Alfred Atkey and his pedal bike are a familiar sight on the highways of B.C.
His exploits, which have taken him from 100 Mile to Anchorage to Seattle and other points in between, have earned him somewhat of a social following.
It all started when Taxidialogue blogger Steve Jones recounted an encounter with Atkey on the Alaska Highway in May 2008. Other sightings followed.
Paul McNeil, an online ancestry tracer published Atkey’s family tree after coming across the original post. Others offered online updates.
“Just shooting everyone an update that I’ve had the great opportunity to meet Al here in Fernie. He’s staying with us until he decides where the open road will take him. He sends his greetings to everyone,” Jon Levesque wrote on the blog.
His apparent fame is unimportant to Atkey, who said he lives in the shadow of his father, a decorated WWI pilot. He claims his father was considered the best two-seater pilot in the world and might be thought of as the “best one-seater cyclist in the world - but no one is going to make a big story about that.”
“I don’t think much of myself - I think more of him,” Atkey, 78, said.
Born in Toronto, Atkey spent 40 years in Alaska and 17 in the Yukon, filling in the blanks with bike travels across most of western Canada and the U.S. states of Alaska and Washington.
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He now calls 100 Mile House home, although that is a relative term. Sometimes he “sleeps under the bridge” but most days lately, he’s at the Days Inn.
“Not all the time though,” he said, “just when I need to.”
He tries to avoid the trip up the hill to the inn if they do not have any rooms available. Someone at Tim Hortons will often call ahead to see if there’s a vacancy. Once, when he arrived and there were no cheap rooms available, they found a way to accommodate him. He remembers them telling him, “We got a place we can put you. Don’t worry about it.”
He smiles, “They treat me nice.”
Other times, people Atkey encounters on the road will put him up for a day, a week, or a month.
Talking with Atkey is challenging as his mind races from one idea to the next. His conversation is filled with mentions of famous music composers and other musical connections.
He is writing a book celebrating 100 Mile. He wants to learn about others with his last name. He can play the violin and even owns one: a friend in the Yukon is holding it for him as he tries to find somewhere it can be dropped off in 100 Mile.
While he is talking, Atkey pulls out a black wallet about the size of a DVD case. Slips of paper and cards are stuffed in the various pockets. “I found this on the road,” he says. “Anything important goes in here.”
He pulls out a well-worn business card. It’s for Cardinal Ranch, his “main job” up north where he paints fence posts.
“I’m giving away my job,” he laughs. “When I die I can’t do it. Right? So if I can’t do my job then when I die, somebody takes over the job.”
Atkey admits most people do not seem to take the idea seriously. “But it’s a good job and it’s a free job and otherwise they gotta find somebody else.”
In the meantime, he has big plans that involve riding his bike up the Logan Glacier in Alaska. He laughs, “After all, how many people can say they did that?”
fiona.grisswell@100milefreepress.net
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