Kristen Jones, senior curator for the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, looks at the bike on display. Credit: Kristyna Wentz-Graff

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A motorcycle that drifted for more than a year at sea following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011 has reached its final destination at the Harley-Davidson Museum.

The 2004 Softail Night Train floated more than 4,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean in a large, insulated container before it washed up in British Columbia's Haida Gwaii Islands.

A beachcomber found the bike while exploring an isolated beach on his all-terrain vehicle and noticed that the bike's license plate indicated it was from Japan and that the container had Japanese writing on it.

The Night Train was a mess, especially after it washed out of the container onto the beach where it lay partially covered in sand for three weeks after the beachcomber discovered it.

With every high tide, the bike was exposed to saltwater. Its condition deteriorated rapidly, said Kristen Jones, senior curator at the museum.

Some of the chrome still looked good, and the tires were in OK shape. The rest of the bike, not so much.

The handlebars were bent, perhaps from the force of the 25-foot wave that slammed the container into the sea. The Night Train's owner, Ikuo Yokoyama, had used the container as a storage shed for the bike, camping equipment and golf clubs.

Harley-Davidson offered to restore the bike to running condition and return it to Yokoyama, but he wasn't ready for it after having lost his home and three family members in the tsunami.

Instead, he asked that Harley place the bike in the museum - in its battered state - as a memorial to victims of the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of people and left many more injured and homeless.

"If we washed the sand and salt off, we would be taking something away from the story," Jones said.

The bike's condition will continue to deteriorate, but at a much slower rate now that it's in the museum where the temperature and humidity are carefully controlled to protect artifacts.

The exhibit attempts to convey the emotion of what happened to the 29-year-old Harley enthusiast and the bike's journey across the ocean. More than just another piece of storm debris, this was personal.

"It was really important that we treat the bike with respect and reverence. It was part of someone's life that was torn apart," Jones said.

"This is something that has a very human connection with people," she added.

The motorcycle will be on display at the museum probably through next summer and has become part of the permanent collection.

A thousand people came to see the bike while it was on display at a Harley-Davidson dealership in British Columbia before being shipped to Milwaukee.

"I watched people looking at it. The expressions on their faces told me, 'you've got to leave it the way it is,' " dealership owner Steve Drane told the Times Colonist newspaper.

Yokoyama has been invited to visit the museum, but he has been busy rebuilding his life from the March 11, 2011, disaster and has declined the invitation for now.

Museum curators say they will do their best to honor his request to keep the bike in the condition it was found in - a rusty, corroded mess. The shipping container, they said, washed out to sea.

"We don't know how quickly the corrosion process is going to occur. We can't predict whether pieces are going to fall off or anything like that. We will have to assess it as we go along, whether there's anything we need to stabilize," Jones said.

This isn't the first dirty item Jones has worked on. While she was employed at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., the museum displayed a bloody sock worn by Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling in the 2004 World Series. It was a challenge because, over time, iron in blood stains will break down.

Theoretically, at least, "we want to try and keep something forever," Jones said.