From the icy grip of the Arctic Circle Mike Shisler peddles away from Deadhorse, Alaska—an oilfield and an airstrip eternally beaten by winds of the Arctic Ocean. Taking advantage of the near-24-hour sunlight surrounding the summer solstice, he sets off at 5 a.m. down the gravel road following the oil pipeline, in below-freezing temperatures.
While Shisler is a long way from his goal of sunny San Diego, he is precisely where he wants to be: on an adventure.
He knows that if he can make it over Atigun Pass, he will gain 10 degrees and benefit from the forest cover. His first day goal of getting 175 miles under his belt is lofty, but he’s confident that the endless daylight will spur him on.
Shisler’s drawing of his gear for his bikepacking expedition. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
After 20 hours of bicycling, approaching delirium, he achieves what he set out to do. Crawling into his tent just off the side of the road, he falls into an exhausted sleep, with his bear-spray at the ready.
The following morning as he packs up his camp, a pickup truck with Security written across the side slows to a stop. It stands out among the tankers and construction flatbeds that Shisler has more commonly seen along this stretch.
The pipeline security guard inquires about his well-being before driving on. Within a minute the guard is back, offering Shisler a warm burrito—his own breakfast—on this bitterly cold morning. Shisler gratefully accepts, giving him buoyancy after the first grueling day of his journey.
While bicycling from the Arctic Circle to the Mexican border is a staggering goal in itself, Shisler also documented the journey in watercolor and pen sketches each day. He has paired the watercolors and sketches with essays and musings documenting his expedition. The collection has been transformed into his book, "Drawn There: The Art of Bikepacking."
Shisler’s watercolor of the oil pipeline out of Deadhorse, Alaska, from his book "Drawn There."
Wanderlust
While Shisler’s bikepacking journey from northern Alaska to southern California was unique, it was far from his first grand adventure.
Growing up in the suburbs on the East Coast, he witnessed a steady stream of friends sidelining their bicycles in favor of a car after their 16th birthday. Something about this didn’t sit right with him.
While attending college for architecture in Philadelphia, a new possibility dawned on him. He had adopted a road bike as his main mode of transportation. While commuting to campus, weaving in and out of traffic and exploring new neighborhoods and streets he was emboldened by the freedom he felt.
“In college was the first time that I realized that bicycles are incredible machines,” Shisler said of those early days of two-wheeled exploration.
Mike Shisler on one of his many adventures. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
Informed by his architectural training, he was further impressed by the ergonomics and design of the bicycle. With this, his love blossomed. He wrote his college thesis on bicycle design and endeavored his first major cross-country bikepacking trip following graduation.
The high of this nascent adventure quickly crashed when, three days into his journey, he quit. Whether it was the Virginia heat or emotional unpreparedness, he can’t quite say—but that post-graduation trip ended far sooner than he had imagined it would.
Fifteen years later, he attempted the trip once again. In the summer of 2020, Shisler set out on a solo endeavor to bike from coast-to-coast. This time, meeting his goal. He kept up a rigorous pace, completing the 3,000-mile journey from New Jersey to California in a month.
By this point in his life, he had been living a nomadic existence for years. Shisler and his wife are veteran van-lifers—calling their van home and continuously exploring since the spring of 2017.
The impetus for this has been both the journey and the destination. Shisler had always longed to explore more of the U.S.—the driving force behind the first attempted bicycle trip all those years ago—but the pair also wanted to scout out a location where they could some day settle down and create a home without wheels.
Shisler during his daily drawing. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
The list of potential places was a long one in the beginning, and the pair tirelessly scoured the country—circling the U.S. eight times in their first two years on the road, ceaselessly exploring and evaluating where they could envision themselves long term.
Ultimately, the duo felt drawn to southern California and recently purchased land there. They still call the van home for now, though Shisler has put his architectural training to use in designing a house for them. The building of it is an undertaking they plan to take on themselves.
A drawing a day
While Shisler’s formal artistic training is in the architectural world, his love of drawing began in childhood. He said, however, “As I became an adult I kind of lost touch with [art], even though I was in architecture. It was all about spreadsheets and schedules and project management, and I was like—where did this art go that made me fall in love with this profession in the first place?”
Shisler sketching and painting. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
Armed with this realization, and facing down other major life changes, Shisler committed himself to a project and a lifestyle that would both put him firmly in touch with his love of art as a mode of self-expression and catalogue his daily experiences. On his 30th birthday, he set the goal of creating a drawing every day for the next 30 years of his life.
Today he is over 8 years into the project and looks forward to it every day. “For me, it is very relaxing and it's kind of a zen moment where I can really clear my head and just focus on what I'm seeing and what I'm doing,” he said.
Drawing something in a realistic representation is an exercise in paying attention. This, as a daily act has had a noticeable effect for him. When looking through past sketchbooks, Shisler says, “It's like I'm teleported right back to that spot…because if you sit in one place for an hour and just stare at something, these things kind of imprint on you and that's been one of the coolest things.”
Initially, he had kept his sketches private however, when he and his wife set out for their life on the road, he launched an online shop and began selling his art prints for some income. With his sketchbook ever at his side, he has found endless inspiration throughout their travels. His drawings contain scenes from many national parks and all 50 states.
“This little sketchbook journal project has turned into so much more,” he said.
Shisler’s watercolor of Big Sur. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
Indeed, it has turned into a lifestyle, a business and a daily meditation—most recently culminating with his book chronicling his biggest two-wheeled adventure yet.
From Alaska to California
While "Drawn There" takes the reader along on Shisler’s daily reality throughout his journey from Alaska to California, some of his most memorable moments include breathtaking scenery and wildlife encounters, the kindness of strangers and an unanticipated ferry ride.
Venturing into Alaska, Shisler knew that the presence of bears would be inevitable. One morning early in the trip, he sped past a Grizzley on the side of the road—neither realizing the others’ presence until they were within 10 feet of one another. The bear reared up on its hind legs as Shisler sped by—thankful for his momentum.
Shisler’s watercolor from Cannon Beach, OR. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
Another day, a few oncoming cars had slowed to warn him of a bear in the road up ahead—the last of which was a local, reporting that it was big. Taking the warning to heart, he stopped to devise a plan. He flagged down a car that was heading his same way and asked if they would drive slowly so he could ride alongside it, shielding him from the bear. The car obliged and Shisler was able to make his pass safely.
While this act of kindness from a stranger made an impact on him, it was not an isolated instance. One of the most notable was the morning a tanker slowed beside him as he was riding. The driver shouted to him, asking if he had enough water. Seemingly from out of nowhere popped the driver’s young son holding an icy, dripping bottle fresh from the cooler. After a pleasant exchange, the duo drove off.
Twenty miles down the road, Shisler spied what initially looked like a pile of trash at the side of the road. As he approached, he discovered that it was additional water along with Slim Jims and Oreos. He was deeply moved by this kindness and generosity that he would never have the chance to thank them for. He came upon several more caches of food at 20-mile intervals as he biked that road.
“No matter where you are, there's someone looking out for you and people cheering you on,” Shisler said.
Shisler’s food cache dropped by the trucker and son. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
Aside from bears, he saw moose, musk ox, artic foxes, and whales. The latter were a highlight of his unanticipated ferry ride from Alaska to Washington state.
When he had initially begun researching for his trip, he based his mileage goal off his previous coast-to-coast journey of 3,000 miles. Upon discovering that the trip from Anchorage to San Diego was about that distance, he was convinced that this was the trip he wanted to take on. However, he realized that if he began in Anchorage, he would only get to see 10% of Alaska.
Alaska would be his 50th state to explore, and he wanted to see as much of it as he could. Thus, he kept pushing his starting point ever northward until it could be pushed no further, committing himself to a journey of 4,000 miles.
However, by the time he made it to Whitehorse, the capitol of the Yukon, he was struggling. As he peddled into the city, he resolved to get a hotel and a bike tune-up and see if he could shake the funk he’d begun to feel after three lonely weeks on the road.
His rest day didn’t rejuvenate him how he’d hoped it would. He grappled with how to proceed, but said he’d recognized that, “My mental health is just as important as my physical health and so, I made a decision to backtrack into Alaska.”
From Skagway, Alaska, he took a four-day ferry ride to Bellingham, Washington. He camped on the deck of the boat, not even pitching his tent, the sun barely setting. On board, he steeped in the reprieve from the responsibility of solely propelling himself, drank in the sea views, and delighted in the whale sightings that sent people flocking to the rails—sometimes the only thing that seemed to denote the passage of time.
Sketching onboard the ferry. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
With a renewed sense of determination, he made his way through Washington and Oregon before crossing into California—the homestretch.
Throughout the trip, he had been regarding Alaska as the crown jewel of beauty atop the head of the country. Yet, after a strenuous switchback climb, he crested a peak in Humboldt County and the California Coast came squarely into view challenging the exalted place he’d given Alaska. The two states are still playing tug-o-war in his mind, though his chosen home seems to have asserted itself as dominant to him.
From there, the remaining 800 miles didn’t seem so long. Shisler arrived in San Diego greeted by his wife and friends, waiting to celebrate his accomplishment and safe return.
Shisler after arriving in San Diego at the end of his 3,000-mile bike trip. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
The opportunity to adventure and be welcomed home again is not one that Shisler takes for granted. In acknowledgement of this, Drawn There was dedicated to his cousin, a fellow adventurer, who died in a car accident.
While Shisler has been on an incredible number of journeys thus far, arguably making his life into one, he shows no signs of slowing down. When asked, what his favorite trip has been, he said, with a smile in voice, “The next one.”
Shisler sketching in Big Bend. Courtesy of Mike Shisler
For more information, follow Shisler on Instagram at @drawn.there or visit his website at drawnthere.com.