With mammoths, polar bear and musk oxen they made their way across the ice and south across tundra and steppe into the temperate and tropical zones of these lands of liberty.
To honour this heritage we contrived our own tribute to the founders of these Americas. For US$11.50 ($18.50) you can purchase from Wal-Mart a plastic inflatable, one-man dinghy.
With a pair of Alaskan laminated spruce paddles, plus Icebreaker underclothes and Gortex coveralls, I was well equipped to make a dash for Siberia. Only this way I figured, could I appreciate the efforts of those original inhabitants of the Americas.
I'm the first to admit I'm no Nanook of the North: at any sign of adversity, I'm heading to the beach. But my world is all about managing risk, respecting volatility, random noise - and those other technical descriptions that encapsulate all I know nothing about. Should my experience demonstrate an excess of reality over prognosis, then goodbye, I'm out of here.
Preparation was impeccable. The plane was chartered, the mandate unambiguous: land me on the westernmost tip of this continent, discharge my equipment - paddles, life-support equipment, sat-phone, bleeper, inflatable, rations, passport - and finally take a letter for my mother.
The flight from Fairbanks to Nome was smooth enough. I swear we traversed most of the 3 million lakes of 8ha or more that populate this state of wetlands. This abundance of water sustains rich flora as well as the moose, caribou and other wildlife.
We followed the twists and turns of that most famous of rivers, the Yukon, down to Norton Sound, then headed northwest to Nome, crossing White Mountain and skipping along the ice-bound beaches until Nome loomed large.
A quick refuel and onwards, pushing further west to the launchpad of Wales, essentially an Eskimo beach fish camp.
Weather on arrival could have been better. It was far more bitter here than it had been just a few days earlier when we took a swim in the Arctic.
Getting to the beach was not quite straightforward. The village graveyard lies between airstrip and high-water mark. The wind here means the dead remain incarcerated in their graves for only a limited time. Human skulls and femurs litter the landscape. To get to the wave-line requires stepping respectfully through this human debris, making arrival at the launch-pad anything but trivial pursuit.
Eventually, it was time to gather together the provisions and board the Wal-Mart wave rider. The crossing never really got momentum: my craft was swamped by the first wave and I was disgorged into the strait. Undeterred, after emptying out the water a second attempt proved hardly more successful. The third line of breakers tipped the boat over and that was it. Dejected I trudged back ashore, Siberia a fading objective.
Our flight back to Nome was uneventful but the short stay at this regional centre of the Eskimo economy was not. The people were hugely hospitable, equipped Dave with a fishing pole and he caught 6 salmon from the nearby river within 30 minutes. They were duly cooked and served to us for lunch. Meanwhile, Jo and I were taken into the hills to spot musk ox.
It is one of the world's most extreme environments here and these people have just a few weeks a year without snow. That they have lived here for centuries is a tribute to their way of life. Though there is the inevitable tension between the old and the new, and mining has brought both good and bad (liquor, drugs) changes, there are grounds to expect the traditional way of life will survive.
* The latest travel blogs and photos from the Backblocks America road-trip are on World By Bike.
