Dempster Highway

We headed out yesterday for Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. This small town is above the Arctic Circle, the largest town in northern Canada. The Dempster Highway, which goes from just outside Dawson City to Inuvik, was completed around 1978. It is almost 460 miles of gravel and dirt except for the 5 miles of paved road at the junction of Hwy 2 and 10 miles into Inuvik. We were supposed to see lots of wildlife like moose and bear but since we started mid morning and stopped early evening, the animals were not out and about. We saw one moose, several ducks and rabbits. Whoo Hoo!

The weather in this region has been poor! Lots of clouds, off and on rain, some hail and cool (50's & low 60's). It was that way almost all the way on the Dempster. The road was fairly smooth, considering it is not paved, but very muddy. The land scape is mountainous on the lower half of the drive. We crossed the Ogilvie and Richardson Mountains which were mostly obscured by clouds. The highest we were was just over 4000 feet, most of the plateaus were around 2300 feet and Inuvik is near sea level. Some of the mountains are near 7000 ft. The valleys were tundra in places and forest of stunted spruce in most others. There are lots of rivers and lakes. We crossed the Peel and Mackenzie Rivers on ferries which would have been virtually impossible in the RV without damaging something so we are glad we didn't drive it up.

There are lots of interpretive centers and displays, provincial campgrounds and day use areas where we can stop and stretch our legs. Otherwise it would have been a long and endless drive. At one point we stopped and walked out on the tundra. It feels like walking on a soft mattress. Each step sinks down then bounces up and is very uneven even though from a distance it looks like a cow field in Missouri. When we reached the summit of the Richardson Mtns. the view was of vast and never ending tundra! Then as we went down in elevation, the trees started growing up and it became marsh and water. The Caribou and elk have all moved north from here so we probably won't see them. Supposedly there are grizzly bears but we haven't seen them either.

We spent the night at Eagle Plains half way up the Dempster and 20 miles short of the Arctic Circle. The hotel and restaurant was built on bedrock so that they didn't have to build it above the permafrost. The permafrost is a layer of frozen sand, dirt and silt that lies just below the surface. If the road or a building were built on the permafrost layer, they would cause it to thaw and then it would shift whatever was on top of it. So the roadbed is very thick and all of the buildings in Inuvik are elevated above the ground so they won't warm up the earth. Even though Inuvik is small, it has several several modern hotels, one all inclusive shopping center, mostly new elevated homes, and one stoplight blinking yellow. 10 minutes of driving around town and we have seen it all!

We may never get all the mud cleaned off the Jeep and we have the whole trip back. We went almost 350 miles before we got two big rock cracks in the windshield.