Walden On Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom

Ken describes being on a couch in Teslin—a small Canadian village in the Yukon Territory—between Tony and Charlene, a married couple who are drinking heavily. Tony was on house arrest, and Charlene planned to get him out of the house and evade the police to party by Lake Watson. They wanted Ken to drive. Ken planned to hitchhike from Coldfoot to Niagara Falls, New York, before his expedition with Bob and gave Josh instructions to call his mother if he went missing. Hitchhiking was Ken’s way of avoiding the $600 plane ticket. He wondered whether hitchhiking was possible in modern America, noting how Generation Y was paranoid about sexual assault, murder, and mutilation. After 12 hours of trying on the Dalton Highway in Coldfoot, Ken convinced Dirk, a truck driver, to take Ken to his home in North Pole, 270 miles south of Coldfoot. In North Pole, Ken shot a gun with Dirk and remembers it as the best day of his life.

Next, Ken got rides from several people, all helpful and nice. Ken refused to drive Tony to the lake, setting up camp by a river and getting a ride from someone else the next day.