End of the road!

Our trip from Dawson City to Tuktoyaktuk was 576 miles each way on dirt, rock, and gravel roads. What we had heard of the roads were they were terrible and would literally slash your tires so carry multiple spares. We were in Gary’s Jeep Rubicon and Tom’s Honda CRV. Wrong. We found the roads not bad. There were some rougher sections where we drove 30 mph but most of the road was 50+ mph. I guess most of those thinking that it was so bad had never grown up driving gravel or shell roads. We had no problems other than a couple rock chips on the windshields which we expected. We did stop on the way back to help a guy change a tire on a rental truck camper. Since it was a rental all he had was the OEM jack. So we grabbed our air compressor, tire plugs, and impact driver. Tried plugging but there were at least 4 slits leaking so helped him change the tire. Met up with him later at Eagle Plains where they were able to repair it properly.

Once again we crossed the Arctic Circle like we did in 2019. We spent the first night in Eagle Plains which has a ?hotel?, very dated but comfortable, a restaurant, gas pumps, and a mechanic shop. Nothing else but it is halfway so a good place to rest and eat.

Then we drove into Inuvik for 3 nights. We were fortunate that weekend coincided with the Summer Solstice and National Indigenous Peoples day. Our room overlooked the baseball field where they had a tournament going each “night” until 2 or 3 am. The sun here would just circle around us never setting. We did facetime with Ella at midnight on Friday to show her how bright the sun was. On Saturday there was the Indigenous Peoples festival where they cooked whitefish, burgers, hot dogs, and caribou stew. Missed out on the stew but the whitefish was very good. And it was all free. We also visited the famous Igloo Church and were treated a tour of the attic and basement areas.

This picture was at about 2am

Then Sunday morning we drove into Tuk for the day. Cindy and I walked into the Arctic Ocean there which is actually the Beaufort Sea. Air temperature was 38ºF and the water temperature was 31.8ºF. A couple weeks ago there was still ice but it has since all broken up from wave action. We did see lots of ice driving up in the lakes. With the cold north wind blowing the water didn’t feel as cold as it actually was. But still too cold for a total plunge!

Then Cindy and I along with Darlene and Diana enjoyed a nice traditional meal cooked by Eileen, a local lady. We had muktuk (beluga whale blubber) which was thankfully boiled. Quite tasty. Then caribou stew, moose chili, baked Husky lake trout, baked Arctic char, bannock donuts, salad, coleslaw with blackberries, blackberry muffins, cream cheese tart with arctic berries. Oh and Tom and Gary went to Grandmaw’s kitchen to have “white man’s fast food” as Eileen said. 

Then back to Inuvik for our last night. Then we drove back to Eagle Plains for the night. While we were up there the road down to the Klondike hwy and it were closed due to wildfires. So when we got up yesterday morning and saw the road was open we battled our way through the mosquito hordes, jumped in the cars and started driving. We were able to get back to Dawson City and our RV’s with no problem. And we saw no evidence of fires or recent burns along the road but did see plenty of smoke. Last night it rained so the air is clear today. 

We did see a grizzly bear crossing the road. And saw a moose.

We’ll probably leave in the morning and cross the Yukon river on the ferry. There is a campground about 90 miles in Alaska we’ll try to spend there a few days if there are open sites. Of course 90 miles on gravel roads will take us 3 hours. Or longer if the rain deteriorated the roads.