NOTE: Before reading this blog, I highly recommend you first read The Dempster Highway Experience by MFI published September 1, 2024. Her blog helps put this one in proper perspective. After 5 decades of consideration, construction of the all-weather road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk (population 900 and hereafter referred to as Tuk) was started in…
In the mornings, I had time, along with terrific weather, to squeeze in two local hikes. Both started in our campground, leaving MFI free from not having to drive me to a trailhead and bide her time until finished. The first trail was not on my AllTrails app and looked more like an infrequently used…
The Inuvik coordinates were 68°21’39″N and 133°43’47″W, which placed it 124 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I referenced this to make a comparison with my assignment at Thule Air Base, Greenland from Dec 17, 1976 to Dec 17, 1977. For accuracy, Thule was renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023, since it had become a…
NOTE: Before reading this blog, I highly recommend you first read The Dempster Highway Experience by MFI published September 1, 2024. Her blog helps put this one in proper perspective. We were on the final leg of the Dempster Highway, which ended in Inuvik, NT (population 3,137). The terrain became heavily dotted with ponds, lakes,…
NOTE: Before reading this blog, I highly recommend you first read The Dempster Highway Experience by MFI published August 27, 2024. Her blog helps put this one in proper perspective. We departed Eagle Plains mid morning, and almost immediately it started raining. This made for slow cautious driving and hampered my picture taking. Twenty-one miles…
NOTE: Before reading this blog, I highly recommend you first read The Dempster Highway Experience by MFI published August 27, 2024. Her blog helps put this one in proper perspective. Our next leg was 109 miles to Eagle Plains (population 8-9 depending) and a 1-night stay at “an oasis in the wilderness” according to The…
MFI has done all the driving since we began our RV adventure in September 2019. It was her choice, since she readily admitted to being a lousy passenger, and she credited me with being a better navigator. That being the case, she endured much more stress from driving than me (sitting, as I did, in…
Part One – Getting Ready “It was a dark and stormy night”. This is most accurate way to set the mood for this part of our adventure. .Once we decided we really intended to go to the Artic Ocean, we began prepping in earnest. As RV-ers, it’s necessary to plot the route, plan the stops,…
Before leaving Red Eagle Lodge, Richard Denny mentioned several times that the Tok Cutoff Highway (AK 1) had shifted 17 feet during the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake. He told us the exact mile marker, so we wouldn’t miss it, and sure enough, it was eactly where he had indicated. Truthfully, the shift didn’t appear to…
The distance from Anchorage to Tok was simply too far to squeeze into a day’s drive. According to RV Trip Wizard, our only interim-stop option was Red Eagle Lodge in Chistochina (population 60). This lodge was a throw back to Alaska’s roadhouse system, when in the late 19th early 20th centuries entrepeneurs built them to…
