s been pretty helpful. He got me in contact with Gary, since he’s the only auto-body guy in the area. Do you know anything about Gary? Kyle mentioned that other mechanic isn’t worth dealing with for other work.”
“Well of course he said that, he tried to burn their shop down. That mechanic is my neighbor, he’s a great guy.”
“He what?”
“Ya, Kyle’s tried to burn some other stuff down too. They can’t prove it was him but everyone knows it was.”
“Huh.”
Alright, so an alleged arsonist has possession of just about everything I own, no big deal, he’s being nice to me. I spend another day finding a cheap-enough Chevy Tahoe that I can transfer all of my stuff into. State Farm still won’t agree to pay for a tow so I’m planning to leave my truck to be fixed by Gary when he comes back from vacation in October. I’ve got a line of friends excited for the adventure to shuttle my truck up to Two Rivers when it’s fixed. I’m ready to be on my way.
That night I relax and watch the newest episode of Bachelor in Paradise. It features a girl who got COVID on her birthday last year but claims that this year on her birthday having a guy tell her he doesn’t like her is ten times worse. I scratch the puppy’s tummy and talk to her about the show: “That’s aggressive. Aaron kisses too aggressively.”
The next afternoon my man in his Chevy Tahoe pulls up along the street next to a local small-parts mechanic and tells me that a part fell off on his way over here. Great. “No worries, bud.” He’s just gonna have this here mechanic grab a new part and put it on. The mechanic, Jake, takes one look underneath the Tahoe and tells me: “This guy’s tryin to hose you. This thing can’t get you to Alaska, not even close.” Dang. That Tahoe was about one of the only vehicles on the scant local listings that looked like it could even get me out of Fort Nelson.
I fill Jake in on the rest of my situation.
“So Kyle has your truck, eh? You know he —”
“Tried to burn down the shop over there? Ya. A woman who’s that guy’s neighbor told me.”
“Ah, so you’re already filled in on the local gos. That woman’s my neighbor too.”
“So did Kyle set the fire that closed the liquor store over there?”
“Kinda. He burned two cop cars that were in the parking lot. Him and his friends. Yeah, ya just get under there with a knife, pop a hole in the gas tank, light a match and run. Everyone knows it was him cause his wife got pissed at him one night and told some people.”
“Huh. Well what do you know about Gary? He said he’d fix my car when he gets back from vacation.”
“Gary? Well, Gary isn’t licensed with the provincial insurance. Like, I can’t have him do any auto-body work on any of the things I have here because the insurance won’t work with him at all.”
“Huh.”
OK, so an alleged arsonist has possession of just about everything I own, the only auto-body mechanic within 300 kilometers isn’t legally allowed to work on cars (at least in Canada), and there are damn hosers selling cars around here just like there would be anywhere else. I take a walk with the dog and call State Farm. “All I need is coverage for the tow,” I put simply. That’s all I need. I can get myself out of here fine, just cover my tow, will ya? I have comprehensive coverage! Will you cover my tow? The State Farm agent tells me he isn’t sure what my insurance plan will allow. But, “Good news”, he says, “we’ve finally decided to put you in contact with a Canadian car insurance team. That team should reach out to you in the next few days.” Great.
It’s still 1,000 miles to Two Rivers. A professional, long distance dog team would be halfway there by now.
As it turns out, Jake not-from-state-farm is my actual neighbor, too. I can see his mechanic shop from Motel 6. I walk back in and ask him if he knows anyone who’s not a hoser who might be interested in selling me a car. He points outside to a Ford F350 Super Duty Turbo Diesel with high-rise fenders and a lift kit that requires a ladder. “I wasn’t planning on selling it now, but if you can’t find anything else in the next couple of days, I’ll give you a deal on it.” I’m thinking State Farm should make Jake a brand ambassador so their jingle can actually hold true.
Jake and his truck
A couple of days later, after I’ve visited every functioning ATM in Fort Nelson multiple times, I buy Jake’s truck. Newest plan: rent a u-haul trailer and tow my own damn truck up to Whitehorse. It’s been a week. Just for the hell of it I call the generic State Farm number and give them my claim number. I get on the phone with Rob and tell him what’s up. Rob approves coverage for a tow cost of approximately $1500 within three minutes. He tells me to find a mechanic in Fort St. John and ask them who they recommend for towing (this is more of a suggestion than a requirement).
This phone call basically shoots a few cc’s of dopamine through my brain after a week of stress hormones, and that, mixed with some angsty impatience to get the hell out of there, creates my next dumb decision: I get off the phone with Rob and take his suggestion seriously. Within a minute I’m on the phone with a towing company in Fort St. John. Screw it, I think, I’d be able to breath an even deeper sigh of relief if I can just get my car away from this arsonist kid. Over the phone the most Canadian accent I’ve encountered yet tells me, “Ya, I’ll send a guy over to Kyle’s. And I’ll send the cops too! I ain’t afraid of no gangsters!” Never had I ever thought about a place where you could be driving down the road and possibly run into a moose, elk, caribou, buffalo, or gangster. So I more or less disregard this gangster comment and head over to Kyle’s tow yard.
I get there at about the same time the Fort St. John tow truck does. What the heck? Isn’t he supposed to be driving all the way from Fort St. John and show up here when I’ve already hoofed it North? Apparently there was so much public pressure to have a towing company in Fort Nelson who’s people wouldn’t light stuff on fire that this Fort St. John towing company has a truck stationed in the area. Unbeknownst to me, I not only invited a competitor to the gates, I invited THE competitor to the gates — The Enemy. Great. Kyle’s wife lets me into the yard since he’s not there. Being one-track-mind in the moment, I beeline it to my Tacoma and immediately start tossing stuff into the new truck. When I look up, I realize the enemy is gone. Kyle’s wife has cussed him out and sent him away. Great. And as I’m transferring a tote full of books, Kyle pulls in fast, close up next to me, and begins interrogating my decision to hire another tow company. I throw State Farm under that flaming bus and pump on the fuel. "It’s all their fault," I say. "Sorry man, my hands are tied. The agent told me it was the only way they’d pay for it." We both look up. The Fort St. John tow truck is back…with the cops. “I’ll be damned,” I think. Kyle books it over there. There’s yelling. I put my head down, pick up the pace, and start chucking stuff into the bed of the new pick-up. Then Kyle runs into his house and the cop flags me over.
“You better decide which one you want to tow your car because they’re both in a race to charge your credit card right now.”
“Great. Well I guess I should choose Kyle so he doesn’t light my truck on fire, right?”
“You know about that, eh?”
In the end, I went with a new insurance company. It’s called: I didn’t make enemies with the arsonist who's help I might need when I hit another animal within a couple hundred miles of Fort Nelson on the way back to the states. So Kyle towed my truck to Fort St. John and I drove a monster truck the rest of the way to Two Rivers. I got there, met the kennel, and was given a first job: Could you take the sled dogs who don’t get to run right now on a walk? Yes, yes I could definitely do that.
