Arctic cyclist helps kids with the gift of bikes

Like many of us, the snow, sleet and ice of winter isn’t enough to keep Ali Harper off her ride. That said, she’s in very select company in terms of the degree of cold that her winter involves, living where she does in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, about 600 km north of Yellowknife.

She will, however, stay out of the saddle if the ground gets too muddy—a common problem when that infamous Arctic winter gives way to summer, like it does this time of year.

For that reason, she left it at home a few weeks ago, and that’s when her status as a cyclist in the Canadian arctic took on a new, more charitable dimension. An employee of the local youth centre, one of the local kids saw that Harper was uncharacteristically without her bike that day—a striking absence, given that her ride, a fat bike, is with her so commonly that it earned her the nickname “the girl with the big tires.”

Inevitably, she and the young boy got to talking about their shared favourite pursuit. “He was very, very proud of his new bike that he had just put together from pieces and parts from the local dump,” Harper explained, speaking to the CBC. “His only complaint was that there was no air in his tires.” So, she made a deal with the lad: she would pump up his tires for him if he joined her for a bike ride. True to his word, the boy not only showed up the next day at the youth centre, but he had five friends with him as well. One of them, though, was without a bike. Helping him out, Harper offered a rusty, beat-up old bicycle that had been sitting near her house as a loan.

His reaction was infectious. “I have never seen a kid so incredibly happy to be on a bike,” she recalled. “The bike was way too big for him, the chain was way too rusty, but he didn’t care.”

Inspired by the child’s joyful response, Harper and her husband, a member of the RCMP stationed in Kugluktuk, kicked off what they call the Polar Bike Project. The idea is a simple one: to crowd source funds to get a bike for every child in the community, out of the belief that keeping kids healthy, active and engaged is of vital importance in a place of constant summer daylight. Harper has also been providing workshops for the kids, giving them important information about how to take care of their bikes.

Cycling, Harper said, gives the kids of Kugluktuk something to get excited about — and importantly for this time of year, something to keep them busy. “You see them playing outside at three or four in the morning. Boredom turns into bad behaviour. Unfortunately, some of these kids up here do not have a very positive home life, not a lot of support.”

To date, 10 bicycles have been procured through the project, and delivered to Nunavut free of charge by Buffalo Airways.