Our Canada Features Sirius Rally Alcan Adventure

In December 2008 Our Canada magazine ran an article on the Sirius Rally Team’s experiences of the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk.  

Here’s an excerpt:

“In the low light of pre-dawn, we find our way to the boat launch and creep onto the frozen Mackenzie River. We pass tugboats and barges frozen into the river on which we are driving, but we don’t encounter any other rally traffic or local traffic – the ice road is ours. It’s smooth, straight and seems almost five lanes wide along the Mackenzie Delta, but we encounter more cracks and sweeping corners as we head northeast on the Beaufort Sea. We are driving on ocean water along the northern shore of the Northwest Territories.”

Link to a PDF of the article HERE, thanks to rallysport.ca.

Sirius Rally in the News

The Alcan pace had me barely skimming some of the comments while we were on the rally, but now I’m enjoying going back through and seeing what people wrote. I almost missed a heads up from someone we met on day 2, a teacher at the school, I think, about an article in the Quesnel Cariboo Observer. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a paper copy but it’s also available online HERE.

Rookie Sirius Team Takes Second Overall at Alcan Rally!

We’re finally getting settled back in to life not on the road, and here’s the overdue conclusion to the Sirius Alcan Adventure:

The combined efforts of cars 16-18 resulted in the second place team prize for the 2008 Alcan Winter Rally. Our ‘all newbie’ crew is very proud of finishing closely behind the accomplished Arctic Challengers, who won the team honours despite one of their cars suffering some damage on the ice road. The Tres Hermanos RT took overall honours; the Alcan site still doesn’t have scores past day 4 so we can’t post all the details. The results were announced at the finish banquet, and a score sheet was distributed, but in the post-Alcan revelry we lost track of both. Josh and Evans left early to make it home the next day, so the points totals are listed in Josh’s post below. We made a leisurely trip back, stopping at the Eagle Eye for a mountaintop lunch, but it was cool to see our other teammates rushing happily home to their families.

Here’s the breakdown for each Sirius entry:

Josh & Evans Keatley – CAR 16 (grey Subaru Forester)
FIRST PLACE class IIE
9th overall
the ‘behind the scenes’ lowdown: Josh and Evans were the token father/son effort, and the Forester they rescued from the wrecker turned out to be a great Alcan ride. They were dependable teammates and Josh put on a heck of a show at the ice races, posting fast times in a non turbo car.

Jennifer Daly, Gord Ryall & August Ustare – CAR 17 (wrb 2004 Subaru WRX Wagon)
ICE RACE CHAMPIONS
second place class IE
11th overall
the ‘behind the scenes’ lowdown: If not for our day 4 sleep in, we might have had our class win and the team prize. Once we got behind, we had more of a fun holiday and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the points, but our TSD abilities still improved dramatically. When Gord started winning the ice races, I got to do more TSD driving. Gord has sworn off TSD entirely as of the last day of the Alcan, so August and I will compete as a team for selected events this year, hoping to continue on the improved and competitive pace we attained on the Alcan. The rally was a scouting mission for future adventures, and the draw to explore the Yukon and NWT is even stronger now that I’ve seen a little of what it has to offer.

Bill Beers & Doug Heredos – CAR 18 (Big Blue Dodge Ram)
second place class IIE
12th overall
FIRST PLACE favourite last minute teammates and road buddies
the ‘behind the scenes’ lowdown: We were lucky to have these two stage rally guys from Oregon as the objects of our pranks, impromptu cameramen / media hounds and dependable Kokanee company. The truck was an unlikely ride but they drove it with style and a sense of humour. If there had been close to the expected number of ice races, they might have been able to coax us into switching up for the Rex. They stayed close on the heels of the Keatleys, and the tightness of this race helped us overall in the team standings.

Adding one more blue Subaru to the mix made for a lot of camera opportunities and better chances to gang up on the Dodge, and by the end Stevan and Kristin were pretty much teammates as well. Stevan braved a pretty bad virus to join us for the token champange splash at the finish. Kristin was a great navigator and had a solid handle on TSD by the end, even though she had no idea what she was getting into when she started. We’ll be watching for them to turn up on the Canadian stage circuit in the future. I’m not totally certain, but their presence in our class, despite not having a rally computer, may have upped the Sirius Team score.

We’ll add thoughts, top ten lists and ramblings as the impact of our rally sets in, and we’ll be busy with the 2008 stage season very soon. It was 4 years in the making but I think we got everything we hoped for and much more from the Alcan Winter Rally. Immense thanks to Jerry and all the volunteers who set the route out before us.

We did it!

We arrived in Jasper this afternoon to complete the Alcan 5000 Rally at mile 4706.944. We’re glad everyone arrived here safe and sound. We’re looking forward to the banquet tonight to share stories and see results. There’s no wireless internet here at the hotel so I’m making this short post from my cellular internet account. Stay tuned for more updates from us.

Thanks to those who followed us along the way and provided their words of support. See you soon!

AU

Day 9 – TSD Rally Sirius Style

I had every intention of dragging Gord and August back to the hot springs this morning, but I think we really needed our sleep in time, still recovering from the chaos of the first few days of the Alcan Rally. Having no internet at Liard was a treat; we had a chance to chat and relax without dealing with tech frustrations and frantic uploading. I’ve been able to enlist the guys to help with the updates as well. It was fitting that Gord agreed to write about yesterday, since it was his big day as the iceX champ. Josh, our teammate from car 16, was in the hunt for fastest time, even though his rennovated Forester lacks a turbo. His advice of the day, a mantra he followed, was “brake LATE”. We have some video of him ‘kissing’ the snowbank on the final outer corner, and he put on a great show.

It feels as though we have resurfaced in the civilized world today – we’ ve started to wonder about what’s been happening at home while we’ve been gone, and August and Gord are once again tied to their cellphones. We started at Liard and we’re sleeping at Dawson Creek, and here’s a little bit about how our uneventful but enjoyable day unfolded:

We are finally getting the hang of this TSD thing. Gord has generously agreed to let me do the remainder of the TSD driving, and August is totally on with his spreadsheet and the real time challenges of keeping us on perfect time. We had two regularities, both about 12 miles in length. The first was near Fort Nelson, taking us through a snowy neighbourhood and around the airport turnaround at 10 mph. I think Gord lets me drive because I’m good at going really slow when needed. As one might imagine, Bill and Doug are having trouble doing slow average speeds in their massive truck, and they’re in for it even more because August has just told me there is a section requiring an average speed of 4 mph tomorrow!

The second was part of the Old Alaska Highway, and I was nearly driven to distraction by a fierce and colourful sunset along an old road with a crazy bridge and lots of turns. We’re still waiting for the scores, but it felt great. I’m sad that the rally is ending tomorrow, since today has been a pretty happy and effective day for the team. There’s a lot more to say, but the rally is in its last hours and I am eager to enjoy the time we have left. August’s friend Ryan is here to keep us company, and we’re starting to organize our homecoming plans. I’ll be fleshing out the details of all the posts as they come back to me, and we’re aiming to have photos up before we leave for Jasper tomorrow.

JD

Update: The scores are in and we finished the day with a tiny 6 points overall. That’s only 3 points per regularity; with each one having 4 checkpoints, that’s a lot of ones and zeros (and one two, but still, I’m proud). Our teammates, car 18, are only 2.4 points ahead of us overall, so the story of the day will be Rex vs. Dodge for the win.

Day 8 – Hot Springs and Hotter Lap Times

The first job of day 8, which began in Whitehorse, was to repeat the Lost Lake TSD regularity, which the team nearly missed last time around because our alarm didn’t go off. For our Lost Lake revenge Jenn was at the wheel, August was in the right seat and I was the checkpoint hunter, drinking some Tim Hortons in the back. I witnessed some outstanding driving and navigating by Jenn and August and enjoyed some outstanding coffee from Tims. We ended up with just 16 points for the regularity – a big improvement from the 200 points we got last time! The second section of the reg was nearly perfect – only ones and zeros. After Lost Lake we returned to the IceX course for another race, my favourite part of the Alcan.

Last night us and other teams lobbied the rally organizer to run a reverse start order, giving teams with a higher starting number a better chance to put down some fast lap times. Last time there was a big difference in grip and available lines from the first to the last laps. Today, with an extra turn at the start and very polished ice from the last race the conditions were very ‘slippy’. Fearing the wrath of the Rex, some competitors were swapping tires last night, hoping for their best chance at keeping up.

All three of us had clean runs, no spins or snowbanks! With the promise of a cold beer for fastest lap of the day from teammate Doug, I drove flat out. I came across the finish line after my second lap running on only three cylinders, and a flashing check engine light. The problem was quickly remedied in true ‘Rocket’ style and the Rex was ready to run again. Results were not posted until late, and suspense had been killing me as both runs felt slow. To my surprise both runs were fastest of the day by about four seconds….yes!! Jenn and August both put in respectable times as well.

Day 8 ended at Liard Hot Springs after a ‘brief’ 400 mile transit. On route we stopped in Watson Lake and had look at the 70,000 plus signs posted at the Sign Forest of the Alaskan Highway (I only counted 69,886). We ended up up to our nuts in snow trying to see them all. Later in the drive we were greeted by a herd of elk/caribou, and up the highway a whole bunch of buffalo rooting through the snow. We pulled in to Liard in near last place again, but we were the first to the Hotsprings. We hiked the trails, but the small upper pools couldn’t compare to the big main pool, steaming and sulphury, with staircases and benches, but totally pitch black. The water temperature was patchy, but some lazy treading water evened it out nicely. We let our eyes adjust and searched for stars, but eventually the rest of the rally arrived with beaming headlamps, and we called it a night. One of the other competitors has a telescope with him, we found out, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to see some clear skies before the rally ends. We joined Bill and Doug for a few drinks in their sans plumbing bare bones but charming cabin, and we got to bed on time for a change. All and all another satisfying day and it’s off to Dawson Creek tomorrow. Can’t believe there are only two more days left – it has been so much fun.

GR

Day 7 – Retracing Our Tracks

The first lull in the frenetic pace of the Alcan Winter Rally happened today, and things are quiet at our hotel in Whitehorse. We started the morning with a pre-dawn departure from Eagle Plains with the Keatleys who needed to get some photos of Dawson City in the daytime for Josh’s wife in Alberta. Gord and then August were at the wheel to take us down and off of the Dempster; I slept most of the way. We got our first bite of frigid Northern air in Dawson, and took only a quick walk down by the paddleboat before opting for an ‘in car’ tour.

Last night at Eagle Plains was a time warp, taking me back to the feeling of my Aunt’s ‘camp’ in Terrace Bay, ON, to being surrounded by overimbibers, like an undergraduate, and to a time way before my generation, which is documented in the photographs and artifacts that line the walls and ceilings of the Eagle Plains Hotel. Mining, hunting, trailblazing and manhunts were part of the history of the NWT, and a night here gives names, faces, and a powerful sense of being closer to that wilder time. It’s a great resting stop after driving the Dempster and the ice road like an outlaw, and after witnessing the austerity and hardship of Tuktoyaktuk. The dogs at Eagle Plains are as friendly and striking as the dogs I knew in Bella Coola. We spent the later part of the evening with three locals passing through on their way to hunt caribou. I enjoyed hearing what life in the North is like from people who have always lived there; at times visiting places for mere hours feels disconnected and artificial. They told us about a road that might someday be built from Yellowknife to Inuvik, a similar road to the one I assumed existed when I was pestering Jerry the Alcan Organizer to avoid backtracking from Inuvik to Whitehorse. I’m surprised and a bit humbled at how much 7 days of driving has changed my perspective on many things: from what qualifies as road food, to what living as an aboriginal youth in Northern Canada might be like, and even my thoughts on Americans.

We drove slowly but on track back to the hotel in Whitehorse, did some laundry, and had designs on bigger things, but the boys are asleep. I hope August doesn’t get worse with his virus and I’m so glad he was willing to write about our Tuktoyaktuk trip. Tomorrow we get another shot at full speed glory at the iceX, and then on to the Liard Hotsprings. The pace and energy of the Alcan seemed to fizzle out tonight as many nursed their Eagle Plains hangovers, but I think a new sort of character might emerge as we gear up again for the last few days. We’ve been plotting some more mischief, and I hope we’ll enjoy the fruits of it tomorrow.

JD

Send the Sirius Rally Team Real Time Email Messages

The Rom Comm tracker is working better than ever since we brought it in from the cold just before we hit the ice road. It will be amazing to see our route plotted along the Mackenzie Delta and the ocean in the years to come, but now we’re hoping to use it to keep in touch with our families and friends. To send a message directly and instantly, check the siriusrally box on the main menu, and hit the ’send email’ button. Popups MUST be enabled for this to work, as a text box will open for you to type your message. August has tested this and it works well, so feel free to send us greetings or scoldings or any notes from home. The tracker is in the rex, car 17, but we are in close contact with the Keatleys in car 16 as well as Bill & Doug, and Stevan and Kristin. We could probably send word along to any team on the rally, as long as we know who to look for, so please include names and car numbers.

Connect with the Sirius Rally Team via Rom Comminications HERE.

Day 6 – The Ice Road

On Friday morning we embarked on the portion of the trip that I had been dreaming of driving since 1998 – The Mackenzie Ice Road. I first heard about the Ice Road from a friend of mine named Chris Donald. In 1986 he and a team took donated Jeeps from Chrysler to Tuktoyaktuk and back to Vancouver for Expo 86. It was Chris’ stories that got me interested in the trek which then led me on to the Alcan 5000.

Leaving from Inuvik well before dawn, we drove down the boat launch of the Mackenzie River and turned right towards the Arctic Ocean. Shortly after leaving town we passed large tug boats, supply ships and barges frozen in the very river that we were driving on. Our visibility was unlimited and we could see the riverbanks until we left the river delta and veered northwest on the Beaufort Sea along the northern shores of the Northwest Territories.

The ice road seemed to get rougher as we changed from fresh water ice to sea water ice. The cracking in the ice was more prominent. Unfortunately the ice claimed one tire on car 19 and one tire on car 14 who also sustained injury to two struts.

Just as we had left Inuvik, we drove up the boat launch in Tuktoyaktuk. The sun was just rising as we arrived, filling the horizon with soft orange light. We explored the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk for about an hour, taking lots of photos and searching for a place to buy Tuktoyaktuk University t-shirts, or more commonly worded “Tuk U”. The only place that sold them in Tuktoyaktuk was the RCMP Detachment and apparently they weren’t open for a few more hours. Fortunately I was able to find some in Inuvik at the Inuvialuit Regional Office.

When we left Tuktoyaktuk, we were amazed to see how fast the weather conditions changed. The visibility changed from unlimited to less than 100 feet. Apparently Tuktoyaktuk was expecting blizzard conditions later that evening. By the time we got back on to the Mackenzie River, the visibility opened up all the way back to Inuvik. We got a short glimpse of just how arduous winter road travel can be and it gave us an appreciation of the people who live and work in these remote communities.

This 109 mile ice road is a vital link to Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk and numerous oil and gas operations staging from Tuktoyaktuk. The ice road is open from mid December to late April on average with the record late opening on February 15 1988 and the record early closing on April 15, 1998. According to the Northwest Territories Transportation, the bearing capacity of the ice was posted as 64,000 kg which amounts to an ice thickness of 126 cm. By the same formula, our vehicle needed only 20 cm of ice thickness not including other factors such as ice types and cracking.

Our trip is now past the halfway point and we are southbound from here on in.

AU

Sirius Team Organizational Meeting

We’ve been busy, disconnected, and simply having too much fun on our adventure to keep our Alcan diary updated and orderly for three days, so there’s lots of stories to read. Josh and Evans are in Car 16 and Jennifer, Gord and August are in Car 17; the individual team posts can be reached by clicking on the new Car 16 or Car 17 categories. We’re still having a great time with Bill and recent Birthday boy Doug in Truck 18. Check out their blog HERE, especially a quick clip of our recent snowball attack. Fourth in our convoy are Stevan and Kristin in Car 19, another blue Subaru, who are posting their Alcan diary HERE.

We’re all in Inuvik resting up for the Tuk trip in the morning. Thanks for all the comments, and we’re taking last minute orders for the epic load of Tuk tokens for friends and family all over.

JD

Day 4: Sirius Team Sleeps In & Takes Fastest IceX Lap

In rally competition terms, day 4 of the Alcan 5000 was a big one for the Sirius Rally Team. The morning started sunny and with the plan of maintaining a close 2nd in class, but we awoke at 8:10 and our in time for the first TSD was 8:15. We learned that rush hour traffic in Whitehorse occurs between 8:00 and 8:30. It might be the only stop on the Alcan that actually has a rush hour. Gord and August, capable of rushing out the door much faster than I, made it to the regularity before it closed, but managed maximum points. A 200 point addition to our total score will likely put us out of contention for the class and team wins, and has happily caused us to focus on the fun and the adventure, instead of the point by point obsession.

That said, I’m proud to report that Gord ran the fastest lap at the first iceX this morning. It was a very close margin against a perennial stage rally driver who has apparently piled the points on other teams in the past. August put in a smooth and quick single run, and I reached a new level of sideways rhythm before stuffing it in the bank mere inches from the finish line. Josh excelled and achieved drift and impressive stage times despite lacking a turbo. The most fun of the iceX was watching Bill and Doug in the Dodge shining their rims on all the snowbanks and pinning it through the straights. Our car 17 was sternly scolded for waiting in the finish area, but the 360 from the Dodge coming in after us was elective and not necessary to avoid us. Josh and Evans were able to visit with Josh’s long time friend and her kids who are living in Whitehorse. We got some great local info about a stop on our afternoon transit that featured gigantic cinnamon buns and mushers with dog teams crossing the finish line of the Yukon Quest Dogsled Race. We kept a casual pace all afternoon, dawdling along the road from Whitehorse to Dawson City. The weather was looking unfavorable for eclipse viewing, but we located the moon through the clouds just before the eclipse was complete, and we stopped to watch it when it was clear enough to see it emerging from the earth’s shadow. Evans later told me that he had seen the bright full moon early in the evening and wondered where it had gone. I wish I could have asked him to point it out to me because I almost missed in entirely.

With our eyes on the skies we ended up being the last team into Dawson, and hadn’t finished dinner before some of our new friends left the pub for bed. We heard from another competitor that it was our teammate Doug’s birthday on day 5 tomorrow. I really think birthdays should be a big deal, and an occasion with limited resources is extra fun. Everyone who was left in the bar gathered together to figure out how to wish Doug ‘Happy Birthday’ in ‘on the road to the Arctic’ style. Of course there’s not a balloon or cupcake to be found in Dawson at midnight in the winter, so we relied on toilet paper, shaving cream, drinking straws, zap straps and inflated condoms. We plastered our birthday wishes all over the big Dodge truck, in an occasion of decoration, or vandalism, depending on whom you ask (read Doug’s blog for details). Katie, one of the volunteers, happened to have a photo printer and some cardstock for impromptu cards, which Kristen, Steve and others managed to get signed by pretty much everyone on the rally. Gord spent a good chunk of the evening working on a blue Subaru that was leaking fuel because of the cold. He got a round of applause for his fastest lap at dinner, and after the car was fixed, he joined us for a toast to a great iceX. We crawled into bed way too late, but it was a great day on the Alcan.

Driving the Dempster on Alcan Day 5

The alarm went off (success – already a better start than yesterday!) and I peeked out the window to see if the truck maintained its glory overnight. I saw our teammate Bill peeling off toilet paper, and in a sober moment, I hoped we weren’t in big trouble. It went over well, in the end, and although they pulled all the stuff off, the shaving cream was frozen solid and as the engine warmed the hood chunks of it melted and gave clean smelling birthday windshield wishes for the better part of the morning. We traveled from Dawson City YT to Inuvik NWT along the Dempster highway, and as the sun set we did a few blocks of the 100km ice road that will take us all the way to Tuk tomorrow.

We had heard from the Alcan veterans that the Alcan starts on the Dempster, and today we found out why. This highway is a winding, elevated snowy path that undulates through mountains, bare tundra and smooth marshmallow arctic hills. There’s simply too much to describe, and I’m so glad we get to travel it twice. Gord and August were very patient with my requests to stop at every spectacle for photos or a closer look, but we had a hard time keeping on the required Alcan pace. Anyone who knows my Dad will understand that I am genetically inclined to photograph and marvel at every natural wonder while on a roadtrip holiday. We’ve been traveling in a convoy of four cars, which is fun because we’re all into the sights, speed, thrills and a bit of mischief as the best parts of the Alcan adventure.

The middle part of the Dempster rides along a ridge where I felt that we were driving at the top of the world. As we came down off the divide we crossed two ice bridges at Peel and Mackenzie, where they have the summer cable ferries stranded on snowbanks as a reminder of how different things will be there a few months from now. When we started out down the highway this morning the landscape seemed strange and unusual, and as we explored the streets of Inuvik, the scene seemed even more unfamiliar. There are snowmobiles everywhere, as erratic and unpredictable as jaywalking pedestrians but traveling at much higher speeds. The houses are lifted blocks with brash or faded coloured siding. The open space under the houses wards off permafrost. The streets are all ice roads, crisply white, except for a lot of yellow corners. It was hard to discern where the ice road started; I guess I was expecting a drive off a ramp like at a rally or some cheesy fuss and circumstance like on the Ice Road Truckers show, but it was quiet, simple and austere. Until we got buzzed by a bunch of snowmobiles. The dusk in Inuvik was the most colourful I’ve seen with no clouds – just pure pink and purple light, and white snow ice road. We’re leaving very very early tomorrow so I have time to meander and take it in before everyone catches up. To rally or to wander – a tough choice sometimes, but it’s a luxury I’ll happily negotiate.

Link to the Dempster Highway map HERE.