Our small Cessna plane was jolting over the tundra. This was a place where deep blue water streams and rivers filled with melting snow were abundant. Green hills emerging in various spots looked incredibly charming, and as soon as I saw them, the pilot’s spontaneous voice echoed in my headphones… “Pingos.” The term ‘pingos’ refers to the mounds or hills covered with snow and greenery. The pilot explained the term ‘pingos’ after seeing my raised eyebrows.
A deep, ribbon-like winding road passes between these round mounds. Just a few days earlier, I had driven on the Dempster Highway to the Arctic. The Dempster Highway is considered one of the most difficult roads in Canada.
In fact, calling it a highway for this rough and unpaved road is quite an understatement. This road extends from Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon, to Dawson City. On this 764-kilometer-long highway, you encounter dense forests and snow-covered peaks before reaching the Arctic town of Inuvik.
The idea of the Dempster Highway was conceived in the late 1950s for oil and gas exploration in the Mackenzie Delta, and it was established where sled dogs used to patrol. Now, another major highway is connected to the Dempster, extending another 147 kilometers beyond Inuvik to a small town called Tuktoyaktuk on the northern coast of the Arctic Ocean.
The long and desolate Dempster Highway is one of Canada’s best and most challenging long journeys, where you can have an adventure with a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Traveling on this challenging highway is not easy; driving it is quite difficult. Travelers and drivers who make it from one end to the other are awarded a certificate by the tourist office for traveling on the “most challenging road.” This is because it is a rough road with no mobile signals or ample food and accommodation options. There is only one gas station along the entire route, located about halfway through the journey.
Anyone planning to travel on this highway should mentally prepare for any adverse situations or travel difficulties. As I experienced myself.
Our small group, including me, the pilot, and a couple, was returning to Inuvik after a day trip to Tuktoyaktuk, which the locals call Tuk. This tourist trip was organized by a company named Tundra North Tours.
Until 2018, access to the Inuvik region was possible only by small planes, boats, or ice roads during winter. Meanwhile, the locals of Tuk live far from the settlement. They spend their time fishing and storing the catch in underground freezers. Local guide Alien Jacobson, who welcomed us into her home, also has some reservations about the new road and its impact on their lives.
She says, “More tourists might come with this road, and maybe it will reduce the prices of gas and food.” However, there are also other concerns. The locals are well aware of how previous areas, such as Inuvik, have been devastated by drug and alcohol addiction.
Although the remote communities of Canada, like Inuvik, receive government assistance to preserve their traditional lifestyle, ancient skills, and navigation without relying on modern technology.
I was still reflecting on all of this a few days later as I was leaving Inuvik with its igloo church, colorful houses in rows, and the Aleutians, where I used to go every day to eat deer meat and fish tacos at a restaurant in a bus adorned with various bright stickers.
Experience of Traveling on the Dempster Highway
During the journey on this highway, things were initially fine. I traveled the bumpy section of the Dempster Highway in my SUV, passing through a small, less dense forest and reached the wide Mackenzie River in two hours.
There, a ferry awaited me to carry my car across the river. As soon as I boarded, we began crossing a local settlement across the river.
However, shortly after, I was redirected from the Peel River ferry landing, which is south of Fort McPherson, a moderately large Gwich’in settlement. This was the last settlement I would see before Dawson City, located about 580 kilometers to the south. I was informed that melting snow in summer had raised the river’s water level, preventing the ferry from docking. When I asked when the service would resume, the man shrugged and said, “Maybe tomorrow, maybe not.”
Like the locals, I felt at the mercy of nature’s whims. However, for the locals, crossing the river was not a matter of life and death.
Just imagine the situation if there were a medical emergency during the extremely cold weather (November to December) or during spring (March to April) when the ice is melting and neither the ice roads are open nor the ferry service operates due to flooding. What would the locals do?
Anyway, I spent the night in a hotel by the Peel River. I wanted to catch a flight from Whitehorse, and during this entire adventure, time was running short and the competition was tough.
The next day, I crossed the river using the ferry service, and now I had to drive. Fortunately, luck was on my side, and I drove south through dense forests on both sides of the road, kicking up dust on the rough road.
The scenery changes by the hour on this highway. I passed snowy peaks, rivers filled with melting glacier water, and hills, and entered a green area. At that moment, I thought, “I should keep driving until I get tired or encounter another problem.”
Besides the alteration of my travel plans due to the ferry delay, another reason was that I did not want to stop or get stuck in this desolate and remote area. I wasn’t worried about hunger or thirst, but I was mentally prepared for a potential bear attack. However, I was concerned about the forest fires here, as wildfires in Canada’s north have become a common occurrence in summer. I was worried that a fire might break out.
Driving through the forest fires in the country’s northwest, I realized that the smell of smoke naturally instilled fear in me. Fortunately, the day was good on the Dempster Highway, the weather was kind, and the forest around me was enveloped in dense fog.
Soon, rain started falling, washing away my worries and fears. However, another minor difficulty in driving occurred: the rain had turned the rough road into mud, causing the vehicle to skid.
At that moment, I realized that by keeping the four-wheel-drive vehicle in the middle of the road, the chances of skidding would be reduced. Because skidding can be damaging.
As soon as I saw the Eagle Plains Motel, which is located halfway along the Dempster Highway, I sighed with relief and began to tremble with joy. When I told the waitress at the inn what had happened along the way, she assessed my condition and said that many people who come here feel the same way.
She was happy to see me reach there and I ordered a burger and meatloaf. She told me, “Actually, drivers here drive very fast and skid off the road. It’s like driving on an icy road. Since there are no mobile signals here, they can’t call for help.”
I nodded in agreement. She continued that most of the Dempster Highway has no mobile signal, and very rarely does anyone have a satellite phone. In such situations, they have to wait for a vehicle coming from behind and often have to wait for several days to recover their vehicle stuck in a ditch or down a slope.
I told her that I had understood the nature of the Dempster Highway on the first day when I started my journey from Inuvik and covered half of the 360 kilometers without any accidents. At that time, I had been in a false sense of security on the highway.
“I was also surprised why my guidebook mentioned keeping two spare tires instead of one for safety measures on this highway.”
Before I could consider myself useless, I woke up from my ignorance when I heard a beep from my car and saw on the meter that air was rapidly leaking from one of the tires because it was punctured.
During the days when the Dempster Highway was covered with gravel and dirt, the chances of tire punctures were less. But it was a reminder that any accident could happen at any time. Although I had a car jack and tools for changing tires in my car, I thought it best to take my car to a local mechanic near the Eagle Plains Inn, and I managed to drive a few kilometers further to get there.
He fixed the puncture and made it possible for me to reach Inuvik that day.
Now, the return journey to Dawson City was easy and pleasant on the final stretch of the Klondike Highway. The straight road opened up the surrounding forest, and the sun was shining brightly. However, as soon as I crossed the junction of the Dempster-Klondike Highway, I was shocked to find that my car had run out of fuel.
I couldn’t believe my eyes that within seconds my car’s fuel tank was empty, and the vehicle stopped.
This was another of the obstacles you might face when traveling on the Dempster Highway. There were no mobile signals here, and I was stranded about 40 kilometers east of Dawson City on the Klondike Highway. My car had stopped, and it was possible that no help would reach me for several hours.
However, fortunately, just a few minutes after my car stopped, a passing vehicle gave me a lift, and I reached my guesthouse in Dawson City. Returning to the guesthouse, I realized that this too was part of the adventure of traveling on the Dempster Highway. Throughout this journey, whenever I came close to encountering a problem or accident, luck had held my hand.
