The first time I had heard of it, I was a new rider on a mission to pilot my little cruiser end-to-end on the Trans Canada Highway. En route, I’d met a youngish guy on a KLR fitted with knobby tires and covered in soft bags and grey dirt.
“Where are you heading?” I asked.
“I’m on my way home, but I’ve been to Deadhorse.”
At that point in my fledgling riding career, the idea of navigating a road, most of it dirt, 700 kilometres into the isolation of the Arctic tundra simply did not compute. Now to be straddling an adventure bike and staring down the Dalton Highway seemed surreal.
My Alaskan exploration was part of a long-term test ride of Suzuki’s 2022 V-Strom DL650XA. So far it had been a superb choice for a long-distance challenge, comfortable and capable of handling everything I had encountered across the prairies, and through northern British Columbia and the Yukon.
But the Dalton? It was one of “America’s Most Dangerous Roads” and YouTube videos I had seen over the years warned variously of man-eating potholes, machines-wallowing mud, and deathwish truckers. Or they tried to impress you with the video creator’s superhuman riding skills. As I sat waffling, I took stock of my own riding ability. I believed
