Our Travel Blog
Today we crossed back I to the US, of course we had to do it in style, we crossed into Alaska at the most northern land border crossing we could find! We only had to drive 60 some odd miles across a road called ‘The Top of the World’…totally worth it!
As some of the pics show, there is a bit of dust on the Dempster! (When it’s not in the form of mud!) Over the 550 miles northbound the dust became a standing joke. One of us would call out “truck ahead!”. The other would look out over the vast arctic plain and see a plume moving across some distant mountainside 5 to 10 miles away and respond “I guess that’s the road!”. A half an hour later the gravel truck would appear and we would crank closed the dash vents and windows as we passed through the plume.
Each night while prepping to camp we would sweep the dust out of every corner and crevice of the Rover. Resistance was futile!
In Inuvik we purchased some foam weather stripping to try to stop some of the dust entering the Rover. The First Nation guy behind the counter said “Vermont?!, that’s a long way to come for weather stripping!” Too funny, but he had a point!
We will let you know if the added weather stripping helps.
Once you travel the Dempster and arrive in Inuvik, you now have the option to travel another 100 miles on the new Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Hwy to the Arctic Ocean. Of course, we had to go!
We awoke to a beautiful morning, a definite must for traveling this road, and adventured north. The road is still being ‘fine tuned’ so there are patches of mud where the permafrost is winning and sections that make your teeth rattle. The gravel trucks run non-stop and the locals see it as a new super highway.
Tuk until this year could only be reached by sea or air. The ITH (Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk Highway) across the permafrost north to Tuk connects it to the rest of the world. The small village could be a fishing village on the coast of Newfoundland, Maine, or Scotland where people are eeking out a living in a tough place.
We had Muskox burgers, stood in the Arctic Ocean(no swim), and met some nice people.
We had a beautiful day and an epic adventure!
One of the highlights of the Dempster is crossing the Arctic Circle. After this point, we are in the ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’ where the sun never goes down, but just circles around the sky.
Days before we arrived at the beginning of the Dempster Hwy and the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Hwy (ITH), people warned us about them. Oooohhhh! Watch out! Have 3 spare tires! Get ready to have your windshield broken! But don’t get it fixed as you will have it broken again! Etc…….
Turns out it was one of the most awesome drives ever! But…..
Here is what we actually saw; sorry there are not pics of everything due to the heat of the moment.
We came upon a burning road crew truck on the ITH. We grabbed our fire extinguisher and helped put it out. The guys were very appreciative They set us up with a couple of extra extinguishers when we returned to Inuvik and a promise that if we ran into trouble on the trip south to call them and they would rescue us.
Too many broken windshields to count. We think it was a local badge of honor as the locals fly up and down the road. One local told us the next section of road was an hour drive…it too us two and a half!
Tire carcasses and blow outs due to the rocks that make up the roads.
One broken axle on a trailer.
One bent wheel on a jeep.
One wheel popped off a very large delivery truck. And another large truck driving with a shredded tire.
Campers that now squeak and are definitely going to need some repair work.
Very large gravel trucks. They are still putting fine touches on the ITH, it just opened a few months ago, and the gravel trucks run constantly.
Several landslides. Unaware to us a large landslide closed the road behind us as we traveled north. The road was still being cleared when we were coming south and the river below it had had a new island!
Rain closing the road. The road to Tuk was closed for 3 days just prior to our arrival in Inuvik. The “weather window” is a common topic of discussion as you travel north as it can change the road conditions drastically. We were lucky enough to have a beautiful day for our drive from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk.
The Bugs! Some days there were none and others were beyond description!
The Dust! I think it will take many showers for us and the Rover to be clean again.
Black Mud. The road is made from whatever stone or rock is nearby, in the case of black mud the road is made from ground up oil shale. When it gets wet, it is mud lubricated with oil.
On our way south, we came upon a truck & camper playing a game of chicken on the Dempster in the infamous Black Mud. The truck lost when it pulled over to let the camper pass. We pulled to the side a bit to get out of the campers way and proceeded to begin sliding sideways off the road. We popped the rover into 4WD and tried to back into the center of the road. We slid closer to the edge and a potential roll over (the road is built high above the permafrost), we then dropped it into low range and the wee Rover crawled her way back to the packed center of the road. We were unable to help the other truck but we were lucky to flag down a road crew who very nicely brought a road grader to pull the truck back onto the road.
We had snow, hail, fog like pea soup, rain, 24 hours of sun, dust that coated the inside of the rover, mud that coated the outside of the rover, a road rough enough that we may have loosened a few fillings, a road smooth enough that it felt like pavement, skies so clear you could see forever, and views that humbled the soul!
We drove slow and had no flat tires, no cracked windows and the wee Rover out did herself!
The Dempster Highway is a 450 mile out and back gravel road from the Yukon, past the Arctic Circle to Inuvik in the Northwest Territory (550 miles if you travel the new extension to Tuktoyaktuk for a total round trip of 1100 miles). It crosses different landscapes and climates. It climbs over the continental divide (3 times each way) and sinks all the way down to sea level. The weather can change in an instant and thus the road conditions. It is an amazing journey that should be on everyone’s bucket list and cannot not be described in words…so we will use pictures over the next few blog posts to give you a glimpse.
The gas stations are sparse and very utilitarian up here!
Well, I think they probably do, but…they also shit on paved roads, gravel roads, dirt roads…well any kind of road.
What is up with that?
The Yukon has amazing campgrounds!
Think state campgrounds in the US, but way better. The campgrounds are $12 CAD or about $9 USD, are lightly used, are in beautiful places, are quiet, and provide free firewood. We are in love! We could have spent a month here, at least!
