Nothing makes me feel more like a sissy than reading about my beloved country of Canada. While I live in this vast and untamed country, full of amazing natural beauty and rugged experiences, I remain a tried-and-true city girl who is afraid of spiders and very suspicious of animals who are not leashed. However, I will admit that I feel a long dormant stirring of recognition whenever I come across a Canadian adventure story, as if the pioneering spirit of my ancestors (if that’s what they were) is calling to me.
One of those stories that awakens the crazy urge to set out and leave all of civilization behind (GASP!) has come to me through reading about the Dempster Highway.
Don’t know it? Well, it’s a 737.5 km hard packed gravel highway that straddles the boundary separating the Yukon with the Northwest Territories. The highway starts about 40 kms east of Dawson City, Yukon, with a turn to the north off Highway #2 (also called the Klondike Highway). Dawson City, as most people know, was where the Klondike Goldrush seemed to be headquartered (starting in 1896 and rushing for about 3 years). Its downtown was destroyed by fire in 1897—a casualty of a row between two dancehall girls, one of whom grabbed a burning lamp to pitch at the other when attempting to make a point. That rarely works. It burned down again in 1899 in a fire that somehow got started in the Bodega Saloon, and then it all happened again in 1900 when the Monte Carlo Theatre caught fire. On top of that, the city has had to deal with being flooded 5 times, the most recent being in 1979. None of the reports suggest that showgirls were responsible for that one.
The Dempster Highway, which we had previously been talking about, loosely follows an old dog sled route used by the Inuit to get from Dawson City to the hamlet of Peel’s River Post in the Northwest Territories. Peel’s River Post was the main Hudson’s Bay Company trading post for the Mackenzie Delta area and boasted the first North West Mounted Police outpost. The hamlet would later be renamed Fort McPherson. These days, the Dempster Highway continues on through Fort McPherson and finishes up in the town of Inuvik, a town of about 3200 people. That’s also the first place you’ll find a carwash.
The construction of the Dempster Highway was started in 1958 and had several stops and starts before the road was finally laid from Dawson City to Inuvik, with the Big Reveal held in August of 1979. The route that the Dempster takes covers permafrost which is a never-ending nightmare of maintenance if you build directly on it. Because of that, the highway is built up on a berm made of gravel that is packed between 1.2m and 2.4m above the level of the ground. Being a gravel road, it’s one heck of a mess during a heavy rain.
The full length of the Dempster Highway is only available to be travelled from approximately mid-June to mid-October for summer excursions, and then again from about mid-December until the end of April for winter excursions. The route takes advantage of ferry services that cross both the Peel River and the Mackenzie River (Canada’s longest river at 1740 kms) but once those rivers have frozen over each year (taking approximately 6-8 weeks to do so), ice roads allow for safe crossing. In the springtime, it only takes between 3-5 weeks for the rivers’ ice to thaw and for the ferries to be able to operate again.
The estimated time that it takes to drive the Dempster Highway is 12 – 14 hours, depending on the weather and road conditions, but most sources agree that the trip is much better, and way more satisfying, if it is slowed down to take at least 2 or 3 days each way to complete. That way, you’ll be able to appreciate the majestic surroundings that 3 mountain ranges and the northern landscape provide along the way.
In 2017, an additional 140 km highway, named the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway or the #10, was opened to tether Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk (didn’t see that coming!), a town perched on the edge of the Arctic Ocean and home to about 1000 people. Prior to that link there was only an ice highway to connect the two towns together during the winter. These days those wanting to drive the Dempster Highway can continue to journey along Highway #10 in order to arrive at the Arctic Ocean. And why would you not?
It is opportunities like this astounding 737.5 (+ 140) km trip, which beckon intrepid travellers to a hard packed gravel road, while quietly revealing the magic of the otherwise unbroken sub arctic and tundra landscapes, welcoming visitors into the Arctic Circle, and then tucking them in for the night under the Northern Lights (if they’re lucky), that whisper so dangerously to my soul, in ‘Canadian’. That trip would DEFINITELY be worth the t-shirt!
Facts to ponder before racing out to the car:
Smart travellers will make the trip on new tires plus throw two extras in the back just in case.
Fill up with gas and jugs of water in Dawson City and then refill both at your first gas station stop in Eagle Plains (population 8) 368.5 kms later.
You’ll find toilets at kilometre 0, 72, 368.5, 550, and finally kilometre 736. Just be sure that you are well aware of those sobering details when you buy your car-trip beverages.
The Arctic Circle begins at 66° 33’ north or 405.5 kms along the highway. There’s a sign.
The Arctic treeline is just passed that point, at 69°. No sign, but you should probably be able to figure it out for yourself.
You will be crossing the boundary from the Yukon Territory into the NWT at kilometre 465, at which time you should move your watch ahead an hour to Mountain Standard Time.
Finally, although there aren’t too many confusing highway details to cope with on the Dempster, buy yourself a paper roadmap and check the long-range weather before you leave Dawson City because Wi-Fi along the highway is very spotty and cell service is even worse.
Bon voyage!
