In the last post, we finished the Alaskan leg of our journey and crossed the border into Canada again after spending few weeks in Alaska.
We had an interesting adventure planned for our first week back in Canada and it was reaching the northernmost part of this journey, the Arctic Ocean. In Northern America, there are only two roads that leads to the Arctic circle and arctic ocean, the Dalton Highway in Alaska and Dempster Highway in Canada. There are a lot of discussions around which one is the best one to drive and after a lot of research, we picked the Dempster Highway in Canada. We’ll get more into the details of why we picked this road, as we talk about this amazing road which will takes us to the Arctic Ocean.
Our first stop in Canada was Dawson City in Yukon. We did our grocery shopping, filled up our water and diesel tanks and got ready for a very long stretch of the road. 40 km out of the Dawson city, there is a road to the left which stretches for 740 km north to the town called Inuvik in Northwest territories and a further 150 km to reach Tuktoyaktuk on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
This legendry 900 km road to the Arctic ocean is called Dempster Highway. It is all dirt road with no major city along the way apart from Inuvik and after reaching the Arctic Ocean, the only way back is to drive the very same 900 km to reach where you left the main road on Klondike highway just before Dawson city.
We were so ready to embark on this leg of our journey and see this wild place with our own eyes.
Day 1, we hit the road just after lunch and did the first 200 km and found a nice spot by a river to camp for the night. The road condition was good and we made a good progress. The views were really stunning and unbelievable.
The second day, we started early to see the scenery in the magic morning light and also skip as much upcomming traffic as possible.
Everyone that did this stretch of the road, told us that we need to be prepared to change our windscreen after coming back from this trip..
With all the loose gravel on the surface of the road and heavy trucks, driving this road , the chance of getting few chips on the windscreen is really high and almost unavoidable.
On this stretch of the road, we were much closer to the north pole than where we were in Alaska and even in Alaska, the sun hardly set in July. Here, in summer, it doesn’t set at all and we could drive any time of the day that we wanted. We drove mostly late at nights and early in the mornings to avoid the traffic which is not much on this road but believe me, it is enough to ruin our windscreen. On day 2, just before lunch, we reached the Eagle Plains. Almost half way through the Dempster highway and the only place that we could fill up our Diesel tanks. The next stop with a gas station will be another 400 away in Inuvik.
Just a short drive out of Eagle Plains, we reached the Arctic circle! We were so happy to be in this magical spot. We stopped to take some photos and more importantly to soak it all in and believe where we were standing. It was cold, windy and started to rain as we got out of the car. before we could celebrate the achievement, we got approached with the passengers of a van that were at the spot before we arrived. It happened that they rented a van in Dawson city and decided to drive the Dempster in a rented van. They got flat tyre and they didn’t know how to replace it with their spare one. So Amir started to help them out in the heavy rain and a lot of mud. Half an hour later, they had their spare tyre on and Amir was covered in mud! They were extremely lucky that they didn’t have to stop for long and also it happened to them not far from the Eagle Plains. They headed back to the Eagle Plains to repair the flat tyre. Having a flat tyre is a very common issue on this road, especially if you don’t have all terrain tyres. We finally celebrated, took some photos and hit the road again
We drove only for another hour when we spotted another car with a flat tyre. They were waiting for someone to help them since last night. These guys had a spare tyre but didn’t have an air compressor to inflate their spare so our tools became handy for the second time in the same day.
Regarding the coming traffic, after getting our first chips on our windscreen, we learned that if we fully stop on the side of the road when the trucks are approaching , it reduces the chance of getting hit with the loose gravels. We used this strategy for the rest of the trip and it was mostly successful. We ended up with two small chips and managed to fix them with our repair kit on a sunny day.
On day 2, we camped quite early next to a very nice lake just before one of the ferry crossings of the road with almost no mosquitos. You remember the mosquito problems? It is still very much alive and we had to work hard to find a spot without these little friends to be able to cook dinner and also stretch our legs after a long day of driving outside.
On Day 3, after driving within Arctic Circle for few hours and few Ferry crossings, we’ve arrived at Inuvik, the only town on Dempster Highway in Northwest Territories. There wasn’t much happening there and we didn’t expect much too. We didn’t need to refuel or restock on supplies so we carried on to Tuktoyaktuk.
This stretch of road which is called Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway and it isn’t technically part of Dempster Highway. It has been officially opened in November 2017 and provided year around access to the citizens of Tuktoyaktuk and officially provides a route in Canada to reach Arctic Ocean.
On this 150 km stretch of the road, it is almost no possibility to camp so if you are driving this path, either be prepared to camp at Tuktoyaktuk or drive all the way back to Inovik and little further south to find a spot to camp.
Last hundred or two hundred kilometers before Inuvik wasn’t fun and for some reasons, I thought that probably would be the same after Inuvik too but this drive was out of this world. We really enjoyed this last stretch of the road
And after two hours of a breathtaking drive, we reached Tuktoyaktuk and the Arctic Ocean. it was a big achievement for us. After almost 100 days on the road, we reached to the northernmost point of our trip. From here, we keep going south till we reach the southernmost point that we can drive to, Ushuaia in Argentina.
We weren’t sure to camp next to the Arctic ocean or turn back toward Inuvik before we got there. The weather was cold, windy and miserable when we arrived and the forecast wasn’t promising for the following day so we decided to spend some time in the area, and then head back to the south of Inuvik to camp. Since daylight is not a problem in this part of the world, we had no time pressure on the camping time for the day.
We camped after midnight just before the first ferry crossing on our way south and started our trip south as soon as Ferries started to work the next morning. On day 4, we carried on driving south as much as we could. Just before the last 150 km on the Dempster, we stopped to check a small dirt road to see if it gives us access to the river to go for a dip and stretch our legs. But what we found was a prime camp spot that we couldn’t say no to. So we decided to call it a day and set up a nice camp, sit back, relax and reflect on the last few days on the Dempster Highway. We ended up staying there for three days and celebrated our 100th camp spot and my birthday there.
We cooked some delicious food, spotted elks and all sort of wildlife from our camp spot, did some fishings and swam in the crystal clear cold river every day. What an epic way to end this leg of our journey.
We’ve finished 1,500 km on Dempster Highway in 5 days. For most of it, we could go around 70 km/h. There’s nowhere along the way that 4WD is required. Having high clearance is a bonus but it is not required. But it is important to have really good tyres and some recovery gear since if help is required, you might need to stay for hours to have any kind of traffic passing by.
In our experience, we truly enjoyed it. Before finalising our route in Canada and Alaska, we weren’t sure that we really wanted to do this just to say that we reached the Arctic Ocean but we are glad that we did it, not just to say that we did it but because we really enjoyed the drive and had a privilege to get a basic understanding of people’s life in this isolated area. We were lucky enough to go to a local music festival on our way south and have a chat with locals and understand a bit about their lifestyle. A truly unique experience!
From here, the plan is continuing south till we reach Vancouver and enjoy Canadian raw and wild beauty along the way There is just 3,000 km more to go to reach Vancouver! Canada is huge!
In the next post, we’ll discover Canada deeper while trying to cover some distance. Till then take care and enjoy life.
