Embarking North, Part 5: Dawson City, Yukon - Tuktoyuktuk, Northwest Territories
On July 11th, after having a relaxing morning we spent the start of our day in Dawson City celebrating Christina’s Birthday. There we enjoyed some delicious burgers, and fries for lunch and wandered around town for a bit to help settle our slightly overfull bellies and to get some energy out before settling into the car for a while. We wrapped up the few chores we had to do in town and set off for the start of the Dempster Highway.
Under a blanket of afternoon storm clouds and wildfire smoke, we nervously turned north onto the Dempster Highway. This almost completely gravel highway stretches 737km (458 miles) north to Inuvik, NT where it then connects to Highway 8 and makes its final 138km (86 miles) link to the small village of Tuktoyuktuk, NT, the furthest point north in Canada that you can drive to from the mainland.
The thick layer of clouds had us worried for a few reasons. Mainly, this area up until very recently has been much hotter and dryer than what is typical. As a result, the afternoon thunderstorms that were building and rolling through the area over the last few weeks had started as many as 136 wildfires, including the one that had sent us on our huge detour. We were very concerned that we may start this road and either find ourselves quickly road-blocked again as we head north, or that we may become stuck on the north side of a fire closure and be forced to use more vacation days than we had planned. Our other concern was mud. The surface of this road is generally very good, however, with enough moisture, it turns to a thick and slick peanut butter-like consistency that makes it very difficult to keep any vehicle on the road! While preparing for this trip we heard of several very experienced drivers who found themselves off the road as a result of the mud, some of them even rolling their vehicles as they left the elevated roadbed.
Thankfully, the storm didn’t produce any worrisome amount of moisture or ignite any fires. It did, however, leave in its tracks many low-lying clouds that nestled beautifully into the mountains and as we continued further north we soon found ourselves back in sunshine.
The first sections of the Dempster travels tough Tombstone Territorial Park, an area of Yukon that we had no idea just how beautiful it was going to be! We pulled over as often as we could to take some photos and marvel at the stunning beauty of this vast open tundra environment.
We took full advantage of the midnight sun on our first day along the Dempster, not stopping to settle into camp until after 10 pm. When we arrived at camp we quickly got to setting up camp, making our dinner, then jumping into the camper to hide from the mosquitos. Despite not being the worse that we had seen on this trip they were bad enough to deter us from hanging outside longer than necessary, covered in bug head nets of course.
So much of the Dempster is an extremely remote and lonely road, with huge distances, up to 368 km (228 miles), between fuel stops and the small communities that dot their way north. There is no cell signal, and no other roads that intersect this highway. It can’t be stressed enough how much self-sufficiency is needed on roads like this. Running out of fuel between fuel stations is a real concern, or also arriving at a fuel station after hours and finding that the pumps might be turned off or even in a rare case simply out of fuel, is not an impossibility. However, this loneliness doesn’t mean that it’s an empty environment. There is an abundance of critters that call this place home. Grizzlies can often be seen at a distance from the road, caribou travel through the valleys here, and wolves, and wolverines also dominate the wildlife populations here. We learned unexpectedly one day how to identify wolverine tracks in the dusty shoulders of the road.
On our second morning along the road, I was hoping to make a photo of our truck traveling down a relatively straight section of the road, where hopefully more of the road would be visible in the distance. As we drove I was constantly scanning for the composition I was hoping for and eventually, I found it. We brought the truck to a stop, I jumped out and strapped on the bear spray, grabbed my camera and a small 2-way radio that we carry so I could communicate with Christina as she drove away and eventually back so I could attempt to create the image I imagined. As she drove away I walked down the road, nervously paying attention to the woods for the variety of apex predators that call them home. As Christina rolled over the back side of a small rise I radioed to her that I had discovered I wasn’t alone in my walk along the road. I looked down and noticed what I assumed were wolves’ tracks. My radio calls to her went unresponded, now that she was too far away for our very inexpensive radios to be effective. Eventually, she turned around, I made a few images as she drove back towards me, and once she was close I pretty excitedly clambered back into the passenger seat of the truck.
We continued up the road, wondering about the tracks that lined the shoulder for some time. It wasn’t until we made a stop for fuel at Eagle Plain, the unofficial halfway point along the Dempster that we learned who the unknown tracks belonged to. After pumping fuel we walked in to pay. As I was standing in the dust-covered lobby of the fuel station and garage I looked around and noticed on the wall the battered remains of a center portion of a car rim, the rest of it, gone. I asked if they knew the story of the wheel, and what had happened. They explained that some tourists had gotten a flat and were too scared of grizzly bears to get out of the car and change the wheel to the space. I laughed and said that speaking of wildlife we had just seen some tracks about 5km down the road that I had assumed were from a wolf but was unsure of that. I then showed them a photo of the tracks. From the information in the picture and from the location, he said that it was near his camp just off the road and that they likely belonged to the same wolverine that had been trying to steal his caribou hide he had that was drying in the sun, noting that it was the largest wolverine he had ever seen.
Not long after leaving Eagle Plains, we crossed another milestone in our journey. Here, we officially crossed the Arctic Circle. North of this point for at least one day of the year the sun does not set below the horizon during the summer months and does not rise above the horizon in the winter months. This phenomenon will become more and more pronounced the further that we travel north. Being in this area and experiencing a true midnight sun has long been one of my goals! We stopped here for a while, to soak in the moment a little bit longer and to also make a brief lunch.
The Dempster and many of the highways though out the north are lined pretty frequently with purple Fireweed flowers, generally, these flowers grow in small clusters grouped together, sometimes they will seem to blanket distant hills generally in burn areas as they are often one of the first plants to grow back. During our travels, we have seen lots of this stuff, and though its charm has never worn off, it’s somewhat of a common sight. However, neither of us had seen such a tightly clustered group as this one! We immediately pulled over and started to make some photos! I again asked Christina to drive the truck away and come back so that I could get some photos of our little Dolores in the distance. In the brief bit of time that she was gone a large grey expedition truck belonging to Yoda Travels appeared over a rise in the road. I quickly snapped a few photos of their truck as they drove by in a cloud of dust. I’m a sucker for this sort of truck, and like any child (or fully grown adult), I always get excited whenever I see one, so it’s hard to turn down the opportunity to snap a few quick photos of one in the wild! Soon after Yoda’s truck buzzed by heading south another truck heading north cruised by, and as previously mentioned my camera seemed to rise on its own and record a few images. Later in our trip, we end up crossing paths with Yoda again, but more on that later.
After all the excitement of flowers and big trucks we took a few minutes to stretch our legs and again enjoy some roadside snacks before crossing officially into the NorthWest Territories.
As the day progressed the weather slowly deteriorated to heavy cloud cover and eventually rain. We again settled into our seats and made another attempt to cover as much distance as we could. As we traveled we made another ferry crossing, this time over the Peel River by a cable-drawn ferry. Gradually the fatigue from the previous long day of driving began to creep up on us both and we decided to find a spot to call home for the evening. Now that we were definitively in grizzly country we searched for a while to find a spot that was relatively open and not tucked too tightly into the surrounding dense boreal forest. Eventually, we stumbled across an open gravel pit that had a very large level spot. We pulled in, made a pretty quick dinner under the shelter from the rain of our awning, and then climbed into bed before 8 pm. We were rather quickly lulled to sleep by loons in a nearby pond by their occasional calls back and forth.
The following day after a restful night of sleep we arrived in Inuvik. While in Inuvik we had a few things in mind that we wanted to do. The first was to make a stop at the grocery store to restock as much as we could on some fruits and veggies, then top off our fuel once again, and of course visit the Western Arctic Regional Visitors Centre. Admittedly by this point in our trip, we started to realize that we had little to no real knowledge of the history or culture of the people that call this area their traditional homeland so we stopped in to learn what we could. This visitor center is a wealth of knowledge, we happily spent just over an hour here slowly walking around the small exhibition and reading almost every single bit of information presented to us. It was a fascinating glimpse into the traditional way of life for the people who have called this area home.
With all our town chores completed we left Inuvik to make the final short drive into Tuktoyuktuk, also referred to as just simply Tuk by many of the locals. The final 152km (94 miles) passed by pretty quickly. In this stretch, the road starts to leave the boreal forest and opens up to treeless tundra, rolling gently over small hills with pond size bodies of water nearly everywhere you look.
Just a few miles outside of Tuk we were looking for a vantage point where we might be able to make a photo of the town in the distance. As we scanned around we passed a small hill with another vehicle parked at the top of it. Realizing that it was also another truck with a Go Fast Camper on it we decided that we should turn around and attempt to meet them since it was the 1st GFC camper that we had seen in a very long time! We also hoped that maybe the hill would provide us with the vantage of town we hoped for. As we pulled in, we slowly rolled past their white Tacoma. They quickly rolled down their passenger window as we rolled down our driverside. We quickly started up a very fun and lively conversation with the occupants, Alex and Dmitri, chatting about where we each had come from and how long it had taken us to get to this point. A year for them, and just over a month for us at this point. We quickly hit it off and they very excitedly asked us if we wanted to roll into town together where they were meeting some friends that had just arrived ahead of them. We eagerly said yes and offered that they lead the way since it’s been a longer journey for them to get to this same point. We filed in behind and together we rolled towards the northern mount point reachable from the mainland of Canada. As we followed behind them we laughed at just how quickly it seemed we had become instant friends with these people that moments before we total strangers to us. Little did we know that this was just the start of making so many amazing connections while on the road.
Together we pulled into the most northern part of Tuk, there a sign marks the Arctic Ocean and the road ends as it makes a loop around the sign, the frigid Arctic Ocean beyond barring any further progress north, at least by road. There we all climbed out of our vehicles, quickly grabbing our down jackets to hide from the cold breeze, and celebrated arriving in a place that is so far from for all of us.
I worried about arriving point actually! I worried that maybe arriving here would signal the end of our journey. We had just reached the furthest point from home that we had ever planned to drive. I worried that now that we were here, I would feel that there is nothing left to do but to return home. I do think that I did feel a small part of that, and thankfully it didn’t last long. The unexpended realization of this point was that truly our journey had just begun, and we had just started to touch the surface of what long-distance slow-paced travel like this has to offer. We were now building community on the road, making friends that otherwise we may have never met. A realization that I hope I’ll be forever thankful for!
Despite this location being the turnaround point for our trip, we set off with our new realization that it was truly just the start…
Thanks for following along! We can’t wait to share the next leg of our trip with you, where we spend some time with new friends in Tuktoyuktuck!
