Wednesday, July 21, 2010


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July 16-17. Dawson City – continued.
We stayed a few extra days to participate in the Dawson City Music Festival. None of the artists are known to us but the music was fun. We heard the Tr'onděk Hwěch'in singers chanting traditional songs with drums and two native guys with great voices singing modern folk music. It would be hard for anyone not to be affected by the ambiance, sitting outside with all the other enthusiastic people.

July 18 & 19 – ‘The Dempster’.
Early Sunday morning we drove 40 km back along the Klondike Highway to the junction where the Dempster starts, parked the trailer and took off. The 730 km drive had to be divided over two days because the road is all gravel and we knew we would stop many, many times. Some of the road was rough, some very steep and we were glad to have left the trailer. However, on the whole it was in better shape than expected. We over-nighted at Eagle Plains almost exactly half-way.

It is not possible to find all the adjectives to describe this drive. It is magnificent and almost indescribably beautiful and a wonderful feast for the eyes, surprising and yet somehow we expected it. But – not so much beauty all the time, constant and awe inspiring. With every turn of the road there was something new to see. Anne-Grethe would read from a guidebook, and I would regularly interrupted to say “look over there”.
We shall let our pictures tell the rest of this story. This without question the most interesting and fun drive either of have ever taken! It is our sincere hope that you too can experience this sometime.

We arrived in Inuvik about 7pm. More on this town later.

16 Dempster