On the Road

Back in the airport for the 8am departure to Inuvik, my bike was checked in (for free because of them losing it before) along with my other luggage, totalling a weight almost double the allowance. Nine of us walked up to the plane, with no signs of any security baggage checks, and got on the small twin propeller aeroplane for the flight to Dawson. After the muffin , sandwiches and choice of chocolate bars or beef jerky, they got out the cheese cake and divided it up between us. We touched down at Dawson Airport in good time. But we had to wait three hours for the cloud to clear over Old Crow, our next stop. Eventually we came to Old Crow, circled a few times waiting for a gap in the cloud, and made our bumpy landing- to be met by a few guys on quad bikes, a pick up truck and a few dogs. Most the village.

Old Crow is a few hundred miles from the nearest road and gets a few flights a week. 300 or so people happily spend their time hunting, fishing on the Porcupine River, riding snow mobiles, and waiting for the next plane. We actually picked up a couple more passengers - including a guy who walked on with a big knife he had been using to carve a stick, and started the last leg to Inuvik.
Inuvik was built in 1954, as a place to serve the north of Canada, to supply smaller villages and be a centre for oil exploration. It’s a strange place with everything you would expect from a small North American town - Pizza-hut, KFC, supermarket, most types of shops, pubs, cafes, bars, a museum and a library, and complete lack of architectural interest, except the “utilidors”, pipes above the ground housing sewage, electric and water to keep the heat from melting the permafrost.
At the airport I was handed a note saying my bike had decided to stay in Whitehorse, and would come to Inuvik the day after by itself. Which meant I got a free taxi to the Happy Valley Campsite and spend a day and a half walking around Inuvik and waiting for my bike to arrive - which luckily it did the next day.

Camping near two riders who had just completed the Dempster Highway, I was quite encouraged to see they were still alive, well, happy, and were even thinking about doing another long distance ride, and also they didn’t see any bears, which was good news to me.

On the Road
Leaving the city behind, it was an easy 20km to the airport, where the tarmac stopped and 756km of unsurfaced gravel took its place.

The road didn’t start too bad, the surface was hard packed, a bit rough but easy enough. Way north of the Arctic Circle and pushing above the northern limit of trees for a while, the tundra was actually very lush, loads of shrubs and plants. Being late summer, it didn’t really go dark, and was warm enough for shorts and t-shirt for most of the day. I saw the first arctic fox within the hour, and at around 30km , stopped by a lake to see a beaver playing around. Late in the afternoon I came to the Tsiigehtchic (sig-a-chick) ferry, where the Arctic Red River and Peel River meet, getting on the free ferry, the ferryman asked if I wanted to cross to the City or go over to other side to the road. I went first to the “City”. Tsiigehtchic, a small place with too many angry dogs. Ten minutes later I crossed the Peel River by ferry and cycled another couple of kilometers and set up camp by an old abandoned tourist information building, where I cooked my first meal of noodles and spaghetti, with extra mosquitos.

I was lucky in that every evening while I was riding the Dempster, I would just set up my tent to the sound of rain falling, and wake up to rain falling, but it would always be dry by the time I had finished by breakfast.

I hit the road works on the second day. This process involves hundreds of big heavy lorries driving far to fast, putting mud and gravel on the road that was otherwise good. With a bit of rain this made it impossibly slippy to ride. This process works well, as all the massive trucks and lorries (making up 90% of the roads traffic anyway) driving to the construction site destroy the good road either side, giving themselves something to fix again later.
I slowly slid along for a couple of hours, adding around 10kg of rocky mud to my bike. Finally coming back onto relatively good road I made it to Fort McPherson, got a good lunch and some more food - the next store being in Dawson 580km (360miles) away.

The rest of the day was one big long climb, passing a herd of caribou, a couple more beavers, 3 arctic fox cubs, I ended by a bridge trying to shelter from the increasing headwind. I went to sleep as the thunder started.

The third day started to very strong wind as I cycled to the top of Wright Pass, and the border of the Yukon and North West Territories. Up into the empty bare rock landscape, with winds so strong it was impossible ride, and walking was hard, I was back into the Yukon. Passing a sign say I was entering a different time zone, I realised I had spent the last few days running one hour out.
At the very middle of the highway, is the Eagle Plains Hotel - a truck stop, hotel, café. I soon finished the biggest burger on the menu (2 burgers, cheese, turkey, fried eggs), set up camp and went to sleep as the rain came in.

By the time I cleared off the biggest breakfast on the menu, the rain all but stopped, and I set out once again.

The scenery had now become endless rolling hills, in every direction. On this, I passed back south of the Arctic Circle, on the only road in Canada to cross the line. Actually, the next road west is the road servicing the oil refinery on the north coast of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay, the next road to the east would on the Lofoten Islands of Norway.

By the fifth day, I was well on my way, climbing rapidly in the Ogilvie Mountains, being passed by around 10 vehicles days at this time. In the higher altitude, not far below the snow line, I didn’t exactly have the warmest nights sleep in my thin summer sleeping bag, and woke to find the tent covered in a few mm of ice.

I set out the sixth day wearing all my clothes, knowing I had 50km of up, and 80km of down to go. With strong wind and rain, it was a hard pedal up through North Fork Pass, the highest point on the highway. But finally I was able to take it easy as I started the 50 mile descent.
The Tombstone Mountain information centre had some displays of dead animals and plenty of interesting information. I read a newspaper cutting about a grizzly bear attacking a muskox, and winning. It’s also worth remembering that all bears can run over 40km up or down hill, cross small rivers, and basically do anything better and a lot faster than humans.
The next few hours, back in the low, lush lands south of the mountains brought me back into heavy tourist traffic - three of four trucks or motor homes an hour. Just short of the end, I hit tarmac again. Tarmac is such an amazing invention, always taken for granted - until you have just ridden 750km on gravel. For the same effort, my average speed suddenly went from under 14kph to 20kph, and I was soon at the end of road. It was 40km to Dawson, so I decided to camp at the R.V. park here, and I ate a not very good burger and soggy chips at the café - but still better than cooking noodles.