An older man riding a bike along the Alaska Highway gave drivers a scare this weekend.
He was walking, with one leg on each side of the bike, pulling a cart piled high with stuff.
“It looked like he was moving all his belongings,” said concerned Yukoner Helen Stappers, who saw him by the airport on Saturday morning around 11 a.m.
“And it took him about five minutes to move a metre,” she said.
That evening at 6 p.m., Stappers saw the elderly biker again.
He’d made it to Mount Sima road, she said.
“He wasn’t dressed for the weather, and I thought he was going to collapse,” said Stappers, who called the police.
The RCMP told Stappers it had received a number of calls about this man.
Relieved, she assumed the RCMP was taking care of the situation.
So, the next morning at 8:45, when she was driving to meet friends for a run, Stappers was shocked to see the man lying on the side of the highway by the Carcross cutoff.
“The police were with him then, but I think he was dead,” she said.
The man did not die, said Sgt. Mark Groves, on Monday morning.
“He’s fine, with regard to physical aspects.”
Apparently, he’s biking south, said Groves,
“He started in Alaska, I think from Anchorage.”
He’s an elderly gentleman, he said.
And on Sunday morning, he was sleeping on the side of the road.
“It must have been minus 12 overnight,” said Stappers.
“We were involved because he sleeps on the side of the highway and it could be a danger,” added Groves.
“We looked after him.”
Groves could not comment on the man’s mental health.
“I can’t speak to why he’s doing it,” he said.
“We’re looking at alternatives for him.”