Yukon and Alaska Bound, Part 17 - Dempster Highway, Eagle Plains to Inuvik

Dempster Highway North to Inuvik

Wonderful Landscape

We are at the Arctic Circle

On July 4th 2014 we wake to sun and clouds, it is around 13C. We have a nice breakfast at Eagle Plains Motel before we leave.


We are on the road around 8:30 am and the road is in pretty good condition. Some sections are a bit wet but nothing like the day before.


We arrive at the Arctic Circle "Lat 66° 33' N" and some pictures are in order. This region in June receives as much solar energy as they do around the equator. It is less intense here, but is compensated by the long days.


The "Porcupine Caribou Herd" winters here around the 408 Km mark. Right now in July it looks pretty empty, but it must be an incredible sight to see when the 169,000 animal herd migrates through here.

The Porcupine Caribou or Grant's Caribou is a subspecies of the Caribou found in Alaska and adjacent parts of Canada. The Porcupine Caribou migrates over 2,400 km from this point to the calving grounds on the Beaufort sea.

Imagine 169,000 caribou here

Breathless beauty.

 This is the longest land migration on earth by any mammal.

River Crossing

Moose in the bush.

Apparently there are still some Grizzly bears around here. All we could see and find was some bear scat.


We are getting closer to the pass crossing from the Yukon in to the Northwest Territory. The fog is getting so thick that we are crawling along at about 15 km per hour and with four way flashers going. We eventually get out of the "milk soup".


Along the way we encounter a big moose. She had one look at us and booted off into the Black Spruce and underbrush.


Further on, on top of a hill we encounter an airstrip that is part of the road, all in gravel of course. Multipurpose, airstrip and road at the same time.


Besides Black Spruce, green, brown or burnt, there are also Tamarack or Larch trees. Tamarack trees, like the Black Spruce also have needles, but loose those needles in the fall after turning golden yellow.

We are now at NWT Km 74 and take a small ferry across the Peel River. This ferry is free (BC Ferries take notice !). We were the only clients. Arriving on the other side of Peel River we are in Niainlaii Territorial Park and we stopped at their info center.

We had a good look around, and enjoyed a cup of their complimentary tea. A very nice local native man was looking after things. He was extremely knowledgeable. Some muddy and wet tourist on a motorcycle with a side car also stopped by. Would not be my way of travelling.

We drove into the nearby town of McPherson. It looked pretty sad.

Further on we came to another river crossing, the mighty Mackenzie. The ferry ride is longer then over the Peel River and it was a bit choppy. The ferries run in spring, summer and fall. When it starts to freeze over the ferries stop, and eventually Ice-road are built across these rivers.

Wonderful country side

Fog at the high plataue

Welcome to the Northwest Territory. It is milk-soup up here.

The Mackenzie River mainstem runs 1730 km long and 4,200 km from its head waters in British Columbia to the Beaufort Sea.


The river flows in a Northerly direction in to the Arctic Ocean.


The river is around five km wide at its widest part.


A fairly shallow river, and it is most of the time between 8-9 meters.


The watershed that encompasses the Mackenzie River is the largest in Canada at 1,805,200 km²


Let's talk mosquitoes for a while. As long as the wind is up and blowing, no problem, but for you ladies that have to squat down in the bushes where there is no wind, be prepared!


We eventually arrived in Inuvik and checked in at the Arctic Chalet. We had a quaint little cabin. Be prepared, up here there is not luxury. You are in the far north now.

Ferry across the Peel River

Info Center in Nitainlaii Territorial Park

Anders enjoying some tea

BBQ on our porch

Liz in our cabin.

Friendly staff in Inuvik Info Centre.

Liz outside the info center in Inuvik

Shopping in Inuvik

All services in Inuvik are above ground and houses are sitting on stilts or blocks.

We went in to town and picked up some chicken. At the cabin we fired up the BBQ on the porch. The sun does not go down up here for 6 weeks in the summer. Life is good.

For more pictures check out our on line album.

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Yukon and Alaska Bound, Part 16 - Dempster Highway, Dawson to Eagle Plains

Dempster Highway North to Eagle Plains

Beginning of the Dempster Highway

Beginning of the Dempster Highway

Be Prepared!

We are at the intersection of the Klondike Highway and the Dempster Highway at 8 am, ready to rock and roll.... sort off.


The Dempster Highway, also referred to as Yukon Highway #5 and Northwest Territories Highway #8, connects the Klondike Highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River delta.


During the winter, the highway extends another 194 km to Tuktoyaktuk or "Tuk" as it is commonly called.


Tuk is on the northern coast in Northwest Territories of Canada, using frozen portions of the Mackenzie River delta as an ice road or the Tuktoyaktuk Winter Road.


The highway crosses the Peel River and the Mackenzie Rivers using a combination of seasonal ferry service and ice bridges in the winter.


The highway begins about 40 km east of Dawson City, Yukon on the Klondike Highway and extends 736 km to Inuvik, NT.


Construction of the 140 km all-weather extension to Tuktoyaktuk was started in April 2013, with completion scheduled for 2016.


Most locals do not think it will be finished before 2020.


The Dempster Highway was named after the late William John Duncan Dempster.

Scenery along the Dempster Highway.

Scenery along the Dempster Highway.

Scenery along the Dempster Highway.

Mr Dempster was an RCMP officer in Dawson and he did the trail up to Fort McPherson, NT with dog sled several time.


We re-set the trip meter on the truck so we can keep track of where we are on this incredible highway.


On the first 100 km we encounter, three cars, one black bear and some Ptarmigan and similar birds.


No houses, no nothing except the empty and contained beauty.


The landscape has every shade of green there is.


The road hugs the natural beauty of the mountains, rivers, forest, tundra and wide open plains.


Sunshine and photographic clouds (don't have a clue what "Photographic Clouds" means, opposite of non Photographic Clouds I guess, this sentence is from Liz, the photographer) accompanied us.


We arrived in Tombstone Territorial Park.


The park is named for Tombstone Mountain's resemblance to a grave marker.


I did not see any resemblance of a grave marker but rather the rolling tundra, small lakes and crevasses still full of snow, flowers, moss and....

We arrived at Tombstone Territorial Park

Panorama.

I think one would refer to this as the Alpine tundra, but it could also be Arctic tundra.


The main difference between the two is that Alpine tundra does not have permafrost. Not sure which is which here.


The Tombstone Visitor Center is spectacular. The setting in the mountains and the surrounding area is wonderful.

Tombstone Visitor Center

Liz enjoying some spruce tea.... yum?

Panorama from Tombstone

Liz Driving

Around every bend is another incredible sight

Wow!

It just goes on for ever

Ptarmigan on the road, with little ones.

Looks like gravel almost

Orange river smelling like sulfur.

Panorama

Another panorama

On top of Ogilvie hill

Rolled SUV

The road is mud and like ice

Trucks hauling gravel.

Truck needs a wash job

Enjoying the sights.

The park staff is very friendly and knowledgeable. They even cook up some spruce tea for visitors to taste.


We meet some nice people from North of Toronto driving an SUV, we have a chat. They were just leaving as we arrived at the Visitor Center.


There is a park campground close by, glad we did not have our trailer with us it would have been tight. Other then that the park looks wonderful.


After a 45 minute visit we get on our way again. This countryside must be a heaven for geologist.


So much has happened on this stretch of land. Glaciation, areas that did not glaciate, huge moraines, orange coloured river smelling of sulfur.


Black and silver shining rocks, gray mountains lying there like marmots.


Until the road got wet, it was good driving but bumpy.


At around Km 270 we see a man sitting on some plastic containers on the road side.


It is the same person I had a chat with at the visitor center.


When we stopped we realized that their SUV was upside down out in the bush about 25 feet from the road.


He assured us he was OK. His wife to was fine he said except for a few cuts.


She had gotten a ride to Eagle Plains about an hour before we got there.


Help is on the way he said. He said he had water, food, bug repellent and bear spray.


We now drove even slower and in 4 x 4 mode all the way to Eagle Plains.


It was one slippery mushy road and 15-35 km per hour was all we could do for the next 100 plus km.


Road crews were putting down gravel and we pulled over and stopped when we met the big trucks. The gravel really helped.


At Eagle Plains we check in and inquire about the lady and the accident.


We were told she is in shock and the blood pressure is high.


I fuel up the truck and go over to the car was and try to get some of the mud off. it is about 1.5 inches thick.


During supper we see the man that was sitting on the roadside at one of the dinner tables.


I have a chat with him and he say they are both OK. The vehicle is totaled.


We have a pretty good supper and a glass of wine. A long and interesting day.


Tomorrow we will continue up to Inuvik.


More pictures from the Dempster Highway.

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Yukon and Alaska Bound, Part 15 - Dawson City

Dawson City, Yukon

Downtown Dawson

Old historical buildings ( Red Light District ).

Liz is happy, they have Granny Smith Cider.

This town really grows on you. I have to admit that our first impressions were not very exciting. I guess we had some kind of different expectations, or we were just travel leery.



As we walked the unpaved streets on the wooden sidewalks it all started to feel right, this is where it happened and this is where it is still happening.



Here in the "far north" things are not as perfect as it is in the big cities or further south where everything is close. That is why we are visiting here to experience the differences.


We went to the Northwest Territory visitor center (we are planning to go up to Inuvik and Tuk).The person at the centre was no very helpful. She just gave us a bunch of papers and did not really have an interest in what we wanted to see or do up there.... Oh well she had a bad day! ( A week later, when we visited this centre again, it was totally different, the service was excellent by a different person.)


We visited the Dawson museum. They had a gold panning demonstration which was really good. The museum in general was very informative and interesting.



We stopped in at the local pub and had a drink, a chat with some tourists and some locals.

Panorama from the Dome. Dawson City below and the Yukon River

Anders is dreaming..... was born 130 years to late!

Such beauty

The Yukon River

A man and his truck....Canada Day

On our way back to our little "pull-shack" we first drove up to "the Midnight Dome" which is a high hill/mountain where you can drive up to the top.



Worth the drive up for sure.



Later, back home, we checked the forecast again, and they now promised nice weather on the Dempster, Inuvik and in Tuktoyaktuk.



That's what we were waiting for.
Said and done we made our reservations and packed and re-arranged the truck and 5th wheel.



We were leaving the 5th wheel behind at the campsite, and will just drive the Dempster Hwy. in the truck.



We decided to move the trailer to a power only site, so we can at least have the trailer (fridge and freezer) plugged in.



We made arrangements with the park owners so we could do this right away to get an early start the following day. We also went across the street and fueled up.


We were ready for the Dempster Highway tomorrow morning.

More pictures of this trip in this album.

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Yukon and Alaska Bound, Part 14 - Carmacks to Dawson City.

Carmacks to Dawson City.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day Flags on the truck

Liz driving for a while

It was July 1st and we put on our special Canada T-Shirts. We also installed the Canada Flags on the back windows on the truck.


Let's go!


But first a visited with our neighbours that were from Vernon, BC. Just love meeting all these nice people.


We had fueled up the night before at $1.67 per liter for Diesel.


We were on the road early. This stretch of the highway is terrible, some of the pot holes could swallow a smart car.... It was pretty slow going, but we were not in a hurry.


Liz was at the wheel for the first hour or so. When the road got narrower, without side lines, loose gravel and steep drop-offs. She kind of let me know in her own sweet way that she had enough driving for the day.

Moose Creek Lodge

Time to make a choice.

Can't get enough of this beauty.

Time for a cold one in Dawson

Got to love this place.

Good food in Moose Creek!

Wonderful scenery

The truck and the trailer got a really good shake down even though we were going pretty slow at 60-70 km per hour.


The good part, there was very little traffic.


We stopped at the tourist info center just before the intersection of the "Silver Trail",  Hwy 11 to Mayo and Keno City.


A very nice woman at the tourist boot (no sign indicating that it was open) gave us lots of good information. We decided there and then that we would visit Mayo and Keno City on our way back.

After some more bouncing around, we stopped in Moose Creek for Lunch at the Lodge.


The lodge is very historic, but super good food. Moose Creek population? "Two Gals, two Guys and two dogs".


On the road again, we arrived in Dawson City around 3 pm. We checked in at Bonanza Gold RV Park on the outside of town.


First we felt that the RV Park and the whole area looked sort of run down, but that's just the way things are up here... It's dusty, with frost heaves, houses built on pilings shifting on the permafrost. It's the north, it's just rougher around the edges.


We went in to Dawson for a walk about and a drink in one of the local bars. That was much better! But we skipped the Sourdough Toe Cocktail.



We went back home for some supper and a good night sleep.

Here are some more pictures.

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