Inuvik, NT to Eagle Plains, YT
Traditional territory of the Vuntut Gwitchin and the Tetlit Gwich’in
Sun and cloud, all of a sudden you could see the cloudy mountain passes we’d cycled through
We left Inuvik today. I left the campground in the morning to interview a local before leaving town, then we pumped up some gas and headed back onto the gravel track of the Dempster. Crossing the Mackenzie Delta was fine, but as we got off the ferry at the Peel River crossing, something punctured one of the truck tires. We made it to the top of the hill above the delta before the tire gave out.
It took a while to replace the tire because with the weight of the camper on the truck bed we broke one jack and caused the second (more heavy-duty) one to malfunction. Eventually we replaced the tire with the spare. Then patched the tire at one of the highway maintenance camps, then got another flat.
It turns out flat tires are a lot easier to fix on a bike.
Along the road we saw three other cars with flats (one with two flats; I didn’t even know that was possible). At the end of the day we’re maybe 30 km south of Eagle Plains and considering the possibility of taking on the remaining 400 km of the Dempster without a spare. Edgy, especially because if I got a flat tire on my bike without a spare I’d throw the bike in a pickup truck and hitchhike to the next town…but it’s kind of hard to throw a pickup truck into a pickup truck. If you get my meaning.
There was a beautiful sunset above the plains. We shared some tea and played a game of cards to try to relieve the stress before calling it a night.
