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On Montana Mountain deep in the vast wilderness of the Yukon, with a grizzly on one side and a herd of caribou on the other, driving sleet chills us to the marrow.

Cycling at 1,700 metres above sea level late last September has us shivering, even with tuques, wool jerseys and Gore-Tex jackets. But we're in no position to complain. Standing beside us is Jim Coates, a twentysomething Yukoner wearing a weathered windbreaker more broken than wind-proof with a thin, cotton T-shirt underneath. No tuque, no shivers and no complaints -- just a wide smile, a mysterious scar on his cheek and a bottle of moonshine in his hand.

"Winter's comin'," Mr. Coates predicts in between sips. "Bears should be gettin' full by now."

The weather-worn structures of the long-abandoned Montana Mine provide a rustic backdrop to this adventure, the first-ever mountain biking trip down the Sam McGee Trail, a century-old packhorse trail reclaimed from the wilderness.

Two hundred metres to our left, a large grizzly grazes on blueberries, its golden coat blending with the earth tones of sub-arctic alpine in autumn. On our right, the trailing edge of a herd of caribou dips below the horizon.

While Mr. Coates really doesn't seem concerned about this Serengeti of the North, I'm a little wary. If I were a bear and getting ready to bed down for six months, I'd be thinking caribou, not berries -- not to mention a little human hors d'oeuvre.

According to our guide, Dwayne Roberts, a stout and solidly built man who moved here five years ago from British Columbia, grizzlies infrequently eat caribou, preferring the abundant selection of plant life that flourishes here. He says nothing about their appetite for humans.

Mr. Coates also seems unperturbed by the proximate predator. No surprise. In the seventies, his hippie parents left Ontario and headed north to the Yukon. In the middle of nowhere somewhere south of Whitehorse, their Volkswagen van broke down. So they pushed it into the woods and built a cabin over it.

"They didn't drag us out of the bush 'til I was 8," Mr. Coates says. "Now, they're elk farmers. They sell the antlers to the [South] Koreans for a little less than the cost of cocaine."

Both Mr. Coates and his buddy Rob Smith, a member of the Teslin Tlingit First Nation, have joined us today as potential mountain bike guides for trips down the Sam McGee Trail.

Right now we are all focused on the single-track descent we're approaching. It is a historic and exciting moment. We will be the first to ride the Sam McGee.

The old Sam McGee trail was built in 1905 by its namesake, a legendary Yukon road builder, as a packhorse trail during the construction of the Mountain Hero Tramway. Once the longest tramway in the world, it used a cable 14 kilometres long to haul ore up 900 vertical metres.

During the past month, Mr. Roberts has endured close encounters with grizzlies while hacking back 100 years of thick, slow-growing Yukon brush. His goal is to use the trail as a high-adventure addition to his Fireweed Hikes & Bikes touring outfit, an adventure-meets-history lesson company he has been running on Montana Mountain for the past three years.

As the first mountain bikers to test the trail, we broil with anticipation at breathing life into single track that has laid dormant for a century. Before we descend, we take a moment to enjoy the fruits of our long climb from the trailhead near the village of Carcross: ascending 1,500 metres over 16 kilometres of old mining road has taken us back through time. The long climb passes through abandoned tailing piles, mine shafts, weather-worn structures and stone cookhouses. In the vast, windblown, rocky alpine environment we discover century-old boots, cans and abandoned mining equipment.

Mr. Roberts's knowledge of Montana Mountain and stories of hardship in a hard land augment our discoveries.

As we descend toward the Sam McGee trailhead, the landscape changes from weathered rock to a colour-rich carpet of lichens, mosses and shrubs. The cacophony of colours best resembles a discombobulated Persian carpet.

Far below in the distance, the stillness of Marsh Lake reflects the rocky peaks and undulating forest of the southern Yukon.

Even though the 20,000 residents of Whitehorse live only 150 kilometres to the northeast, it feels like they could be as far away as Vancouver. The rotting wood and rusting metal of mining artifacts are the only reminders that humans were ever here; otherwise, there is nothing but wilderness as far as the eye can see. But the exposure and emptiness is why we came to the Yukon, drawn like the pioneers who decided to head north long ago.

"Well, here we go," blurts Mr. Roberts, excitement visible in his wide smile and even wider eyes. "Just make sure to watch your speed in the turns and yell like hell to keep those bears away."

Making noise is not a problem as we blast downward, crisscrossing under the still-standing cedar towers of the Mountain Hero Tramway. Hundreds of people worked for three years in the mines of Montana Mountain before they were abandoned for yielding nothing. It's incredible how far people went based only on a hunch.

But still, as we ride the restored single track of the Sam McGee Trail, with brakes and voices screaming, I'm beginning to understand why they came, why the miners and the prospectors, Jim Coates's parents and Dwayne Roberts, all came to this harsh, empty but astoundingly beautiful place.

The trail, which is about eight kilometres long, seems to go on forever, and every once in a while we force ourselves to stop and soak in the views or examine the fallen cable and ore carts now overgrown by the Yukon brush. But we are past being historians. The pull of single track on mountain bikes has infected us, and we stop only briefly before diving back onto the trail.

After an hour of focusing on the path ahead and wishing a high-speed grizzly encounter away, we emerge on a deserted highway where a pickup truck awaits us for the trip back to Carcross.

After we congratulate Mr. Roberts on his successful resurrection of the Sam McGee Trail and each other on a descent free of accidents and bears, I realize that, like the gold-seekers whose legacy we have just enjoyed, we are in search of certain fortunes. In the Yukon, on a bike, those jewels today are more easily gained.

Tourism Yukon: Whitehorse, Yukon; phone: (867) 667-5036; Web: http://www.touryukon.com.

Fireweed Hikes & Bikes Adventure Tours: Whitehorse, Yukon; phone: (867) 668-7313; e-mail: yukonhikes@hotmail.com; Web: http://www.yukonhikes.com.

Riverdale Cycle: Whitehorse, Yukon; phone: (867) 668-7505; Web: http://www.riverdalecycle.com.