After wrapping up our weekend sightseeing activities, we met Doris, the Inuvik Youth Centre’s executive director, on Monday morning. We spent the first part of the day getting to know each other and learning about the challenges faced by the region’s youth. The challenges are similar to those faced by youth everywhere – growing up, getting a job, and avoiding all of the temptations that that life provides. There are opportunities here. There is oil and gas exploration, as well as the all weather road being constructed from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk. All of these offer employment possibilities for those with at least a high school education.

Jen demonstrates the KA-Lite software

We spent the rest of the day installing KA-Lite on the computers in their computer lab. KA-Lite is a way for communities without internet access to utilize content created as part of the Khan Academy. For more information on that, take a look at our volunteering page.

We got the software installed without too much trouble, and Doris started putting out the word that there was something new on the computer to see. In part, this involved shouting over to the kids riding in the nearby skate park. Quite convenient!

The next afternoon we got about 8 boys into the center, aged from about 8 – 12. Jen put together a few short demonstrations of some of the Khan Academy videos, including one particularly pertinent about why the sun never sets in the summertime above the arctic circle!

To the extent that you can keep pre-teen boys’ attention with educational videos, the demonstrations went quite well. About a half an hour later it was the girls’ turn – the “Delta Girls” in particular, referring the Mackenzie River delta. We felt that the whole exercise turned out very well. Our hope is that we’ve made something available that will help a few people out, if and when they decide they need it.

While there, we met the group of four who had biked all the way from Vancouver to Inuvik (including through the mud up the Dempster). They were also at the youth center to give a workshop on environmental sustainability. While Jen was working with the Delta Girls, I took Graham, one of the bikers, to the hardware store to pick up boxes to ship their bikes home, and dropped the boxes off at the airport in preparation for their flight back home.

The next morning after meeting with Doris over breakfast to say goodbye, it was time to head back down the Dempster.

Doris, Quinn, Jen and Witt at the youth center

Inuvik is really at the end of the road. In the winter it is possible to drive further north from here on top of the frozen Mackenzie river. If you are a fan of the TV show “Ice Road Truckers” then you may already know that Season 2 featured that route.

During the summertime the only ways to go north from here are either by boat on the Mackenzie River or by airplane. However this year the Canadian government approved funding for building an all-weather road so when it is complete it will be possible to drive all the way to the town of Tuktoyuktuk (“Tuk”) on the Arctic Ocean.

Like the rest of the Dempster Highway, this road will have to be built on top of permafrost and, in order to prevent melting, the construction of the road can only be done in wintertime. They literally have to pile gravel right on top of the existing vegetation to create a road bed that is a minimum of 4-8 feet deep! That’s why it will take until at least 2016 for this road to be completed.

We chose to travel to Tuk by plane and booked a round-trip flight and tour of the town of Tuk. Our pilot, Devon, expertly flew the Cessna 172 on a course along the Mackenzie River. When we arrived in Tuk, our Inuit guide, Eileen, met us at the airport for our tour.

This polar map in the airport brought a unique perspective – From here, we could fly all the way to Russia and not see much of anything but wilderness.

Our pilot referred to this as a “private charter.” That meant we could eat the granola bars we brought in flight!

Flying over the region gave a great perspective on the landscape – at least as much water as land.

The First Nations people here are unique in that they can still practice their original way of life if they choose to. Eileen and her husband, for example, still live in the bush about 50 miles from Tuk during the winter months, deriving a substantial portion of their income from the sale of furs which they hunt, trap and prepare in their bush camp. They do, however, make use of modern conveniences – instead of traveling by boat or dogsled, they hire a float plane to fly them to their camp!

One highlight of the tour was a trip 30 feet down into a cave dug into the permafrost. It serves as a communal freezer with a separate room for each family. Quinn thought it was a fun play fort just for him!

Eileen also showed us some of the furs that she has prepared as well as garments like polar bear pants and wolf fur gloves. We did the requisite stop by the beach so we could dip our fingers in the Arctic Ocean. Quinn was happy just throwing rocks in the water.

Polar bear pants!

Back in Inuvik we relocated from the comfort of our hotel room to Happy Valley campground. The weather had turned warmer (& drier) so it was really wonderful to be back in our van.

For the weekend we were fortunate to be able to enjoy some local sounds from the Annual End of the Road Music Festival. The music was great and there were some cute kids in Native dress dancing along too. Quinn even joined in for the fun.

We also got to swim in the pool at the local rec center. That experience provided a whole new meaning to swimming north of the Arctic Circle. Where else can you go down an indoor water slide this far north? It’ll be interesting to see if Alaska will be able to match the expectations that Quinn has after traveling for the past month or so in Canada, where seemingly every town has a deluxe indoor aquatic center.

It’s not much fun contemplating leaving your wife and four year old son stranded in a broken down van in the middle of nowhere in near-freezing temperatures.

Ron, the guy with the stuck transmission, and I, arrived in Eagle Plains at around 9pm, courtesy of a German couple in a rented truck camper. We first inquired about a tow truck at the service station, where we were told to go ask for Stan in the lounge. Stan had already retired for the evening. It was quickly looking like we weren’t going to be getting our trucks (and our families) off the road until morning. Worse yet, they would be stranded out there without us for the night. Ron suggested getting a room in the lodge, but I quickly had visions of explaining to Jen how it came to be that I spent the evening in a warm hotel drinking beer with my new Canadian friend while she slept in a cold van parked on an angle in the middle of the road while trying to keep Quinn warm.

A couple of travelers in a minivan took pity on us and were filling up with gas to take us back to our vehicles when we were told that there was a mechanic on site who had driven down from Inuvik to repair a broken-down semi truck. When we found him, he generously offered to drive us south and try to get us on the road again.

When we finally arrived back at the van, Robert the mechanic threw a piece of cardboard down in the muck and started to poke around trying to find the problem. Keep in mind that underside of the van (okay the entire van except maybe the hood) was completely coated in mud. He didn’t find anything immediately wrong, so he and Ron continued on down the road to Ron’s truck, thinking that the stuck transmission would be a quick repair. In the meantime, I set up the tow rope so that Robert could tow us back to town with his pickup when he returned.

While I’d been gone, Jen had tried to start up our diesel heater, but it would not start – the error code said that there was no fuel. So when we started thinking about it I realized that I had run our rear tank down to about 1/4 full, then switched to the front tank. The gauge read full, but we suspected that the tank selector hadn’t actually switched over and that we’d run the rear tank out of fuel.

When Robert returned (he’d been able to get Ron moving by clearing away the mud that had gotten into the transmission shift linkages), he put some fuel in our rear tank and the van started right up!. Once the diesel heater runs out of fuel it’s a bit of work to get it started again, and since it was after 11pm when we arrived in Eagle Plains, we decided to conserve heat in the van by not popping the top up in our usual sleeping configuration. So with Quinn and Jen on the dinette bed and me on the floor, we did our best to make ourselves comfortable in our makeshift sleeping arrangement and called it a night.

The next morning we filled the rear fuel tank (the only one we could use since the fuel tank selector still didn’t work) and continued our drive north to Inuvik. Fortunately there is a fuel stop mid-way so we could cover the distance using only the rear tank.

A couple of hours after leaving Eagle Plains we crossed the Arctic Circle – the first time any of us have been this far north.

Crossing the arctic circle!

We were fortunate to see part of one of the small caribou herds that calls the area home year around. The world’s largest caribou herd lives here in the winter.

Finally some real caribou wih the classic antlers

As we crossed over Windy pass on our way down to the Mackenzie delta region, we could see that it had snowed on the road the day before. We dropped about 700 meters to Fort McPherson for the final leg into Inuvik.

Snow on Windy Pass

On the ferry across the Mackenzie river

We arrived in Inuvik tired and muddy at about 9pm. Since we couldn’t open any of the doors on the van without getting ourselves muddy and it would take awhile to get our heater started again to ward off the cold, we opted for two nights in the luxury of a hotel – our first since staying with my parents in Worland Wyoming in mid-July. We all got hot showers, and Quinn enjoyed playing in the bathtub!

In Inuvik after the muddy trip up the Dempster.

With dusk extending well past 11pm for the past few weeks, our bedtimes have been getting later and later, and we’ve been sleeping in as a result. The morning when we left Dawson City to start the Dempster, we were on the road by the crack of noon, which has been pretty typical lately.

Before leaving Dawson, we stopped to check out a restored dredge which operated during the heyday of the Klondike gold rush. It’s basically a giant floating mine that digs up material in front of it and deposits it behind it, creating its own pond and moving it very slowly up and down stream. Similar dredges operated on the Blue River in Breckenridge back in the day. This particular dredge operated on two different drainages from 1912 until 1959. Although dredges like this are no longer used, the area is still an active mining area, with everything from large corporate mining operations to individual placer claims. We even saw a sign saying “Claim and equipment for sale – call Ralph.” If you want a change in lifestyle, you can still move to the Klondike and become a gold miner.

Dredge no 4. Note the cars in the foreground for perspective.

The dredge was “green” in a perverse sort of way – it operated entirely on electricity (these are some of the motors on board) generated by hydroelectric power.

We spent our first night on the Dempster in the Tombstone Provential Park, located just 70 km into the drive. We spent a rainy couple of hours in the excellent visitor center and then made camp, cooking inside as it continued to rain.

The next morning the rain had stopped, and the nearby mountain peaks were covered in a dusting of snow. We stopped a few km from the campground for a short hike up to a viewpoint, which Quinn enjoyed immensely despite a cold wind.

Bundled up against the cold

Hiking Goldensides Mountain

Looking toward Tombstone Peak

As we continued north, we continually flirted with treeline. In the valley bottoms, forests of spindly, stinted trees grow at odd angles, the result of a very shallow root system due the permafrost. Where road crossed a pass or ridge (we crossed the continental divide a couple of times) the trees gave way to tundra.

The permafrost imposes unique constraints on road building. A road will absorb more solar energy than the bush, melting the permafrost and causing the road to degrade. So the road is built by building up enough road base to insulate the permafrost ensuing it stays frozen.

As the afternoon wore on it started to rain again and the road deteriorated to the point where we could only manage 30-40 km per hour. The surface was a sloppy mess with lots of water-filled potholes.

The past two days’ rain turned the road into a slow slog through soupy mud.

We were about 50 km outside of Eagle Plains (the halfway point on the road) when we came across a truck towing a camper stopped at a pullout. It seems to be the custom to slow down to find out if people are okay, and when I did that the passenger waved for us to stop. Their transmission was stuck in reverse and the truck wouldn’t start. We used our tow rope to gently tug them forward hoping that the motion would shake things loose, but to no avail. Ron climbed into the back of the van for a ride to Eagle Plains, leaving his wife Carol with their camper.

In a bizarre coincidence, not 10 km later our van gradually lost power and died, leaving us stranded on the road. It seemed like it was not getting fuel, so we suspected a fuel pump or fuel filter. Now both looking for rides, Ron and I flagged down the next truck that came by to get a ride to Eagle Plains. With night coming on it was still raining and the temperature was dropping. Jen and Quinn stayed with the van while I went to town to hopefully get a tow truck.

After watching the Salmon sorting on Sunday morning, we headed North on the Klondike Highway toward Dawson Creek. The weather started out cloudy and a little rainy and slowly improved as the day wore on. We made a couple of stops for hiking and photos en route, and stopped to camp near Moose Creek, about 100 miles shy of Dawson City.

The five finger rapids were negotiated by the big paddle steamers using a winch and a cable fixed to the rocks.

In just 20-odd km of unpaved road (due to road construction) that we’ve encountered thus far, our windshield is in need of replacing. One of the rocks actually left bits of glass on the dashboard. Fortunately the impact was near the bottom, and I’m hoping the duct tape I put of over the hole will keep most of the water out of the car should it rain.

Maybe this will be instead of flat tires?

The next day we arrived in Dawson City around mid-afternoon. The town really does feel like it’s at the end of the world. It seems to be populated mostly by hippie-miners. I didn’t know such a thing existed, but apparently it does. We spent some time in the visitor’s center inquiring about the Dempster Highway. It will probably take us 2-3 days to drive the 500 miles to Inuvik. The next two days are forecast to be cold and rainy / snowy. Apparently the unpaved road is dusty when dry and slippery when wet. Pick your poison.

The other thing about Dawson City is that it’s probably the closest thing to an old west town I’ve ever seen. The streets are unpaved, and there are boardwalks for sidewalks.

Downtown Dawson City

At our campsite we met three guys who had just returned from Inuvik. They towed a fairly large camper, which was completely covered with dirt from the road. They said they had three flat tires during their trip, including one that blew out, ruining the rim. To be fair they had 8 tires to start with (including the ones on their trailer) so I’m hoping we’ll fair better. We only have one spare, but we do have an air compressor and a tire repair kit. We’ll see if I remember anything from the tire repair demo I saw at the overland expo two years ago!

We’re planning to set out for Inuvik on August 20. We likely won’t have internet access until we arrive in 2-3 days, but the Sparks Tracker should stay up to date by virtue of our spot beacon!