I’d been driving truck out of Whitehorse for seven years, fifteen out of Calgary before that, when someone asked if I’d take a run up to Dawson. The load I was waiting for was delayed a day; the money was worth a deadhead run; why not?
Some fool got the idea of building a bowling alley between Carmacks and Pelly Crossing (already in the middle of nowhere). Maybe figuring the tourist industry’d boom. Maybe some five-pin champ’s ghost said, “If you build it, they will come.” But tourism never boomed, and hardly anyone came. It’s abandoned now. I mostly ignored it traveling north, the way most folks do.
Coming south, though, on the road twelve hours with another spent dropping-off, I wasn’t seeing straight. Time was, thirteen hours driving was like Christmas Day: here, gone and what’s all the fuss? Nowadays.... I left Pelly Crossing thinking an hour to Carmacks, food, coffee and a couple hours to Whitehorse. Thirty minutes later, I felt lightheaded. Stop and sleep, I risked losing the Skagway job. Keep going or turn back, I risked driving into a ditch. Then I saw the Bowl, lit up like Parliament. Some tourists had patched up the power and had one lane running. Instant coffee and turkey sandwich never tasted so good.
Whatever fool built the place, I owe him one.
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