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July 24-27 We recovered in Whitehorse and so did the car. On the Monday we both had our haircuts, and the car had another oil change (last one in Yellowknife). By now it has travelled about 11,000 km since we left Milton. The whole rig got a well-deserved wash. First the car, where it took several dollars’ worth of coins to wash the grime from in and around the car wheels and wells. This stuff hardens like cement and in some areas had built up to 3-4mm in thickness. When we later washed the trailer, the same sticky mess stayed on after pressure washing. Only the foam brush worked.

July 28 – August 2nd . We have travelled from Whitehorse YT to Prince George BC in 6 days – and tomorrow we arrive in Jasper AB. That will be 2600 km in 7days. Talk about distances up here! One-night stops are not favourites, but we decided to give priority to Jasper National Park - to have time there. Sadly, we must also make sure we have enough time for the drive home.

Although we had driven much of the same part of the Alaska Highway on the way north, we were really glad to see it again, this time with sunshine. Our pictures are never perfect because Anne-Grethe takes most of them out the window as we drive, but you will see what we mean. The only unpleasant ‘event’ came from a truck roaring towards us, building up speed for his uphill run. We were at the bottom of the hill, the road curved left. He hit a gravel patch and sprayed our windshield with rocks. Two more marks plus a whole lot of minor cuts, and it will probably need replacement when we get home.

We were 2 ½ days in the mountains before we came to the plateau a few hours before Fort Nelson BC. On the second day, near Watson Lake, we discovered we could not have driven south on the ‘Cassiar’ Highway (#37) as we had first planned (shorter route to Bella Coola, Vancouver Island and Vancouver). It was closed due to forest fires. Another fire closed the area further south around Williams Lake where we had also planned to stop. Most of the province has been bone dry this summer, and a huge electrical storm passed through the week before. This was the same storm that had left so much rain in the mountains around the Dempster Highway. (See last week’s blog.)

But all’s well that ends well and so far the week has gone quite smoothly. On Saturday we had the challenge of meeting four hills with 10% grades – two up and two down and one of them 6 km long. It was the ‘scenic’ (!) route running parallel to the Peace River., close to Hudson’s Hope, north of Prince George. The Lynx RV park was charming and we rested an extra day and took time to see the Bennett and Peace Canyon Power Dams which supply 1/3 of the power for British Columbia.

Tomorrow to Jasper National park and some serious sightseeing.

19 Whitehorse to Prince George

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July 23. Ridin’ the Dempster!
You know we stayed in Inuvik longer than planned, but it was worth it! Friday was our departure day southbound, and since we planned to drive half-way to Eagle Plains, we took it easy. 370 km even on a dirt road wouldn't be too bad. There were several photo and rest stops and we arrived at the hotel at about 4pm. Then - we learned about all the rain in the preceding 5 days south of us (sunny in Inuvik). The lady at the reception said there was talk that the highway was about to be washed out. The ‘geo-guys’ that had worked there were told to forget about taking the evening off and “get out of there”! The main river, Peel River, was expected to crest in 14 hours. One fellow arriving from the south said he had noticed about 1/4 of the road at km. 220 had already washed out. We had three choices:
- stay and be stuck in a second class place for 2-3 days
- drive on and hope to make it, or
- find out 2 hours further south that we couldn't get through!

We took the chance and just made it! One more car 30 minutes behind us also got through but was told he was the last. There were several tricky spots, but at the worst there was a grader to help. About ¼ of the road on the left (‘downstream’) side was gone. The new waterfall down the cliff on our right sent water about 6” deep across the road. The driver said “follow me closely” and we watched as he created a 50 cm high bank on the right which held the water just long enough for us to drive through – a least 40 metres (130 feet). (We have later reasoned that by then the road was closed to further traffic over a 150 km stretch.) It felt dramatic and exciting and yet Anne-Grethe was able to take some unusual pictures. Take a look!

The drive was 12 1/2 hours on a road that was considerably worse than when we went north. With the trailer it would have been a very tough, perhaps impossible, trip and we would not have made it for several more days. We slept were the trailer had been parked at km zero, and drove 5oo km to Whitehorse the next day where we planned a few days of rest. On Monday we saw on the internet that part of the section had been fixed for 5 km of one-way traffic and then Wednesday it was closed again! We consider ourselves very lucky – and the Whitehorse weather was a beautiful sunny 25C, with cool nights.

Because of the extra time we took both in Inuvik and before that in Dawson City, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot take the time to drive through Bella Coola to Vancouver Island and then Vancouver. We are disappointed in some ways but our decision to take the extra time here in the north was a good one. Over the next few days we shall decide which route to take home. It will likely include Jasper or Banff if we can get campground space.

18 Dempster return

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July 20-23 Inuvik (‘vik’ means ‘the place of’) is a town of 3500 people. None wealthy, quite a bit of poverty, and everyone very friendly – saying ‘hi’ as we passed on the street. The town sits beside the Mackenzie Delta, and it is the east channel that serves the community. From here it is about 160 km to the Beaufort Sea and it widens to about 70 km at the sea. The Delta starts south of Inuvik. As in Dawson, all the buildings are built off the ground and here “utilidors“ (utility corridors) above ground contains water and other services (see pictures) to serve each house. It is not possible to place any infrastructure in the ground.

The ‘Igloo Church’ ( Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church) was built about 1920 by a man with grade 5 education, using no blue prints. Building lumber is not available here and was floated down Mackenzie River from a mission sawmill in Fort Smith NWT – 1600 km upriver. A remarkably beautiful place, and the whole structure rides on a concave concrete platform which sits on coarse gravel insulating the permafrost. The gravel was hauled from 80 km away. A local artist Mona Thrasher, deaf and almost blind, painted 24 inside murals in 13 months. We liked her work so much that we bought a print of her magnificent painting of an arctic wolf.

We spent extra time here to see the town and to fly north (45 minutes) to Tuktoyaktuk. Seeing the huge Delta from the air was special! And all the pingos. No they are no animals. They are perfectly circular mounds created on the permafrost by freezing of surface water. They form in recently drained lake basins or old drainage channels where hydrostatic pressures push water up and the unfrozen saturated sediment progressively freezes. There are over 1400 of them in the Delta and some are 50 metres high (pictures).

‘Tuk’ has a stable population of 1000 people. Sadly the hotel and restaurant is closed, but a B&B operates. We saw one of the old DEW line sites, a military radar post from the cold war. AND - we put our feet into the Beaufort Sea! It was surprisingly warm; we guessed 14C. A young gal on our tour had planned for this by dressing in a bikini under her clothes. She swam! You can also see some pictures of the local community ‘refrigerator – a series of tunnels and rooms 10 metres underground, hacked out of the frozen ground by hand, where the temperature in the permafrost is a constant -6 C.

The next day in Inuvik we went on a four hour boat tour of the Delta. Although the islands are low and flat, one cannot see over them, and so it felt as if we were touring a few of the hundreds of ‘rivers’ that link up to form the Delta. How easy it would be to get lost here, but our local guide Paton knew every bend. There was little wildlife to see at this time of year though we saw a seal, ducks with young ones and arctic terns. The main river, wide and fast, is the highway for all types of barges.

On July 23rd we started south and the beginning of the Dempster was fine. That was about to change!

17 Inuvik & Tuk

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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

July 9 -15 Dawson City – full of history, fun places, phenomenal setting and much more.
We arrived late on July 8 at the downtown campground which means we are wall to wall with other rigs, but we can walk almost everywhere. As we arrived, the odometer on the car read 9,148 km (5684 miles) from Milton. The trailer has travelled 7,850 km (4878 miles) because of several side trips by car alone, including Fort Mac Murray, and soon “up the Dempster” to Inuvik.

The native people speak the Hăn language and belong to the Tr'onděk Hwěch'in tribe. Tr'onděk means ‘hammer stone’, used to pound the stakes in the river beds for salmon traps. Hwěch'in means people. Somehow the white people, trying to pronounce Tr'onděk, made it into Klondike. When a local native woman pronounced the name for us, it sounded a bit like Klondike (same intonation), so we can understand how this happened. They lived on the plain here by the river before the gold rush. They fished salmon and hunted caribou inland. When the rush of prospectors started coming in 1898, their chief realized that to protect their way of life the tribe must move. They settled 5 km downriver at Moosehide, a place that today is the site of a huge gathering every summer. They have adapted very well from their pre-contact subsistence to a successful self-governing body that owns many of the local businesses. Their pride is evident and to be admired.

The Gold Rush lasted only 1 or 2 years (1898/99), but the mining continued and prospered as large companies took over. Today there are 120 active gold mines in the Yukon, and the revenue from this activity is about $50 million annually. The Gold Rush story is so much more interesting than we had expected. To Skagway by boat, over the mountain passes with 1000 lbs of gear per prospector, building boats to carry them 500 miles downriver to Dawson. Of 100,000 that started, about 30,000 made it to Dawson area.

Did you know that Pierre Berton grew up in Dawson and that many of Robert Service’s poems are based on prospectors’ lives here and the beauty of the land? Joan gave us a wonderful book of Robert Service poems which takes on a whole new meaning as we learn about this land and its history! Dawson today has about 2000 permanent residents, but through the summer and especially during music fest, the population swells.

The buildings are from ‘that time’, and the new ones have the same design. The first buildings were put on the ground - frozen permafrost – and as the building warmed the soil, they moved and tipped. Two structures here have been left to illustrate this. Today buildings are placed on huge pressure-treated beams to leave space. The outer walls extend to the ground with ventilation to allow free flow of air. Many buildings have been restored and are in use while some are still in disrepair because the small population cannot afford to tackle it all at once. This adds to the charm and reality and provides great contrast and eye appeal.

We took a trip up to the Midnight Dome – a mountain top at 3000 feet with a phenomenal 360 degree view. We sat there for a few hours and enjoyed the peace and the view - there are some pictures to illustrate. The three of us panned for gold in Bonanza Creek and soaked up the atmosphere. No gold, though I imagined that some of the miniscule flakes left in the pan were actually gold – see picture. It could of course have been pyrite (fools’ gold) but the flakes were so small we could not save them. By swishing the sand and stones around in the pan, the gold (19 times heavier than water and much denser than any other material) will settle to the bottom. We learned the technique of washing the sand and rocks out of the pan – to leave any gold that might be there. We certainly have a small sense of what it could have been like to search for gold. To quote Robert Service:

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder’,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Joan flew out on Tuesday, and it was really great to share one week with her. Dawson International Airport is the smallest airport we have been to. The arrival/departure hall was about the size of a large living room, the customs hall was a 2.5m corridor and the check-in guy took the bags to the plane. We could park free in front of the terminal and concluded that the ‘long term parking’ on the other side of the road must be less expensive because it wasn’t paved.

Anne-Grethe and I went to the 10:30 cabaret at “Diamond Tooth Gertie’s” and walked home at 11:30 with sun shining on the mountains around us! The sky is still blue and there is still a midnight show, if we want it. I think we shall call it a day!

We apologize for all the pictures, but we would like you too, to share this amazing place.
We have 3 more days here.

15 Dawson