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, and prepare for as many what-ifs you can come up with. We were told over and over that the Dempster Highway was a really bad road. But, define “bad”. We’d been told the highways in Canada were bad. A catchall. No they weren’t ALL bad. Many were indeed rough and most were just two lanes, but they weren’t, in our experience, bad. Okay, except the AlCan. Definitely bad. Mixed with some okay and some good. Are you getting the drift of how mixed up we were when someone described the Dempster as “bad”?

We were encamped in Palmer when I laid down the hammer on the desire to go to the Artic. TPM had wanted to take us there when we were first in Fairbanks. His plan was to go up toward Prudhoe Bay (oil fields on the arctic) traveling as far as it was safe and only taking the truck. And we probably wouldn’t actually be able to see the Arctic Ocean from that point. Over and over we heard about cracked windshields from fast moving trucks launching large gravel and rocks. And flat tires. And…. I had my sights, however, on Inuvik in the Northwest Territory only 90 miles from the Arctic Ocean. We learned from an Airstreaming couple in Fairbanks that there are plenty of campgrounds in Inuvik and that it was easy to do a day trip to Tuktoyaktuk and be AT the Arctic Ocean. As we traveled, our already planned route through Valdez and all of the Kenai Peninsula over the next couple weeks, the plan began to gel.

We had decided to go the shortest way from Anchorage to Dawson City, nearest the start of the Dempster. That involved taking the Tok (pronounced toke) by-pass back up to Tok where we would reprise a stay in a familiar campground there. From there we’d go up through Chicken (yes, real name) where we’d gas up, and onward to the Canadian Border. Then we’d drive the famed Top Of The World Highway over to the Yukon River taking the ferry crossing into Dawson City. 

By now we were fairly seasoned bad-road travelers. The roads from Anchorage to the Tok by-pass, and the by-pass all the way to Tok were, by our new construct, good highways. Out of Tok to the turn off to Chicken was good. We were feeling pretty good about our plan. Then we took the cut-off to Chicken. Back to crap roads. Not paved. Pot-hole pock marked. Dry. Dirty. Dusty. And Chicken turned out to be not a whole lot more than a random collection of buildings to accommodate the stupid tourists who’d been foolish enough take the road to get there. Filled our gas tank and used the out-houses which were their public toilets and headed up toward the Canadian border. We say “up” because we were working our way up into the mountains. The Canadian Border crossing was upwards of 4500’.  We’d learned that the last 12 miles up to the border were newly paved. PAVED. We left Chicken on crap roads with the carrot of new blacktop dangling tauntingly in front of us. I’m driving, with my emotions swaying back and forth between anger/frustration and scared/crying. 

We did it. It seemed like every leg we drove anywhere came with challenges. Every challenge seemed totally new. At the completion of every leg we looked at each other with mixtures of emotional exhaustion, relief, and a level of cautious pride.

Part Two – The Top Of The World Highway (TOTWH)

The Top Of The World Highway is said to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. The vistas were amazing. We were seeing distances known to pilots as CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited). We were far enough north in latitude and high enough in altitude that there were no trees. What could possibly detract from all of this? 

The TOTWH was unpaved. Well-groomed but unpaved. And it was not raining so it was dry. The cloud of dust from any vehicle traveling along the highway was visible for miles. We could watch the cloud our truck was putting up enveloping the front end of Arthur. We had no idea what was happening toward the back of the trailer…until we reached the ferry landing across the river from Dawson City. Then we dropped our jaws at the filth on every vehicle that had left the TOTWH. Even after we got to our campground in Dawson City it was very easy to tell who had traveled our route vs those who had driven on highways up from Whitehorse. “Oh! We see you traveled the Top Of The World!” “Yep”

Part Three – Dawson City

The few days we spent in Dawson City were educational. Dawson City had been a kind of fork in the road for the gold miners during the rush. From there the intrepid hopefuls would stock up from the several warehouses and travel in various directions to stake their claims. From Dawson City the Yukon River goes 1700 miles all the way to the western coast of Alaska where its mouth is at the Bering Sea on the south shore of Norton Sound and across the Sound from Nome. Many Gold Rushers went all that way. 

Dawson City still enjoys some of the glory and retains much of the charm. Imagine saying that about any place that in 2024 has no paved streets. There are boardwalks along all the street fronts so shoppers and diners are up out of the muddy (or dirty) streets. During Gold rush days and until the airport was built and train tracks run, supplies would be brought up in barges from Whitehorse on the Yukon River to fill four block-long warehouses. These were all the supplies the Dawson City folks would have for the 7 or 8 months when the Yukon was frozen, usually mid-September through April or early May.

But I digress. We continued to ask anyone and everyone about the Dempster. It had only opened in 1979 and was the only route to Inuvik, Inuvik being a point where supplies were transferred to barges to reach other villages along the waterways to its east, west, and north. It had never been paved and was poorly maintained. We were told it was necessary to carry spare tires. The conversation was always not “if” you’ll have a flat, but “how many”. We did learn that 6-ply tires would be a mistake, and drivers of those vehicles should consider carrying 4 spares. Yikes. Since we have 10 ply tires on both the truck and the trailer we breathed a cautious bit of relief.

In the Dawson City Visitor Center, we were asked if we could take a package with us to the highway mid-point at Eagle Plains. The package was replenishment supplies for a bicyclist making the trek. With an overall trip length of 460 miles one way from Dawson City to Inuvik and another 90 miles to Tuktoyaktuk, no wonder it was necessary to divide the load. We were assured the folks at Eagle Plains were familiar with handling these packages. There were Dawson City locals who claimed to make the trip regularly as though driving it was not the big deal being made by everyone. We determined (in our minds) they were lying. If they weren’t lying it is because they were insane.

We took the advice of another camper who had experienced the filth of the dry dusty Dempster and taped shut all our windows and penetrations (like the furnace). When we were ready to hit the road, we even taped the front door shut. Not doing so would guarantee measurable dust inside. Even with all the attention to taping, here we are some 5 months later still finding Dempster dust. We recently had our truck on a rack and there is still caked Dempster mud here there and everywhere. The nightmare that keeps on giving.

Part Four – The Dempster Highway

We finally sucked it up, clenched our fists and jaws and headed to start the Dempster Highway experience. What could possibly be worse than everything we’d already been through? The Dempster starts roughly 25 miles east of Dawson City. You make the turn onto the Dempster and in a couple hundred yards you confront a two-lane bridge that crosses the Klondike. Not so bad. But the bridge is painted a light blue. A creepy blue. And why? What is wrong with the same grey used on every other bridge in ….um….the whole world? You definitely get the feeling you are entering another world beyond that bridge. The Dempster Highway. No turning back now.

Our mutual relief was palpable when the stretch to our first stop was not in any way bad comparing to all we’d already experienced on the various roads of Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The road to Engineer Campground was almost delightful. Oops. Left out that it had been raining. A bit muddy, but the mud at the campground wasn’t too slippery. This is a raw campground. No utilities or hook-ups. We had planned on staying two nights, but the state of the campground shower facilities made us change our minds. They were unheated and it was cold. In this environment you are also more likely to experience all manner of wildlife. Stories of bear sightings abounded. We didn’t see any bear. A few deer. (We can handle that).

We pulled out the next morning after a good breakfast and hopeful that the stretch to Eagle Plains (the mid-point) would be similarly uneventful. Silly us. Still very muddy but no longer heavy rain, we headed out. After a couple hours we reached an overlook at around 4,000’ that had informational signage that would make stopping worthwhile. We stopped and slopped through the mud to use the outhouses to download the mornings coffee. I haven’t mentioned how much colder it was there. It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to require additional clothing and heavier coats. Somehow cold mixed with mud and a sprinkle of misty fog dampens the mood. 

Some RV-ing folks pulled into the wayside having come from the north direction. As I am prone to do I struck up a conversation. They were coming back from Inuvik. After wonderful reviews of their time in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, they shared that we needed to be careful on the Cobblestones which was evidently an infamous stretch of road not too far to the north of this stop. Must be something for it to have a declared name. They explained that the road had become so hardpacked that edges of rocks jutted out, purportedly to be sharp like mica. Caution to folks with 6-ply tires. This would be where you most likely will have a flat.

As we left the overlook, the road was more of the same muddy, pot-holed mess until I turned the first corner. The Cobblestones. As cautioned, we were now moving at 12 kph or less. The Cobblestones are a 20 mile stretch that took us over two hours. Maybe a little more. Definitely slow going. Slower than slow. Worse, it was absolutely jarring. Constant jarring vibrations. There was no going fast. Not that I wasn’t daring enough. It was just unbelievably bad. Skating across the visible knife-like edges of rocks was very emotionally draining. Hoping to avoid a flat.

Driving any of these roads meant a lot of weaving to avoid potholes and scary ruts. Luckily there was rarely any other traffic on the roads. Most often the southbound lane was in far better shape since the southbound trucks were empty. The northbound loaded trucks beat the crap out of those lanes and made them crappier. The road stayed crappy after the Cobblestones which made the rest of the journey to the mid-point of Eagle Plains absolutely miserable. By now we were used to the crappiness of bad roads – but honestly they seemed to get crappier and crappier. We were getting really nervous about what we were going to find in the trailer when we reached our destination. 

We already knew that the TOTWH dust was now mud. We were adding more mud and mud weight by the mile. Or kilometer. Whatever. As advised, we were carrying a 5 gallon Gerry can of gas since there were no stations between the start of the Dempster and Eagle Plains. We watched the fuel range shrink. We were nervous. We got down to a range of about 40 miles when…

Part Five – Eagle Plains Damage Control

We reached Eagle Plains!!! No flats!! It was still raining and the parking lots at our mid-point mecca were filled with puddles. We carefully untaped Arthur’s door and went inside. We expected damage but this was beyond. The finger latching refrigerator door was open and much of the contents were on the floor. Freezer contents, on the floor. The decorative trim on the fridge doors had come off and were on the floor. The pin in the top pivot of the shower door had sheered. The horizontal mirrored cabinet door in the bathroom was hanging by one screw out of the four required for it to operate. The electric panel had pulled out of the wall. The kitchen sink had detached from the underside of the counter. The slides of the drawers under the sink had pulled out of the cabinet walls. Tip of the iceberg. TPM made a running list of what we encountered. 40 items. 40. We slowly pieced everything back together. I made notes on what we’d have to do after we put things back together so the damages wouldn’t repeat. We didn’t cry over what we had done to our beautiful Airstream. But, we were really very discouraged.

Then we learned about where we were. Eagle Plains is 75 miles away from anything in any direction. There were people that lived there. There were people that worked there that “commuted” 75 miles every day to get there because it was the only paying work available. Eagle Plains had its own motel. Its own gas station. Its own RV repair shop (minor repairs). It had its own water tanks as their water supply was brought by trucks. Their gas for the gas station brought by trucks. Their supplies brought by trucks. Their power came from their own generators. They were a 100% stand-alone operation. They did NOT offer RV black and grey tank drainage. They did not want to be in the business of dealing with all the RV borne poop (and grey water) that might come by. They had enough to deal with having to pay to haul the waste from their toilets and showers.

Eagle Plains had surprisingly good food. And great hot water in the showers which we used because our two waste tanks were full. More weight to carry. Each of the tanks (grey, black, and fresh water) hold around 39 gallons. Two full tanks would add around 650 lbs. We also had half a tank of fresh water which we carried to sustain us at stops with no utilities (Engineer Campground). More weight = less gas mileage….argh. 

We stayed three nights spending much of our time fixing things. We inhaled deeply as we taped the trailer door shut, climbed in the truck, worked up courage to head back out. To more bad roads. Bad bad roads. Please, we pleaded to no one, please let this road not be even worse. We were committed to reaching Inuvik and the Arctic Ocean. The folks at Eagle Plains had told us that when we left the Yukon Territory and entered the Northwest Territory the roads would improve. We hung tightly onto that promise. And it was true. The roads became better as soon as we entered Northwest Territories.

Part Six – The Northwest Territory

Still inside the Yukon Territory, we reached the overlook at the Arctic Circle at 66 deg 33 min north latitude and stopped for the obligatory picture. Wondering if there is ever any sun….. . Some part of our psyches wondered if we should hang it up and go back. No. Press on. Just press on. So close now. Don’t give up. It was a constant emotional battle. We were really beaten up by what we’d already endured. Our filthy truck. Our damaged Airstream. We couldn’t quit after having come so far or all would have been for nothing. As though it was a reward or a salve to our emotional-psychological wounds, in another 30 miles or so we reached the Northwest Territories and the better cared for sections of the Dempster Highway.

We crossed the Peale River on a cable ferry to get to Ft. McPherson. Once an outpost, now just another small town on the Dempster Highway to Inuvik. By now our truck and trailer were thoroughly coated in mud. We got gas at a grocery store on the far side of town. We’d been directed to that station by a fuel truck driver we’d met at Eagle Plains telling us those folks were nicer than those at the station just off the highway. Scott, TPM and I had compared notes over enduring the Cobblestones. He said “If you think it’s rough on eight wheels, imagine what it’s like with 30 wheels. Indeed ,we witnessed an empty18-wheeler going through southward on the way back. He couldn’t have been going more than10 kph. A constantly jarring, horribly slow crawl. Scott also shared that it was a much better road when it was frozen. Annoying to have to chain-up and off in 5 different locations, but a lot smoother. No thanks.

Our campground at Ft. McPherson was being managed by a woman who looked to be around 15 – 20 years younger than us. I asked if she was a First Person. Yes. She was Gwitchin. I asked her if she remembered what things were like before the Dempster was opened in 1979. She shared her father would take his sledge and dog team, cross the Peale River, and travel over the mountains to Dawson City to get supplies. The trip would take him two weeks to bring back as many supplies as he could carry. Let it sink in that as recently as 1979 the only way for folks in the Arctic north to get supplies was taking sleds and dog teams on a 1000 mile roundtrip journey over the mountains. There are bad roads. There had been no roads. I resolved to complain less.

We drove east from Ft McPherson to reach the Mackenzie River crossing to get to Inuvik. A large very swift river during non-frozen months. Wide and fast enough to demand a powerful ferry although the ferry only took around 9 vehicles. The crew on those ferries had been running them for years. We were closer! And the roads were still pretty good. I kept fighting the voice back, the one that kept reminding me that I had to take all those crap roads to get back, back over the blue bridge to Dawson City.

Part Seven – Inuvik and beyond

We arrived in Inuvik (yay! We arrived in Inuvik!!!) totally caked in mud and not much gas to spare. When we checked in at the campground we first pulled over to the RV dump to clear our tanks. We spotted another camper that was clean. Totally clean. He gave us directions to the washstand. Owned by “Bob”. Bob also owned the gas station and the wholesale liquor store next to the washstand. We headed directly there before even finding our campsite. An hour and a half and $48 Canadian later the truck and the trailer were clean or as clean as they could get standing in a muddy pool at the washstand.

We had a really comfortable site. Weather was nice enough and wind low enough we were able to put our awning out. We drove around to see what the landscape was and spotted a restaurant we thought we might try the next night, a liquor store we might need for replenishing our dwindled wine supply, a grocery store. Unlike Chicken, Inuvik was a very vibrant town of over 3,000. Signs everywhere talking about taking care of all the children. The vibe was that everyone looked out for each other, and everyone watched out for the younger crowd. Nice.

Our second day, Sunday, on Google we homed in on that local restaurant for dinner near to our campground. Setting out to find the address we found the eatery next to a colorfully painted school bus. We met the hostess/server/owner who seated us at the community eight-top table next to a party of three in the middle of their meal. Introductions all around we met Arlene, a local resident, eating with her visiting brother and sister-in-law who were nearing the end of their visit with her. Great food and wonderful company. When time came to settle our bill, we were taken by surprise at the “cash only”. We were short. A lot short. We don’t usually have ANY cash, and we’d spent what we had at the car wash the day before. As we pondered where we’d seen an ATM, not missing a beat, Arlene pulled out the needed $60 and paid our bill. We tried to work out with her how to pay her back. Not-negotiable she said. “Pay it forward”. After lengthy and enjoyable exchanges, Arlene invited us to her home for dinner, either Monday night or Tuesday night. Phone numbers and address exchanged. She was serious. Just being her hospitable self.

Part Eight – Tuktoyaktuk and The Arctic Ocean

We decided to go to Tuktoyaktuk on Monday because Tuesday would be the clean-up pack-up day for our Wednesday departure. Arlene had told us to look up her friend who ran Momma’s Kitchen in Tuktoyaktuk. We set out on the “highway” to Tuktoyaktuk. The highway was two unmarked lanes that looked like a back country road anywhere we’d ever lived. It exited the north side of Inuvik. If we didn’t have GPS we would have driven past it thinking it an entry to someone’s private property. Highway. Sure. At least we were only taking the truck leaving the Airstream to soak up the sun. I looked at the odometer and did a calculation for what 90 miles would end with to give me an idea of how far, how close, are we there yet?

The road was nice enough we could pay more attention to scenery. We began to see these random odd-looking mounds Happily there were road-side signs to explain. Pingos. The only place Pingos exist are in areas inside the Arctic Circle in North America, Russia, Finland and Norway. Arctic and subarctic. Pingos are formed when permafrost thaws and the resultant trapped water freezes then heaves. Kind of an underground reverse glacier. It is forbidden to climb on the Pingos, unless you are a First People. They are somewhat fragile and certainly wouldn’t survive tourist traffic. We talked to plenty of First People kids who loved sliding down the Pingos in the winter.

Ninety miles-ish later we were there. Tuktoyaktuk. Beaufort Bay. The Arctic Ocean. There!  As it was already lunchtime we dutifully followed signs to Momma’s kitchen. Closed. It was located on a cove along the shoreline of the Arctic Ocean. We walked out on the stony shoreline (similar to Brighton beach in the UK) to “be there”. It wasn’t what we were hoping for. Definitely set back from THE Arctic Ocean. Walking back to our truck we stumbled across one of the owners who said they were closed because Momma had a medical emergency, was in the hospital in Inuvik and wouldn’t be coming back until later in the day. He was “closed” because he was trying to manage, alone, a bus full of tourists that had booked the restaurant for lunch. We found ourselves wishing we could help out.

Back to our truck and pressing further toward Beaufort Bay, the Arctic Ocean shore. We reached the end of the road and a park of sorts. We got out to walk to the ocean. There were plenty of signs that said “no swimming – First Nation fishing only” or words to that effect. We walked out along the spit to get as close as we could to the ocean. I was going to dip my bare toes in but settled for walking through the freezing cold shallow waters in my waterproof boots. There was a small group tourists who had lowered themselves into an out-of-sight rocky spot where they could privately disrobe and do a polar bear style dip despite the no swimming signs. We felt it discouraging that people thought it okay to be so disrespectful. We took our picture with the Arctic Ocean sign as a backdrop. Then we called as many family members as we could reach so they’d spoken to us while we were at the Arctic Ocean!!

A few streets and a few dozen buildings and that was it. All of it. Tuktoyaktuk’s raison d’être was a staging area for supply trucks to download to barges to reach other remote towns. If you look at a map of this area it is easy to envision it being a lot easier to navigate when all the area water is frozen. We stopped at a building that called itself in big letters: Visitor Center. Really it had the only public bathrooms. They did have two flyers of some kind. The two young women there didn’t have much to say. We saw an incredible amount of driftwood piled up along the shores as far we could see. Our inclination would be to organize a clean-up. We learned later from Arlene the locals gather all the driftwood in late summer as it would be the fuel for their furnaces for the winter.

Just like that it was done. Fait accomplì! All the hell of the Dempster, all the damage to property and nerves and that was it. It seemed a little anti-climactic because we couldn’t find more to see or do in this tiny fishing town of 1,000 people on the Arctic Ocean. But it was enough. We did it. We’ve done it We don’t ever have to do it again.

Epilog

That night we had dinner with Arlene. She was from Alberta but had been in Inuvik for 50 years. She had been Mayor several times and was currently “co-mayor”. In her youth she had been married to an Inuvialuit. The Inuvialuit are their own nation. They are not Canadian First People. They self-govern. As long as you live within the boundaries of the property controlled by the Inuvialuit, you are a fully supported member of that nation. If you leave the nations’ property, you essentially are exiled, excommunicated. You’re an “ex”. Arlene and her ex had four children. One of her granddaughters was one of the monitors at our campground.

Arlene fixed us trout. Not just any trout. It was the tail of the trout which is boneless and the best meat of the fish. According to custom, the elders must be offered this meat first. This particular fish had been caught by the granddaughter. When we saw her later that evening we told her how delicious it was. She grinned. “I catch more fish than my brothers”.

Arlene also took us to an arena that had been partially converted to a community greenhouse. Summer plants grow huge because the sun never sets in the summer. For the winter, the greenhouse had banks of grow-lights supplemented by solar. She asked if we’d noticed all the hanging flower pots all over town. Those flowers had been raised over the winter and earned $35,000 for the greenhouse. All the families and all the children participated in growing. Someone had donated two fruit trees and all were excited to see if/when they would bear fruit.

In the campground at Ft McPherson, we were approached by a young man asking if we had room for a passenger and a dog. He had taken his eyes off the road for just a second and his wheels hit the soft gravel shoulder, he’d lost control and rolled his truck. He did have a ride coming eventually so we didn’t feel too badly when we had to turn him down. Our truck’s back seat is full. This is where we mention that the Dempster is about three lanes wide with soft gravel shoulders. The are NO guard rails anywhere. This includes sections that are elevated about 100’ off the valley floor with culvert pipes allowing the river through. NO guard rails. I kept repeating as I crossed each one “please don’t have a large vehicle coming the other way so I don’t have to get too close to the edge”.

Back at Eagle Plains we met a woman who was first to approach an accident that happened in front of her. A woman who, driving her Outback, had gotten too close to the shoulder, her teardrop camper went over the edge and ripped off at the hitch. The witness person got the woman hooked up with a rescue group who drove her and her Outback to Eagle Plains. 

We pondered spending an extra day at Eagle Plains until we overheard a conversation between two men laughing at the rough ride they’d had in their Class C camper (looks like a pick-up truck version of an RV). In the higher altitudes to the north, they had encountered a snowstorm with nearly a foot of snow. The had nearly skidded off the road. And, they’d had flat tires. The weather was headed toward Eagle Plains. We looked at each other and read each other’s mind saying, “We’re not staying. Let’s go. Now”.

We had planned to stop at Engineer Campground again, but we’d had enough. We figured we could power on for the extra couple hours it would take to make it straight through to Dawson City from Eagle Plains.

We saw the Blue Bridge and nearly cried. Honestly. We’d done it. We’d made it. We don’t ever have to do it again. One and Done.