Welcome to “Pan Am Facts and Info”

Welcome to the “Pan Am Facts and Info”, my attempt to add some side stories and history to my son’s epic journey on the Pan Am from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina.  Thank you for reading along and being a part of the kid’s journey.  While anything I write here pales alongside my son’s prose of his epic adventure, my hope is to add some background to the landscapes and communities he pedals through and perhaps a little insight into this remarkable kid that I have the privilege of calling my son.

For nearly all of the first 1,954 miles of the Pan Am, Bond will be riding mostly on 2 highways associated with much history and lore - the Dalton and Alaska Highways.  The Dalton Highway stretches across the Arctic tundra of northern Alaska from Prudhoe Bay 414 miles to Livengood, Alaska north of Fairbanks.  Named after James Dalton who was an Alaskan engineer in the oil industry, the road was constructed in 1974 to service the Alyeska pipeline that stretches to the oil fields on the north slope.  The road surface is 75% gravel and in need of constant repair due to the thawing permafrost underneath.  

The road was turned over to the state of Alaska in 1979 but was not fully open to the public til as recent as 1991.  The road is primarily used by truckers servicing the Northshore oil fields and has frequently been featured in the reality TV show Ice Road Truckers.

The Alaska Highway runs 1,387 miles from Delta Junction, Alaska across the Yukon territory of Canada and ends in Dawson Creek, British Columbia.  It is the only highway that connects Alaska to the remainder of North America.  The road was built during World War II…. by the US government.  The US Army Corps of Engineers built the road in 1942 at a cost of $132 million, making it the most expensive project during the war.  The road was built as an emergency war measure to provide an overland military supply route to Alaska and its military bases.  The road was turned over to the Canadian government in 1946.  The road spans across the Yukon Territory whose 186,000 square miles are home to only 45,000 people for a density of 0.24 persons per square mile.  For reference Manhattan can claim 75,000 dwellers crammed into each square mile.

In southwestern Yukon, the road abuts the largest area of protected land on earth in combination of Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Kluane National Park, Tatshenshini Provincial Park, and Glacier Bay National Park.  This same area contains the largest non-polar Icefield in the planet.

While Bond has primarily been camping along the way, his first night with a roof over his head was in a cheap hotel in the small town of Whitehorse at the end of day 6.  Back around the turn of the century during the Yukon gold rush a German immigrant from Seattle ran a number of hotels in the area including one in Whitehorse.  Frederick Trump’s establishments were apparently more well known more as brothels than as hotels.  You might have hear of Fredericks’s grandson, Donald.

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have!
Image is of of Bond riding his first bike with blocks duct tape to the pedals so he could reach them.