Back in the Yukon!

We did 178 kms (110 miles) yesterday heading south from Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories to Eagle Plains, Yukon.

Definitely some rough roads along the way, and it's amazing how much they could change from the time we were on this road heading north almost two weeks ago.

It is truly messed up.

We're in bed, sleeping... and there's a "knock, knock, knock" on the door that wakes us both up. Ruth says "one minute!", and I get up and quickly throw some clothes on. I open the door, and it's light outside. Momentarily confused, I think maybe it's morning.

There's an older teenage boy, and he says "what are you doing, sleeping?"

We're cutting it close, so hopefully we'll be okay.

We did some grocery shopping in Inuvik yesterday, making sure we had sufficient supplies to do us at least the next five days. We're hoping to be in Dawson City by Friday, but that may or may not happen due to a storm that's supposed to affect the area between here and Dawson City on Wednesday. We were originally planning to spend a couple more days in Inuvik, but our delays in Tuktoyaktuk, plus the upcoming storm are making us head south quicker. We tried to get into the big community greenhouse in Inuvik, but it's closed on Sundays.

We're hoping that storm isn't as bad as they're forecasting because we would end up stuck in Eagle Plains again waiting for the road to dry up... the same way we did on the way north!

We have begun the journey south!

The forecast called for clearing yesterday afternoon, and so just before lunch I took a 4 km roundtrip walk up the road to see what it was like compared to the day before. It was a definite improvement, so we decided to have some lunch and then make a run for it!

We had watched quite a few vehicles coming in during the morning, and none of them looked very muddy. They were calling for rain again yesterday evening in Tuktoyaktuk, so this was our chance.

Stuck in Tuk!

The weather has not been co-operating here in Tuktoyaktuk. And not helping the situation is that the weather forecast changes by the hour. They obviously can't predict it, and the changes come so quickly I don't understand why they bother trying.

The problem of course, is the highway. Which is not really a highway, it's just a dirt road. And the first ten kms (6 miles) leading out of Tuktoyakyuk are not graveled yet. So when it rains, it becomes a mud road, not a dirt road!

Extending time in your RV without hookups...

It was a wet, rainy, windy, miserable day yesterday. We had been parked overlooking the Arctic Ocean, and when the cold front blew in overnight... it blew in hard! We were both woken up by the wind rocking Sherman, and howling through the electrical cables we were parked near.

Winds were averaging 50 km/h (30 miles per hour) and gusting to 70 km/h (42 mph).

Life in Tuktoyaktuk

We tried again to get in touch with our "cousin of a friend" contact who lives here in Tuktoyaktuk. Still no answer on the phone, so I tried an email address that I had been given, and got a response right away. But it wasn't from Maureen, it was from her daughter Rebecca. She asked if we were parked out at the point, and I said yes.

She said to meet her around noon at the tent snack bar set up right here at the point!

Way up up up up up in Tuktoyaktuk

As they forecast, things got cloudy and cooler up here in "Tuk" as it's often called. But, we still managed to get out for some exercise to explore the town a little bit.

We stopped in the grocery store and even bought a couple of things! Then, we tried to look up a friend's cousin who happens to live here!

Wow. We can't believe we made it!

As you can see from today's header photo... we made it to the Arctic Ocean!

For those of you who don't know, the Dempster Highway has been able to take you as far as the town of Inuvik since 1971. But the village of Tuktoyaktuk (pop 900) on the Arctic Ocean has only been accessible via air, boat, or an ice road that operated only in the winter.

Made it to Inuvik for Canada Day!

We only had 40 kms to drive to get to Inuvik, and we made it in time for their Canada Day parade!

Inuvik is a town of about 3,200 people located 200 kms (120 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. The town has a fairly broad demographic, with 39% Inuvialuit (what we used to call Eskimos when I was growing up) 18% First Nations, 37% non-native. There are even about 100 Muslims, and they even have a small mosque here.

June Expenses

About what we figured it would be, so no great surprises. We spent a total of $2,279 CAD ($1,750 USD) which is not bad considering we started the month in Dawson Creek, British Columbia and ended it to Inuvik, Northwest Territories!

And as expected, the biggest expense of this trip is fuel. We drove a total of 2,925 kms (1,813 miles) during the month.

The biggest surprise of the monthly expenses? Groceries!

Nice to be able to help some fellow travelers in need

Slept great at the Fort McPherson Airport. One lady drove up at about 8:00am and went inside the tiny terminal building, but otherwise she was the only person we saw the whole time.

We woke up to blue sky and sunshine and it's supposed to be that way for the next couple of days.

Oh... and good news! Remember when we entered Yukon, we began to have problems with our Telcel Mexico SIM card working in the phone? Well, as soon as we crossed into Northwest Territories and got ourselves close to the Fort McPherson cell tower... we connected again!

North of the Arctic Circle in the Land of the Midnight Sun!

Once again, we woke up to a drizzly overcast day on Friday morning. We were parked up at the roadside Dempster Highway community of Eagle Plains, and with a decent source of internet, we were happy to simply wait it out.

Heading north out of Eagle Plains the road has a long steep downhill, and there is a lit up sign warning of slippery conditions and especially for motorcyclists to exercise caution. So we figured we were better off to wait until things dried out a bit.

Tire repaired, and better weather coming our way!

(This is our 5th blog post in the last two days as we get caught up after going 4 days without internet. If you missed any, you'll want to go back a day or two!)

Still no sunshine, and in fact we have been about five days now without seeing the sun. Sure, the days are very long but they have been long cloudy and overcast days! But, at least the rain stopped and the road was a little more solid as a result.

So yesterday morning I topped up our still leaking right rear outer tire, and around 8:15am we set off with the goal of making it to the roadside stop of Eagle Plains (population 9!).

Third day driving on the Dempster Highway... we didn't get very far!

The Dempster Highway is an unpaved highway stretching 736 km (457 miles) from Dawson City, Yukon to Inuvik, Northwest Territories. They started building it in 1959, and it was completed 20 years later in 1979.

I had read that the Dempster Highway is "well maintained", but I guess that is all perspective. When it rains, it is not "well maintained", and the highway becomes a mud pit in a lot of places.