The Dempster Highway to Inuvik

The Dempster is an unpaved gravel road, with rough patches and warnings that it is slippery when wet and to watch out for potholes and washboard.  The total length is 737 km (465 km through Yukon Territory and 270 km in the North West Territories). You are also warned to take along 2 spare tires, food and water as a precaution.  We left the trailer in Dawson City and drove the truck.  I had packed gloves, warm socks and jackets etc, thinking that we might need them for this  part of the trip which took us above the Arctic Circle (66 degrees 33 minutes north).  Instead the temperature got warmer as we went north reaching 31 degrees C by the time we reached Inuvik (June 20th).

One is impressed by the sheer vastness of the countryside you drive through varying from unglaciated peaks and valleys of the Tombstone Mountains, rocky tors of Engineer Creek, the Ogilvie/Peel river valley,  high plains of tundra (Eagle Plain), glaciated & snow covered peaks of the Richardson Mountains, and the Mackenzie Delta, which is back to boreal forest/permafrost.  Despite the twists and turns you can see when a vehicle is coming in the other direction from the approaching cloud of dust (the black truck was a beige colour once we reached our destination).  Some photos below give a flavour of what we saw.  Our one and only large wildlife sighting was a young caribou crossing the road.  Apparently someone else had come across a grizzly bear as we found out at the NWT Visitor's Centre in Dawson City on our return.

Tombstone Mountains (ice on river)

Engineer Creek

Windy Pass - highest point on the Dempster

Crossing the Arctic Circle

Richardson Mountains

Eagle Plains (tundra & endless road)

More of Eagle Plains

Ferry across the Mackenzie River

Mackenzie Delta near Inuvik

Caribou crossing the road

Note in the above picture the stunted black spruce tees which is a typical sign of permafrost. (The black line in the picture is the truck aerial).

We spent the night in a hotel in Inuvik which has a population of about 3,500, a new hospital and several sites of interest.  June 21, the longest day of the year, was a statutory holiday in the North West Territories, Aboriginal Day, so most stores etc were closed but there were events all day. Most of the buildings are built on piles, as thawing and freezing of the permafrost underneath the buildings causes shifting of walls and other damage.  Utilities such as water and sewer are also above ground in a system of conduits called "utilidors". The staff in the Visitor's Centre were very chatty, as were others that we spoke to during the day.  As part of Aboriginal Day, there was a sourdough pancake breakfast at Ingamo Hall, which we were encouraged to attend.  We were also informed that rain was forecast, and the Dempster would be worse to drive on, which precipitated a shorter visit to Inuvik than we had originally planned on.  Below are photos of some of the sites in Inuvik.

Utilidors

Igloo Church

Mosque (moved from Manitoba in 2010)

Community Greenhouse

Ingamo Hall

Running out of bytes on our internet allocation, will have to stop there

Dawson City

We've been in Dawson City for 2 days now, the weather has been gorgeous, hot (25 - 28 degrees C) and sunny and we have seen a lot. Apparently spring break up of the ice on the Yukon River was late this year (May 16),  but summer and 24 hours daylight is here now.  Parks Canada have many buildings that they have restored here and the town  has strict rules for any new building, which must keep in character, the only thing that they don't control is the colour of the paint.  The town is aiming to get designation as a UNESCO Heritage Site (Population of Dawson Creek now is 1,500, in the 1890's at the peak of the Goldrush it was 30,000).  Dawson City sits on the flood plain of the Yukon river, and they have had to build a levee along the banks of the river to prevent spring run-off flooding.  Most of the houses are built on piles, rather than having basements because of the permafrost - which is a layer of earth of about 15-20 feet deep on top of the bed rock that is permanently frozen.  This area of Canada and parts of Alaska were not covered with ice during the ice age (Beringia region), early man and beasts roamed the area and bones & ivory  tusks of mammoths appeared occasionally  in the silt & gravel layers that the prospectors were thawing and digging up on their quest for gold.

new buildings

Old buildings

We took a tour put on by Parks Canada entitled "Then and Now", where an actress in period costume, and a Current Parks Canada Tour Guide took us to the famous sites and described what Dawson City was like in the past, and some info on what happens now. The walking tour took 1.5.hours and was well done.  See some of the photos below.

The Bank - note use of chicken wire

The Saloon

The Canada Post office with Post Boxes marked DC (Dominion of Canada

In the evening we drove up to Midnight Dome, a peak of about 2,000 ft in the area, with an amazing view of the Yukon River Valley and Dawson city below.

Dawson City from Midnight Dome

Yukon River Downstream from Dawson City

The next day we did our gold panning at an area placer mine, that is a mine that searches for gold in gravel using water and agitation to wash away the unwanted material from the gold nuggets.  Gold is 19 times as heavy as water and 7 times as heavy as the gravel/silt,  which is where the panning or sluicing technique comes in for recovering the gold from the motherlode of gravel.  We had a lot of fun learning how to pan for gold, and then we went to another Parks Canada National Historic Site, Dredge 4, the biggest floating dredger ever to be built in this area for commercial gold mining in the creeks.  We drove a little further up Bonanza  Creek, to where the initial discovery of gold was made, that started the goldrush stampede to the Klondike.

Dredge # 4

Next installment, the Dempster Highway and Inuvik

Whitehorse

In the last blog, I mentioned the Continental Divide, and that the Liard River flows into the Mackenzie River and to the Beaufort Sea.  The Yukon River and it's tributaries flow through the Yukon, into Alaska and into the the Bering Sea.  The Yukon river is 3,200 km long and chinook salmon make the long journeyfrom the ocean to Whitehorse to spawn (as per the information at the fish hatchery and fish ladder) which takes them two months.

The fish ladder runs beside the Yukon Hydro dam at Whitehorse, the fish enter the ladder on the left hand side of the weir. The other interesting thing that Yukon Hydro have set up nearby is a nesting site for a bald eagle and family, with a camera recording the comings and goings. Apparently there are three eaglets and the cam pictures can be seen at www.yeceagles.com

Whitehorse has been the capital of the Yukon since 1953, taking over from Dawson City that dwindled in population size from 30,000 during the Goldrush Stampede to about 1,900 today. We visited a couple of museums to learn more about the history of the area, including the building of the Alaska Highway.

After the USA joined in World War II in 1942, they were afraid that Japan would try and invade their country via Alaska, and wanted to move equipment up there to defend their land.  It took eight months for the US and Canadian armies and engineers to build the Alaska Highway which is 1,500 miles long. It's still one lane either way, and the road surface suffers from the effect of winter in the form of frost heaves (ridges and potholes) and needs constant maintenance.

During the Klondike Goldrush, the Stampeders (potential gold prospectors) travelled from Skagway on the Pacific Coast, up the White Pass or Chilkoot trail (very mountainous and rugged) to Bennett Lake, where they made boats, rafts or something that floated and set off for Whitehorse and Dawson City on the Yukon River.  As you can imagine, the dropout/survival rate for that trek was poor.  We have seen some of the rapids, and swift currents that they would have to negotiate.  In the late 1890's sternwheelers plied the Yukon River between Whitehorse and Dawson City.  Parks Canada have set up a National Historic site, around a sternwheeler S.S. Klondike, with an interesting film showing how the sternwheelers operated on the river after spring break up. 

S.S. Klondike

Paddle wheel

It took a lot of wood and manpower to operate these vessels which carried cargo and passengers.  It took about 36 hours to go from Whitehorse to Dawson City, and longer on the return trip upstream because of the currents and shifting sandbars in the the river.  In one spot at Five Finger Rapids, they had to use a cable and winch to get through safely and avoid smashing into the rocks.

Five Finger Rapids

At the McBride Museum, there was an excellent display of Yukon mammals, a display on the Yukon Quest, an 1100 Km dogsled race between Whitehorse and Fairbanks.  They also had the cabin that Sam McGee lived in whose name Robert Service used in his poem - although the real Sam McGee was alive and kicking and hailed from Peterborough Ontario.  Robert Service had a regular job as a bank teller for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and was later moved to Dawson City, where his cabin is a historical site.

Robert Service Poem about the Cremation of Sam McGee

Exterior view

Inside Sam McGee's Cabin

Now that we are above the 60th paralell, the almost 24 hour daylight takes a bit of getting used to.  We have blackout drapes on the trailer windows which helps.  We are currently in Dawson City and plan on traveling up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik on the Mackenzie delta in time for the summer solstice (June 21), which is also an Aboriginal festival dat there - more about Dawson City and Inuvik in the next posts.

From BC to Whitehorse in the Yukon

Continuing on through north western BC, with forest  (a lot of damage by the pine beetles was evident), mountain, gas/oil pipelines and compressor stations close to the road we stopped  at Fort Nelson Information Centre, and the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum just across the road.  They had some real "blasts from the past" as you can see from the next four photos.  How you ride that bicycle beats me.

We travelled a windy, scenic road with a beautiful view of the Muskwa River valley, and then of the rockies as we crossed the continental divide.

We stopped at Muncho Lake for the night, a beautiful emerald green lake  The weather was so nice we were able to eat supper outside at a picnic table, with a lovely view of the lake (no bugs bothering us either).

Muncho Lake

Leaving Muncho Lake the road followed the Trout River, which flows into the Liard river, which eventually runs into the Mackenzie river.  We stopped at a "mineral lick" that is popular with the wildlife - though we only saw evidence in the form of "poop" on the path.  We did come across a herd of wood bison on the side of the road a little further on.

Mineral Lick

Our next stop was the Liard River Hot Springs - the top part was too hot for us but the middle section was just right for a soak/swim (about 42 degrees C).

Stopped for the night at Watson Lake, just inside the Yukon, famous for it's signpost forest.  We surveyed a chunk of the 78,500 there but could not find the one left by the Ife's.  The best I could do was to catch the plate from Prince Albert.  We also went to a digital movie on "Space" and "the Northern Lights" at the Northern Lights Centre in Watson Lake.  More about the Yukon in the next posting.

From Saskatchewan to British Columbia

On leaving Prince Albert SK, we travelled through North Battleford to Lloydminster which sits on the Saskatchewan/Alberta border.  On the way there, the fields of canola, wheat and pasture for cattle and horses etc start growing oil and gas paraphenalia, as evidenced by black storage tanks, flares and "donkeys" .

oil patch donkey

oil tanks in fields

Following the Yellowhead Highway we stopped at Vegreville for the night, close to the world's largest Pysanka (Easter Egg) which was the town's centennial project in 1974.  The park also had a neat exercise area, reminiscent of those you sometimes see in China.  We were right beside a CN freight line and I counted 108 cars on the one train that went past.

Vegreville Pysanka

Following the Yellowhead Highway, we by-passed Edmonton and turned northwest towards Whitecourt. Valleyview passing through a vast expanse of boreal forrest (evergreens, poplars, aspens and birch) and rolling hills, giving way to good flat  farmland around Grand Prairie which is part of the Peace River watershed.

Today we drove from Grand Prairie, Alberta to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Mile "0" of the Alaska Highway, and drove the Hudson's Hope Loop to go and see the Peace Canyon Dam and the WAC Bennett Dam (also on the Peace River)  that provide a third of the power to British Columbia.  We were able to go on a tour of the large dam and learnt about how the dam was built and how it works.  There were an assortment of eagles (golden eagles and bald eagles) waiting at the exit tunnel for fish coming through the manifold.  We are staying at Charlie Lake near Fort St. John for the night.

Dawson Creek, Mile "0" Alaska Highway

on the Dam Tour in the Turbine Hall

Bald Eagles at the exit manifold

Peace River

WAC Bennett Dam