Malkolm is cycling on! He is now cycling from Alaska to Washington DC, and then continuing on to the UN Climate Change conference in Cancun in December.
It all started with Bird Year, Malkolm and his parents' year-long, fossil-fuel-free journey in search of birds. Cycling a total of 13,133 miles (21,144 km), they identified 548 different bird species and raised more than $25,000 for bird conservation. Bird Year turned them into confirmed cyclists and taught them that climate change was more serious than they had thought.
In 2009, Malkolm biked from Whitehorse to Ottawa as a part of Pedal for the Planet: the project called for the Canadian Government to become a leader in the struggle to come to grips with climate change. The Harper Government did not even meet with the young cyclists.
Malkolm is now 18 and just finished high school. On August 24, he dipped his foot in the Pacific Ocean in Skagway, Alaska. Then headed up and over the White Pass to the Alaska Highway on his journey to Washington and on to Cancun.



Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Guest Blog #3 (Kirsten Madsen)



Ken was scissor-jumping in the air as our Greyhound bus pulled into the station in Panama City, Florida, and two other brightly-colored cyclists were waving loonily (in the non-bird sense).
"I guess that's your people," someone on the bus said.

How did they know? Is it that obvious?

Ken, Wendy and Malkolm have become super bike mechanics and assembled our bikes in no time flat and we were off.

It is taking me a while to get used to how friendly everyone is. People ask lots of questions, like "Where y'all headed?" and KWM get to talk about how they've been biking for 9 months all the way from what we refer to as 'up near Alaska'. Then the people look at Polly, Sam and I with our white legs and clean bright shirts and we admit we've been biking at least a couple of days.

Biking yesterday we got at least one middle finger and a number of Springbreaker yawps. We stopped in Seaside (where The Truman Show was filmed, if that gives you any indication) and there certainly were a lot of white picket fences. On the lawn in the centre of town genetically modified children giggled cutely. I passed two women tsk-ing on a wooden boardwalk. "Look at that stain," one said, shaking her head sadly over a frothy pink splotch on the wood. "I know," the other woman said sadly. "It's been there three days now."

Through a birding connection, we ended up going from camping to lounging in a luxury condo development the next night. All I can say is I don't know how I lived without a private beach before; the public beach is just so tacky.

Those with a particular interest in my ass will be pleased to hear it is holding up okay. As long as I don't actually sit on my bike seat it hardly hurts at all. Yesterday we rode 63 miles. That's like ONE HUNDRED kilometres.

Oh yeah - birds. I think I have seen about 8 species so far. (It would be more like 11 but Malkolm tells me Hooters don't count.)
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April 6, 2008 at 5:02 PM

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