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00:00Expedition Overland's Pan-American Series is presented by General Tire. Anywhere is possible.
00:25Hurry Scott, hurry, hurry. I'm going. Okay.
00:29Nice. Night one. Just rolled into camp. Just got a camera out, but man, this is rad.
00:35Look at all of our lights going and our awnings and our tents.
00:41This is what it's all about. I've waited eight months to do this. Here we are.
00:48Should we open up our tent? Open up our home? Let's do it. Let's open up our home.
00:51Let's go cuddle.
00:53First time ever.
00:54Let's lift.
00:59And then we can lift you, cutie.
01:01Stop.
01:06We got it.
01:07Yay!
01:14I'm excited. Setting up camp for the first time. In the rain. With lightning and some biscuits.
01:22Have you gotten bit yet?
01:23Yeah. Got my first bite before I even got out of the car.
01:27Yeah, we can sleep. We're so excited. We're so excited.
01:31Snuggle buddies. I'm going to be a little spoon.
01:33Do you want a big spoon? Yeah. We're going to keep each other warm.
01:37It's going to be a good day.
01:41It's going to be a good day.
01:45I'm glad it's not like 2 a.m. so this seems early for us.
01:48Yeah, it's 8.40. It's actually a decent time to get in.
01:52We can get some dinner and, you know.
01:54Pretty soon, this amount of daylight is going to be 2 in the morning.
01:578.40, that's like early for us.
02:00Yeah, we've never been to camp at 8.40.
02:02What? We're usually rolling in at 10 or 11.
02:502 years ago, we had been in the same campground on our epic winter trip into British Columbia.
02:55Yeah.
02:57I was constipated, though, last night.
03:00You stayed up because you were constipated.
03:01Dude, my stomach hurt so bad.
03:03I was like, A, I'm constipated beyond belief.
03:06Or, 2, I have appendicitis.
03:12A and 2?
03:15A and 2 is a result of getting in at 2 a.m.
03:22The winter had been harsh that year.
03:24Just as we pushed into the wilds of BC, a strong winter system set in.
03:29Dumping snow continuously throughout our trip.
03:32The roads became deep with snow.
03:35Fuel mileage plummeted, and the effort to make our miles and keep moving forward became an all-out assault on
03:41the road from the team.
03:44That's why you're out here is to step into the unknown, right?
03:47So, the unknown's gonna happen.
03:50Yeah.
03:51How do you deal with it?
03:53The challenges of the road soon took its first toll.
03:57What, do we need to look at that?
04:06Oh, I was afraid of that.
04:11How long were you throwing that thing?
04:14That sucks.
04:15Yeah.
04:19Clay?
04:20How you doing?
04:21I'm not doing very good.
04:23That really ticks me off.
04:25That's how I feel.
04:26I feel like that's a straight-up neglect issue that causes that.
04:30It would have taken one window to be rolled down to listen to your chains, and you would know immediately
04:34that something was up.
04:38So, it's just careless.
04:40It's being careless.
04:41I know we're in a hurry, but we break our machines.
04:43It costs us tons of money, and now it's gonna set us back in our, before our next trip.
04:49So, I'm frustrated.
04:52Frustrated.
04:53That shouldn't happen.
04:57But, it is adventuring.
04:59And things like that do happen.
05:01So, we'll roll on.
05:04Okay, so we're right here.
05:06Okay.
05:07So, we've got...
05:09Let me just get a ruler on this just to make sure my guess is semi-correct here.
05:16Yeah, 27.
05:1927 miles that way to highway.
05:22We needed to keep moving.
05:23Our heads had to be in the game if we were to get out before we couldn't move at all.
05:27Being snowed in was a real possibility.
05:34100 miles into the backcountry roads, conditions reached their worst.
05:40Uh, shut your truck off for a sec.
05:44This just got serious fast.
05:46Throw down tracks again?
05:49No, we don't think the road has been plowed at all up here.
05:52It's gotten, got really deep.
05:57We need to look at alternate routes before we move any further.
06:01Yup.
06:02I'm not sure if there is alternate routes other than backwards.
06:05Backwards, we don't have fuel for.
06:07Yeah, exactly.
06:08We're not really following those tracks anymore.
06:15We get to this main road that we've been working to get at.
06:19It's not a main road, it's just a hopefully more plowed road.
06:22It's a more plowed road?
06:23Hopefully, at this point in time.
06:26I still say that the best course of action is to push forward.
06:31Alright, we've got a dip and then a climb.
06:34It doesn't stay on the road here.
06:36It's a bridge.
06:37It's a bridge.
06:38I don't want to claw after that.
06:41No.
06:43I don't know.
06:49Max tracks.
06:51We just got buried just after the bridge.
06:55We're stuck really bad.
06:56You are updated. I have you.
06:59What's your assessment?
07:01We're going to try to max tracks out, but you guys should just come.
07:07Roger that.
07:08Headed back to you.
07:25That combination right there will get you out of anything.
07:28Yeah.
07:30Yeah.
07:31I think so.
07:38Now, two years later, waking up at that very same camp spot,
07:42we made our final preparations to move into Canada
07:45and on our way to the Alcan Highway.
07:52Were you born and raised in Colorado?
07:55Yeah.
07:56Outside of Castle Rock.
07:57We had a horse race.
07:58I moved when I was nine, but when I was 14 is when it started going downhill.
08:02Sure.
08:02Not having anything to do.
08:05Found things to do.
08:06Right.
08:07That occupied a lot of time and brain cells.
08:09Right.
08:11And...yeah.
08:12Sure.
08:13So that lasted for four years of...
08:18experimenting.
08:20What brush you got?
08:22A girl.
08:23Oh, yeah?
08:24Yeah.
08:26I asked her out and she said yes, which she probably shouldn't have
08:30because at the time I was still selling stuff and doing stuff.
08:37But she brought me to church and I wore a suit because I thought that's what he did when I
08:40went to church.
08:41Sweet.
08:41Because you're the only one in a suit sweating looking like a goober.
08:47So, yeah.
08:50Immediately left church that first day and went and smoked pot to try to like calm down.
08:54Yeah.
08:55Because I, you know, that was really uncomfortable.
08:58Yeah.
08:59But after a while it started working on me.
09:01Like, I quit.
09:03I just couldn't smoke anymore.
09:05I didn't smoke anymore.
09:05I just wouldn't feel it.
09:06I was just like, I'm done.
09:08Uh-huh.
09:08I don't know what it was.
09:09It was the most crazy realization.
09:11You know, the moment where you just realize that there's something more that you're meant for in life.
09:15Yeah.
09:16That moment hit me like a ton of bricks.
09:18After that I didn't smoke pot ever again.
09:20Didn't smoke a cigarette ever again.
09:21Didn't drink ever again.
09:23Wow.
09:23Four years smoking a pack a day, I was done.
09:26Wow.
09:27Done, done.
09:31There's something about the road.
09:33When you spend enough time traveling together, you seem to bond.
09:36This journey in particular because this road is truly a road of roads.
09:49Most people, if they thought of Alaska at all, thought of it as a cold, rugged wasteland.
09:54Of little value except for its gold, fur and fisheries.
09:58Now suddenly it seemed to have considerable additional value.
10:01Both to us and to the Japanese.
10:04And its strategic position was not comforting.
10:07The great Japanese air and naval base at Paramushiro was only 750 miles from Attu.
10:13Attu was only 1,200 miles from the mainland of Alaska.
10:18There was no overland connection across the wilderness of northwestern Canada.
10:23The Canadian government had already carved out a series of five airports between Edmonton, Alberta,
10:28and Whitehorse Yukon Territory.
10:30And there were other fields in Alaska between the Yukon border and Fairbanks.
10:34With Canada's consent, the United States War Department decided to build a military highway
10:40from Rails End at Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska
10:45to link up and supply these airfields and to provide emergency access to Alaska for troops and materiel.
10:53This highway would extend roughly 1,500 miles, about the distance from Washington to Denver.
11:05We finally reached the start of the Elk End Highway in Dawson Creek, British Columbia.
11:20We're going inside to meet. The first guy to reach the North Pole building or the northern side of the
11:27highway
11:28that goes all the way up to Prudhoe Bay, I think. His name's Deb.
11:32Now what's going on?
11:34Well, I heard you were the man to meet.
11:36I am. How are you doing?
11:37Deb?
11:38Clay Roth.
11:39Who?
11:39Clay.
11:40Nice to meet you.
11:42What were they building the roads for?
11:44The roads were built basically because the Japs and them had submarines
11:50and the Germans come over and the Lucian Islands along the coast.
11:54So they built an inland road, otherwise they could ship, just by shipping, all they had to do was keep
12:01sinking their oil ships or whatever.
12:04They couldn't know how they were going to do it.
12:06And that's why they built the last hour.
12:09Money was no other.
12:10All the contractors had a cost plus job.
12:13Wow.
12:16Every little ways, they built an airstrip so that they had access to fuel and everything else to get done.
12:23So they would resupply with those airstrips.
12:26Right.
12:26And they were scared to death of bears.
12:28And man, oh man, if they ever heard about a bear anywhere, they'd be 10 or 13 together.
12:34And you couldn't get them out of that camp.
12:36They were just scared to death of bears.
12:38And them trucks they sent, a lot of them didn't even have heaters in them when winter hit.
12:44And them guys in there damn near froze to death.
12:47You know, boy, the Americans really done something to build that highway.
12:51You never know who you will run into on these journeys.
12:53Sometimes the people you meet are true gems of history.
12:57The locals helped us plan our campsite for the night.
13:00An old airstrip up the way would work nicely.
13:02We're going up here. We're warm up somewhere, didn't we?
13:05We're hungry.
13:07Oh, yeah.
13:11That's a good one.
13:12Yeah, it's legit.
13:14Yeah, it's hungry.
13:19Two hours later, we found ourselves pillaging down an old runway.
13:22Soon to come in contact with our only known enemy of the trip.
13:29I'm thinking you, this is like mosquito nightmare right here.
13:36We need to run away.
13:39Look at that.
13:40I have never, and I have been in a lot of Yukon territory and I haven't seen it like this
13:46anymore.
13:46We need to not be by water.
13:48Higher ground is back the way we came.
13:50There were spots on the left side.
13:55Alright, we're camped.
13:58At the end of this abandoned airstrip.
14:02We could have either gone to higher ground or move away from water, but it's been raining so much.
14:11It's been raining so much that we're going to find them everywhere.
14:15Oh my gosh.
14:17We're just going to make camp.
14:19I'm getting covered.
14:22Look at this.
14:23I just nailed one.
14:25Nice.
14:29There are so many with me out.
14:32You will not win.
14:33I'm caught.
14:34That's good.
14:35I want in.
14:37Now is the time to get in the mental state of, you can't beat them.
14:42You can't join them.
14:43You just have to accept them.
14:45They're supposed to be epic mosquitoes of all time in Alaska and Yukon.
14:49I heard they're sold out on bug spray.
14:55So, nothing you can do about it.
14:58Seance.
15:01Perished in the flame of citronella.
15:05Never again comes.
15:07The candles on the gas cherries.
15:09Just saying.
15:09Were they?
15:11Oh, that's smart.
15:13Good call.
15:15Let's not blow us up.
15:16How about that?
15:18Are you up for it, Rhonda?
15:19Yep.
15:20Game face?
15:21Game face.
15:23Had to whine a minute, but I'm done now.
15:27I've never seen that thing before.
15:29I don't know what that bug is.
15:30What is that bug?
15:31He caught it.
15:33Here, show it to the camera.
15:35Holy cow.
15:36Look at that stinger.
15:38Bam.
15:39It's like my son.
15:40He gets stung and he's like,
15:42And he goes back to catch up.
15:44Are you serious?
15:46What are you doing?
15:48Now that we're done cooking, the mosquitoes have left.
15:52I don't know.
15:57Rhonda, great job.
15:58You like that?
16:01Very much.
16:03It's amazing.
16:05Ow!
16:08The four days of hard driving had begun to take its toll.
16:11We needed something to take the edge off.
16:14Laird Hot Springs had our GPS's destination setting.
16:39Sometimes road weariness gets the best of us all.
16:41Grow up!
16:46Speaking with a retired forest ranger about the area, he suggested our next campsite.
16:52No bikinis here.
16:53Jeff has a bikini.
16:55I'll spoil it.
16:56It was to be 20 some kilometers off the main highway at the historic Smith River airstrip.
17:01A significant strip during the construction of the highway some 70 years ago.
17:09All right, as we're traveling in here, I have counted nine, and I think we just passed the tenth.
17:18Very fresh, very recent pile of bear scat.
17:22Looks like this is a highway for bears.
17:27There's a good chance we might see one tonight.
17:30We're actually, for the second night in a row, sleeping in an abandoned air base.
17:35This one, obviously heavily used by big aircraft.
17:39Just over here, there is a massive swath, probably 200 yards wide by a good mile long.
17:47They were bringing in heavy equipment here.
17:50It's all grown in.
17:51And where I'm sitting right now is actually one of the bunkers that those soldiers used while that air base
17:58was operating.
17:59And to me, this is fascinating.
18:01I love this stuff.
18:03To know that someone used to walk in here, that commands and generals were giving orders,
18:09and people were following them out, missing their loved ones at home.
18:12It was all happening right here.
18:14And now, the winters have pretty much taken this building since 1945.
18:21And this is what's left of it.
18:23But, what a cool piece of history.
18:29That is that line of sunlight.
18:32Yeah, you hear that?
18:33Yes.
18:38So, it's about 1230 in the morning.
18:42As you can tell by the sunlight.
18:45And, you're shooting some interviews and we're hearing a bear over there.
18:52And he seems to be fairly close by and grunting quite a bit.
18:55So, I don't know, I don't know.
19:03We might have to post a man.
19:06Night watchman.
19:14We're just gonna walk around.
19:16Just, you know, within our defensible area.
19:21And take a look to see if we can find if there's a bear out there.
19:27We've got big lights.
19:31First initial is a bear banger.
19:35Then, we can't get it to go away.
19:39We've got a bean bag.
19:40Or, we've got rubber bullets.
19:44And, beyond that, it's retreating back here.
19:50Possibly getting in vehicles or having to use more lethal force if necessary.
19:55But, we're hoping to shoo the bear versus make him mad.
20:01So, we'll see.
20:03We just need to do a quick check around here.
20:05Make sure that we're safe in this area.
20:08And, shoo him off if we can.
20:11Without doing something stupid.
20:15Stupid?
20:16Stupid.
20:21Right there.
20:23Just heard it again over here.
20:28We still hear it over here.
20:30Which means it's A, probably nothing to be worried about.
20:34Or, two, it's a bear that doesn't care.
20:36Which is something to be worried about.
20:40I thought it heard.
20:48Yeah.
20:49The thing's loud.
20:51Just like a firework.
20:53There's nothing more.
20:54We're not going in there for sure.
20:55We just need to hang back here where we have good visual.
20:58So, it is currently one in the morning.
21:01So, it's time to go to bed.
21:03We're tired.
21:05If we can't go to bed.
21:10After a short night's rest, we headed back to the main road.
21:14Not even one mile from camp, we met our night time friend.
21:18There he is.
21:19He's coming.
21:41He's just moseyed down the road.
21:43It's like this is the island.
21:45It's here.
21:47These things aren't afraid of anything.
21:49Oh no.
21:50We talked to several people that said they have never seen a grizzly bear in their life.
21:55Oh yeah, that guy at the parking lot.
21:57I've lived up here 15 years.
21:58Never seen one.
21:59Lived here.
22:00Never seen one.
22:00Wait, he said since 86.
22:02Is he still out?
22:02He said he's been here since 86.
22:04Well, look.
22:04That was a grizz, right?
22:05Yeah.
22:10It was awesome seeing that grizzly.
22:13Seeing an animal like that sets in stone that you are in the wild.
22:17I can say that at this point we are all settled into the trip.
22:21Mentally ready for the next six weeks of exploration and travel.
22:26What's ahead?
22:27The road only knows.
22:55How can I find a friend's favorite place on the street men?
22:58How can I find a圧 comb?
23:07At this point it's time to help with these ants.
23:08chỉians
23:08If I throw in some wood atatypa snow...
23:09Ve thicker together.
23:11The road not to scawk, I cant close it on tone thatำland time Não.
23:17I'm gonna break it off the dateivo
23:18Five times out, according to that skype skype skype skype skype skype.
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