Embarking North, Part 7: Tuktoyuktuk, Northwest Territories - Palmer, AK
We are picking up where we left off in our previous blog post, putting Tuktoyuktuk in our rearview mirror and heading south along the Dempster Highway setting our sights on Palmer, Alaska where we plan to spend a few days with some friends.
As we were leaving town, a few of the giant Pingos that are so unique to this landscape started to come into view. These formations are only found within these far northern latitudes. Made of giant underground ice formations that slowly push upward through the permafrost forming cone-shaped hills sometimes as high as 50 m (150 feet). The highest concentration of these globally is found here on the Tuktoyuktuk peninsula; in total 1350 of them can be found here.
We made out way from Tuk to Inuvik, then to our first ferry crossing over the Mackenzie River.
On our first day of driving south along the Dempster, we were able to cover a good amount of ground, averaging roughly 80 km/h. That evening our progress suddenly came to an end when we spent an hour or so driving through a heavy rain storm that completely saturated the road, turning it into a slippery peanut butter consistency that was shockingly greasy given how much shale gravel was in the mix. Our speed slowed to a near crawl. We traveled for a while in 4-wheel drive struggling to keep the truck as straight as we could while we climbed over a gently winding hill. Just over the top, we decided to call it a day and tucked off the road, backing up to a hillside, to create a small shelter from the wind.
We spent a few minutes wandering around camp stretching our legs and capturing some of the textures of the plants and ground that made up our soggy home for the night, all while keeping a careful eye out for any Grizzlies. Dinner quickly followed and we finished our dishes in a slight drizzle, followed by filtered some water from a small body of water close to the road. We pretty quickly found ourselves retreating from the rain to the dry warmth of our sleeping bag. Sleep came quickly that night aided by the gentle pitter padder of raindrops on the roof of our Go Fast Camper.
The following day we continued our trek south, covering ground quickly and without event. The rains from the previous day had stopped, however, a heavy and low cloud layer persisted for much of the day preventing us from enjoying some of the vast views that this section of the Dempster offered. When things did clear we were treated to beautiful vistas of the tundra dotted with surprisingly dense and green Boreal forest.
Further south along the road at the edges of Tombstone Territorial Park, we stopped to make lunch along the road and to soak in some of the sunshine. A real benefit of the light traffic along this road is that stopping along the shoulder doesn’t pose much danger as long there is good visibility in either direction.
This section of the Dempster was one of our favorites. Wide open valleys with gently meandering streams called for us to stop and fish for a bit. Sadly we pressed on, our tight time frame again driving our pace. Hopefully, we will get to return to this section one day and with any luck get to pull some of the beautiful Dolly Varden or Arctic Char from these cold subarctic waters.
In total, our drive south along the Dempster took us two days to complete, a day shorter than our trip north and a whole lot faster than we would have liked! This area is certainly one that we would like to experience again, and it feels worthy of its own trip altogether!
Our truck faired pretty well, but not without some nicks and dings from such a long and relatively fast trip over so much gravel. We got one small rock chip in our windshield, a result of someone hastily overtaking us, and lots of small cuts and chips out of the tread of our tires. We are grateful for the good tires we had on the truck for this trip as we were able to avoid a flat tire which is all too common thanks to the sharp shale gravel on the road.
Just before our ferry crossing back over the Yukon River outside of Dawson City, we spotted a familiar truck ahead of us. We had seen this truck several times on Instagram, and it was the same one that we had snapped a few photos of as they passed by, several days prior as we were headed north on the Dempster.
We hoped that we would share the ferry with them and might get to say hi, but they were just a bit quicker than us and crossed ahead of us. We assumed that their larger truck would be a bit slower than ours going up the Top of the World Highway, but we were wrong. Their speed surprised us and we didn't see them again until the summit.
At the summit we pulled off the road to head to camp in a spot we had stayed nearly a week prior, we spotted their truck again, this time stopped, blocking the road ahead of us. Puzzled, we pulled in behind them and waited for a few moments before someone (Arthur) appeared from around their truck and informed us of what was happening. Ahead of them a motorcyclist had broken his chain and had come to a stop on a small piece of dry road between two huge puddles. In the process of the chain breaking it had gotten jammed behind the drive cog and the motor, nearly making the bike impossible to move. After learning this we walked over with Arthur to see if there was any way that we could help. There we met Blake, the rider of the bike, and Judith, Arthur's wife.
Blake by this point had managed to cut most of the broken chain away from the bike, except for the portion that was still tightly wedged between the cog, and the motor. We spent some time looking at the situation and seeing if we could come up with a solution. Between us all, we eventually worked out a plan and managed to free the broken chain and replace it with a spare that Blake had.
By this point in the evening the border crossing ahead of us, that we were all headed towards, had closed. We offered that we would like to share our camp with everyone if they'd like. Judith and Arthur said yes, but Blake decided that he was going to continue on. We all wished him good luck and safe travels and we parted ways.
I don't think it had been more than ten minutes until Blake reappeared, saying that he had made it this far, starting from California and that it was silly for him not to stay, so the three of us spent a night together sharing a small flat portion of road close to the US and Canada border.
The next morning Judith and Arthur invited us all in for coffee, it was a nice break to be in the warmth and comfort of their truck called Yoda and out of the chilly mist that was blanketing our ridgetop camp. We all exchanged travel stories and our plans for the rest of our trips. Learning that Judith and Arthur had plans to tour a similar route through Alaska as us and that Blake was quickly making his way back to California. We all exchanged information and made tentative plans with Judith and Arthur that we would potentially reconnect with them furth south in Alaska.
After coffee we all broke down camp and made our way to the Alaskan border at Little Gold, which I’m sure is one of the most beautiful border crossings in the world! We crossed just behind Judith and Arthur in Yoda, with Blake a good ways behind us.
Despite this being the second time we entered Alaska, the first being the large fire detour that we had to make, it felt appropriate that we celebrate, so we stopped and took several photos at the welcome to Alaska sign, and bumped into our newly made friends again. We didn’t know it at the time but this was the start of a very long and wonderful friendship with Judith and Arthur, we would meet up with them many more times in the future!
Over the next two days, we would pick away at the mileage separating us from Palmer, AK. Despite a lack of secluded camp spots along this section of road we managed to find a decent spot, just off the highway, that we would call home for the night and our office for the next day as we had sufficient cell phone signal to be able to work.
The following day we made it into Palmer where we would spend several days with our friends Martin and Beth. We befriended these two years ago over a similar shared interest in owning an LMTV. Martin is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to those trucks, he spent many hours with us over the phone helping to troubleshoot various issues that we were fixing with our M1078 as we got it up to road-worthy condition. We eventually met them in person as they traveled across the lower 48, making a stop in our hometown several years ago. It had been a while since we last saw them, and over that time they certainly helped to convince us to make the long trip to visit Alaska, it felt good to land in such a beautiful place with people that know and love the surrounding area so much. One of the best parts was that they had intentionally made their driveway in such a way that there were 2 secluded and private camp spots a stone’s throw from their house.
Thanks for following along this far! We hope that you'll join us again soon as we travel around the Kenia peninsula, and venture slightly north in Alaska as well where we will explore old mines, and walk around some massive glaciers!
Judith and Arthur together run an amazing Instagram and YouTube as Yoda travels where they are documenting their travels south along the Panamericana Highway, we highly recommend you check them out and tell them we sent ya.
