Dawson City, YT to Inuvik, NT
Traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Na-cho Nyak Dun, Tetlit Gwich’in, Vuntut Gwitchin, Inuvialuit
778 km
Rain and mud for the first couple days, then great weather
I didn’t keep a daily log during the Dempster Highway, but I did write the adventure into a full story on Exposure with photos and stories from each day of the journey on the 800 km gravel road through the north. It’s not all there, of course—there’s flat tires and mud and fleeting northern lights that I didn’t include—but it’s as complete a story as I could create while on the road.
I had climbed from the Klondike Plateau to North Fork Pass, through the Tombstone Mountains to the Richardsons, across the watersheds of the mighty Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers and amongst the long woodland bogs of the largest delta in the north. I had crossed the Arctic Circle, slipped ice under my tires and chased clouds across the sky. I had leaned into the wind and listened to the lonesome call of a falcon above, waved at migrating ducks and cycled towards an unafraid grizzly bear. Before this, the farthest north I’d been in North America was south-central Alberta. Now, I had tasted the Arctic.
Read more on the Exposure story.