dempster highway – Ulen Adventures

15 August 2018, Dempster Highway NWT and YT

15 August 2018 Dempster Highway day 5

It’s hard to get a feel for the weather along the Dempster Highway. Being 450 miles long, there is no single forecast for it. But the forecast for Wednesday was for DRY. And it was supposed to be dry everywhere. And then it was supposed to rain for a couple of days. This created a bit of a quandary for us. If you get one dry day, how do you use it?

We spent the morning walking Inuvik again. We walked the mile or so to the Visitor’s Center to look at their exhibits. We did some more window shopping and decided to buy the hoodie we picked out the previous day. We would have, but the store wasn’t open despite the “store hours” sign saying it would be. Damn.

Welcome to Inuvik sign – it was too rainy to get a photo driving in, so we took it driving out

Then we let our lack of enjoyment driving up to Inuvik in the mud get the better of us. We decided to spend our day of DRY, driving back towards asphalt roads. We ate lunch in camp, then masking taped the truck and camper, gassed up the truck, and hit the road.

We put masking tape on the “seams” of the truck to try and help keep the mud out this time

We swung by the “hoodie store” on the way out of Inuvik and lucked out, they had opened. So Chuck got his Inuvik hoodie and the bragging rights that go with it. We hit the dirt out of town about 2pm. The road itself was dry and it was an easy drive. A stark contrast to the drive up. A 50mph speed was common.

We made good time, when we were moving. We just missed the ferry at both crossings. The first one made for a 45 minute wait, the second about a 15 minute delay. Then at about the 200 mile point we hit a road closed point. Apparently a tanker truck hadn’t negotiated those slick roads a couple of days ago as well as we had, and had gone off the side. And we arrived as they closed things down to pull the truck back up. We chatted with other drivers for 30 minutes and got to follow the damaged truck back to the small “town” about 10 miles down the road. And as luck would have it, all the rigs in front of us were diesel, and needed fuel. Add another 20 minutes waiting for the antique gas pump. Even with all the delays, it was still a much more enjoyable drive with the dry roads.

Just missing the Ferry crossing at MacKenzie River

The people we met from Tsiigehtchic call this their “Hollywood Sign”

There had been some snow along the highway while we were up in Inuvik, these are mountains between North West Territory and Yukon Territory

This truck had slid off the road on the Dempster, caused some road closure delays for us

We pushed on until about midnight. We had driven about 330 miles and were approaching one of the few campgrounds, one we had used on the trip up. We swung in, only to find all the sites taken. Back out on the highway…. But about a half hour down the road we found a nice secluded side road that would work for the night. And it was very quiet. 🙂

The Dempster is an interesting road. At it’s best, it’s a long dusty pot hole filled road that goes for 450 miles. 450 miles is wider than most states. Think about where you drive that’s 450 miles away, now think about going there on a dirt road at much slower speeds, twisting through turns while avoiding the holes that can ruin a tire. At it’s worst, it’ll suck you in and leave you stranded. Most of the dirt is a fine dust on a hard base. When dry, a nice surface. When wet, it becomes a cross between clay and wet cement. It’s slippery to drive, and horrible to walk in (even to just pull over to use the rest room). The “mud” gets into every nook and cranny of your vehicle. Even if you keep it on the outside, it acts like caulk and fills every exterior seam. When it’s raining you lose those nice views that make the drive so enjoyable. You now see just the clouds. And the water fills every pot hole making it impossible to tell the difference between a shallow one, and one that will destroy your tire. You can’t avoid them all, so you gamble, and sometimes you lose. You drop your speed to minimize the chance of vehicle damage, and the trip just gets longer. The road is straight and boring for miles, and 30mph is all you dare go. About half the traffic on the Dempster Highway is construction equipment maintaining the highway itself. Those guys know the road, and those big trucks handle the bumps and holes well. In dry weather, most vehicles are going close to the same speed and life is good. In wet weather, only the tourists seem to slow down. So added to the fun is the prospect of a big truck flying around a corner in front of you, or suddenly appearing in your rear view mirror. There’s quite a speed differential between them and you, and they sure throw up a lot of debris when they go past you, regardless of direction.

14 August 2018. Inuvik NWT

14 August 2018. Inuvik, NWT, Dempster Day 4

Today was one of those rare days where we knew we were going to be sleeping that evening in the same place where we woke up. Two consecutive nights in the same campground!

We decided to give the truck a rest and do some walking around town. The weather was cloudy, and we experienced only light showers through the day. We set out on a quest for an Inuvik t-shirt. We soon learned that the opening of the road to Tuktoyaktuk has created a busy summer for the local shops. If Chuck wanted a women’s sized small, or a mens 3X, he was in luck, otherwise they were very low on stock and wouldn’t be getting any more in for the season. This became our major quest for the day! We found a hoodie that was pretty neat, and planned on going back to the store the next day to pick it up.

We stopped by the library to use the only public wifi in town. They gave you a password that gave you two hours of internet use. And that’s about how long it took us to download five pictures of our mail that had been texted to us by Barb. Yeah, great free connectivity, but no bandwidth.

We also stopped by the local hardware store that was VERY well stocked. We bought a scrub brush for cleaning mud, and a roll of masking tape to seal up the exterior compartment doors for the drive back to pavement. Due to small repairs and such that have occurred over the course of the trip, we’ve visited the hardware stores in several small towns across Alaska and northern Canada. We have found them to be about the best stores in town. The are usually a little cramped, but there’s lots of aisles and they’re packed full of items. This is especially a contrast to the grocery stores in the same towns…

Inuvik was a friendly place, but that doesn’t mean we felt comfortable there. There was a stark contrast between the visitors driving their RV rigs, and the people that lived there that were just trying to survive. While there were mostly smiles from the locals, it was clear there were a lot of people hanging around with nothing to do.

Inuvik is built on permafrost which creates a lot of challenges. The biggest of which is to not warm the ground below. If you warm it up, it compresses and sinks. So not only are the buildings built on raised platforms with air circulation underneath, so are the utilities. All the “hook ups” are run through above ground conduits. It just looks really weird, but apparently works. Then these conduits are heated (to keep the water pipes from freezing). It looks like a maze of dryer vents running throughout the city.

We also walked our campground a couple of times. Making the drive up to Inuvik creates a bond with the others that have successfully completed the challenge. You smile and exchange stories when you run across people you’ve met earlier that day, yesterday, and over the course of the past week

Tradition First Nation clothing on exhibit in Inuvik

So Chuck likes to eat/drink what he likes to eat/drink. Some might call him “picky”. He thinks of himself as having a mild brand preference. And this has created some shopping challenges on this trip. You’d think all of North America would have peanut M&Ms. Not a chance. There have were several small towns where we scoured every grocery store in town (both of them), looking for peanut M&Ms. And in an area of the world that was explored due to the discovery of gold, you’d think that that was what peanut M&Ms were made of when you see the price! Well, we all have our bad habits. It has been fun to get down to the Yukon and find all the packages also labeled in French. Monster energy drinks have been another challenge with regard to availability and price. We pay about $1.40 per can at home. Normal gas station price can be $2.00 to $2.50. These things must be expensive to ship up here!

13 August 2018. Dempster Highway NWT

13 August 2018. Dempster Highway to Inuvik. Day3

We awoke this morning alongside our neighbors in the gravel pit. It had rained lightly most of the night and it was muddy. But we packed up camp and got in line for the ferry. We got lucky and were among the eight vehicles that made the first trip across the river. It was a “cable ferry” and it had us over in about 10 minutes.

Boarding the Peel River Ferry. Through the muck. In the rain

It continued to rain all morning. Not heavy, but just enough to maintain the water level in the pot holes, keep the road slick, and eliminate any chance of enjoying the scenery.

Dempster Highway was a bit muddy this morning

Our timing for the second ferry crossing was perfect. It’s a bit longer crossing at a confluence of two rivers and has an optional stop at a town between the rivers. But the ferry was loading as we came around the last corner and we drove right on and were the last vehicle loaded before departure.

It was only a couple of hours drive from the second ferry to Inuvik, and every inch of it sucked. There is no way to describe how bad it was, you just have to trust us. Sometimes you just cross that line from “having fun” to “get me the hell out of here”, and we crossed it. It wasn’t just the lousy drive this morning, it was an accumulation of things that just weren’t going quite right and creating some anxiety. But the world just seemed to change. We were no longer tourists going on an adventure, we were strangers in a strange land trying to survive.

The road had changed too. No longer a road cut into the mountain, it was a road built on top of permafrost. To build a road up here, they add an insulating layer on top of the soil, and build the road on top of that. That means for 100 miles, there is no shoulder. The road sits about 5 feet above the surrounding ground. You can’t pull off when you want to, and there certainly isn’t any place to change a tire, or even safely “use the restroom”. This made avoiding pot holes more of a challenge, as was passing on coming traffic. The road was actually only packed in the middle for long stretches, causing you to constantly hope for no cars, and NO big trucks.

Dempster Highway to Inuvik, NWT – note only three tire tracks for two lanes of traffic!

We hit Inuvik in the early afternoon. The first stop was the car wash. $10 got the heavy mud off the outside so we’d be able to pop up the camper. The underneath would have to wait.

Our camper at the car wash in Inuvik. We were very glad they had a car wash there!

Inuvik and the campground were actually quite nice. While muddy, the campground had nice sites with electrical hook ups. There were laundry facilities which we took advantage of the next day. The campground was close enough for us to walk, on pavement, into town.

The campground continued to fill through the afternoon. Many sites were filled with people we had talked to over the course of the previous couple of days. We talked a bunch and shared war stories. One had a broken tail light, one had lost two tires on his trailer, another was headed to find a welder in town. Most talked about trying to get enough mud off their rigs to make doors able to be opened and gear accessed. Mud was the common theme. As beat up as we felt, it was clear we hadn’t had as bad a day as had others.

This guy, too, couldn’t get his door open until he washed it off

This guy needed to get mud off his door to open it!

It is worth mentioning here the hearty folk that ride their motorcycles to Inuvik. The mud that packed the exterior of my truck was also packed into their bikes and clothing and gear. They slept in tents, and I don’t know how they kept warm, and how they dried out once wet. I don’t know how they maintained vision while on the road, and dealt with the slop thrown up by the four wheeled vehicles especially the construction trucks. My hat is off to them!!!

We spent most of our afternoon cleaning, and trying to get the camper furnace to warm up. There were occasional rain showers, but it started to dry out most of the afternoon.

Several people had made the additional drive up to Tuktoyaktuk, and several had plans to head up the next morning. It was about 90 miles each way to get up to the Arctic Ocean. As we tried to decide if we were also going to make the additional drive, one thing became clear. None of the people we talked to actually enjoyed the drive up there. It was an accomplishment, but it wasn’t fun. People talked about the mud, the wind, the cold temperatures, and nothing to do up there except say that you had been there. With our feeling beat up, and with things not working quite at 100%, we decided to skip the additional drive.

11 August 2018. Dempster Highway YT

11 August 2018. Dempster Highway Day 1 again

Well, we are trying it again. Got to the beginning of the Dempster Highway by about 1:15, got filled up with Diesel once more and started off. (I know, I know, the clock on the camera is an hour off! – but I need a WiFi connection to fix it…). We soon spotted our first wildlife – Ptarmigans! We saw a total of five of them this day. Sadly, one of them committed suicide under our tires…

The Dempster Highway was a bit rougher this time – a few more potholes

Hey – I don’t remember snow on the mountains last week!

The gear, while getting us on this remote journey, was not working 100%. We were still a bit nervous about the truck water pumps. They were fixed by the dealer, but there’s always some concern about the job being done correctly. We still carried a couple jugs of coolant and distilled water, and continued to pop the hood and check levels when we stopped. For some reason the truck’s front air bag warning light was on. Not a clue what the issue might be. We stopped and let about 14lbs of air out of the tires before heading up the Dempster Highway. We’ve done this a bunch of times before, and the truck runs well on dirt roads like this at speeds around 45-50 mph. But this time the TPMS light came on. We checked air pressure each time we stopped too, and none of the tires were losing air, or were at a lower pressure than desired. But now, running 900 miles on a road famous for puncturing tires, we had lost the system that would give us advance warning. The camper’s furnace and hot water heater had begun acting up. It didn’t work very well the night before we headed up the Dempster, and it wasn’t working very well the first couple of night along the trip. We still seemed to be getting warm water for showers, but the furnace would only operate at the low setting, would run most of the night, and wouldn’t heat the inside of the camper much above 62 degrees. If you turned the thermostat too high it would cause the furnace to try and run at it’s high setting, and it would shut down and need to be reset. So it became a challenge to pick the right setting that would allow the furnace to run, but not shut down in the middle of the night.

Because we had already stopped and hiked the Tombstone Territorial Park, we quickly passed through that area this time and camped in Engineer Creek – which is 120 miles up the Dempster. The word was, that there was high water at the first ferry crossing (Peel River – mile 335) And the Ferry was shut down. There were folk in the Engineer campground who had gotten tired of waiting at the Ferry crossing and were heading back south. We kept our fingers crossed that the water level would recede before we got there…Dempster Highway – the orange flags mean road damage — they really don’t mark all the road damage…

Dempster Highway near Tombstone Park

Who would have expected a traffic signal way out here?

Watched this plane come in for a landing – no idea why you would fly out here…

Engineer Creek has been colored red by all the minerals in the area. The book says “DO NOT DRINK”

The Limestone rocks along the creek have been colored red by the minerals in the water

Spent the first night in Engineer Creek Campground