Mythologia abounds in Canada and its arctic. We are, after all, a mass of disconnected forts and towns that were originally designed to be place markers for British colonies. And second, to extract resources from this unforgiving land for export. While much has changed in our major cities, in rural Canada this still often holds true. And in Canada's three northern territories, this is the rule rather than the exception.
Amongst that mythologia lay two important landmarks: Dawson city, smack in the middle of the Yukon Territory, and the Dempster Highway. On a long weekend in the sun-never-sets northern territories of my own nation I decided to make a road trip, with my sister, and see these two items. Dempster had been a lifelong goal of mine, as since I mentioned - it's a part of Canadian mythology. As Alaska and Capitol hill are to Americans, the Dempster symbolizes a facet of the Canadian ideology - reaching remote communities, opening them up to the world, preserving the unique landscape around them. Further, the Dempster's notoriously difficult landscape has made it perhaps the most challenging stretch of public road on this continent.
"Expect to blow a few tires on the way up" was the most common advice given from those who had done it. This in itself had kept me from attempting the Dempster before: after all, wouldn't it suck to get caught in arctic wilderness with three blown tires? Your average driver would blow two or three tires on the trip up - the Dempster is, as we found out, a seven hundred kilometre long strip of gravel stretching across some of the harshest terrain on the planet. In many places it is a bed of gravel that one must drift between and in others it is a stretch of mud that one must slide along. While amenities are surprisingly easy to come by for a remote stretch of highway, the actual act of travelling along this road would not be something to take lightly.
My associate, my sister, currently living in Whitehorse, owned a fine jeep cherokee that is perfectly fine for roaring around the lesser roads of the Yukon and Alaska; but for the Dempster, we opted to rent. This was not a cheap option, though blowing tires isn't exactly a cheap thing to endure either. I secured a fine vehicle closer to a tank than an SUV, a 2004 GMC Yukon with tires thicker than some small cars in their entirety and exactly 322 kilometres on its odometre - the distance it takes, my associate told me, to drive it off of the ships in Skagway in Alaska to the parking lot at the Whitehorse airport.
This was no bum ride - fully adjustable seats(with localized heating controls for all 8 seats), sunroof, CD changer, sensors all over the engine telling me the oil integrity and exact fuel mileage, direction and bearing on the rear view mirror and even a voice activated GPS system that happily responded to my only command to it: "Shut up!" No, this was a first class vehicle, right off the assembly line, and ready for a little breaking in. the most difficult highway in Canada, there and back, and a little more for the highway to and from Dawson City. A good 2300 kilometre round trip, a solid brand new vehicle that bore the name of the territory where it lay - sounds like the start of a good summer road trip.
Though beginning the Dempster is a feat in itself. This is not an easily accesible road to begin with - Whitehorse is a cool 21 hours' drive north of Vancouver, though I flew in and cut this down to two hours. The sky was dusty and the air smelled of smoke, the land currently suffering under their worst season of forest fires since 1969. Down here, in the 'south' per se, the average day(and evening, for that matter) temperature is a balmy 25-30 celcius. So on a roaring summer day, a summer day when the sun never sets, we set off in the afternoon for Dawson City.
Dawson City is a shadow of its former self, a city that existed as the centre of the universe for a brief moment in time and quietly, quickly, drifted off the map entirely. The massive gold rush of 1896 turned it into the largest town up here for that time, bringing prospectors and adventurers from across the world to a tiny valley along the Yukon River. Lawlessness and corruption ensued, gold was found and lives were lost, suppliers made a killing and prospectors went broke. From its heyday at the end of the 19th century its population slowly evaporated over the first decade of the 20th century and now, at the beginning of the 21st, stands as a village of less than two thousand and desperately clinging to the ghosts of its former glorious past.
Sounds familiar, and the stories of possible riches in the remote Canadian north are often offset by the epilogue of the boom becoming a bust and all of the entrepreneurs packing up and leaving; though Dawson's brightly painted and restored turn of the 20th century frontier buildings are offset by a lilting boarded up church and other privately owned shacks that bear hints of the 'classic' Yukon image of log cabins and hairy men. Tour buses roar through tiny Dawson and it even boasts two backpacker's hostels; to the west is the Top-of-the-World Highway that winds into Alaska, and back to the east is the turnoff to the Dempster highway. Dawson currently exists as a scenic stopover with support staff to maintain it, though calling it a 'town' would imply some sort of growth. Their glory days over a century ago, and thus their sole reason for existing, have long since passed. As a sort of living history the town limps along, bringing in profits and keeping alive a place that wou ld have otherwise vanished, but it is now a one trick pony. Industry is nonexistent, as is growth. Securing their route on the bus tour circuit of the Yukon and Alaska is the best they aim for at this moment.
And this would not be the first town of this sort in the Yukon - small stops along the highway like Carmacks could do so much more to attract the tourists en route to and from Alaska and the Dempster but fail to do so. This is the conundrum of the small northern town - without industry, there is nothing to keep people here - aside from the first nations people who, for some reason, feel less inclined to start up businesses in their own backyard. And thus, these towns stagnate as those with the skills to create businesses will do so elsewhere. The small towns shrink slowly, and, further down the road, die. Unless something else comes along.
As an aside, the economic implications of what happens in these small rural towns is obvious. Anyone with skills, as I said, will leave. Everyone in a menial service job in Whitehorse is still in highschool, as once they graduate they will be way down the highway. The incentive for staying here is minimal; some do stay and work with local industries, but most do not. Abandoned buildings do not get redeveloped as there is no reason to do so, there is no interest in doing so, and no funding either. Whitehorse is the only town I saw in the Yukon with any growth whatsoever; but it was a lopsided growth, a few flashpoints of economic activity, rather than a revolution. The future for these small towns is not necessarily friendly.
Though from Dawson we turned back and began at the start of the Dempster Highway - named for an adventurous mountie who travelled by this route via dogsled, the path learned from local natives, the highway was intended to mimic his way into the Northwest Territories. This was also a wonderful year to drive this highway as it celebrates its twenty-fifth year of completion, and road crews are more attentive than usual at making sure the highway is in good condition as the territories try to attract more visitors to the joy of blowing tires in remote places.
Paved for a klick or two, and a bridge too, a few small flashpoints from a forest fire to begin but later on we were grumbling along the wide gravel strip that would take us to the arctic proper. The most important stop on the way - Tombstone park, which impressed me deeply. Towering spires of mountains and lush green valleys in between them, it was rugged beauty but also accessible. Originating from southwestern B.C. I am used to climbing upward under a heavy canopy of trees to even start a hike - places like this, with low rolling grassland and amazing scenery in all directions that can be immediately seen, is a rarity indeed. If I had more time I would have disappeared west into the valleys, but the goal of this trip would be Inuvik and we had to continue.
The greenery of the countryside was lush in this balmy july; under a never setting sun the surrounding lands burst into bright and dark greens of all colours. Vegetation was everywhere, from thick blankets of moss to stout black spruce trees that stood barely taller than our vehicle. Low rolling hills stretched into the vast wilderness and massive valleys of untouched grassland sat everywhere. It was like driving through farmland without farms. I kept thinking, "someone should build a ranch here!" but, given the brief period that these landscapes are actually green, their annual productivity would be quite low. And all along the Dempster highway was the Fireweed, a bright pink flower that seems to flourish in the imported gravel with which they built the highway. It was almost like driving through a garden, with vast green spaces on either side and a bright pink lining along the road.
This beauty, though, would be offset by the difficult driving conditions. Our vehicle handled the highway well, but other drivers with campers and semi-trucks were not as careful as we and made several blind corners risky. The worst stretch of road was between two ferries in the Mackenzie Delta, and the best stretch was easily the first few kilometres to Tombstone Park. Though onward and upward -
To Eagle Plains, several hours' drive north of the end of the park, and it stands as again a small frontier post built solely on drilling prospects but promptly abandoned when those prospects went bust. It now sits as the most expensive place in the country to get gas(at currently $1.224 per litre), a great place to buy expensive tires, make a phone call, and maybe sleep for the night if you feel like it. Sort of like a garage on the last highway on earth, a strange sort of place whose closest airstrip is in fact a stretch of the highway. Yes, that's right - there are 'emergency air strip' signs along the highway in this most remote stretch, where the road is widened and used, very occasionally, for landing planes. Don't forget to look up when you're driving through.
And from Eagle Plains to the Arctic Circle, an obligatory photo and two washrooms for you to do your business and ponder the significance of doing your business exactly at the arctic circle - it's cold up there, too. Again, small rest stops along the highway to nowhere, though I would appreciate the Yukon's attentiveness to tourism more once I passed east into the Northwest Territories.
Despite the huge ruler lines that make up many of Canada's internal borders these political regions have developed in much different ways. Travelling through the Yukon it is obvious how important tourism is for that territory's economy - but here, in the NWT, industry in remote places stands as king and tourism takes a back seat. The road worsened. The weather worsened. There was even a time zone change.
There were two free ferries to transport people across the marshy landscape nearing the end of the Dempster - here is, after all, the mighty Mackenzie River and its delta, a vast low lying area of arctic swamp and marsh. The Mackenzie river is a massive waterway and -could- be used for shipping once in awhile, if it wasn't frozen over for eight months of the year and, in fact, there was something to ship. The NWT is famous for its new diamond mines, vast oilfields, and other massive resource extraction operations in the middle of nowhere only accessible by hundreds of kilometres of private roads. Though history may repeat itself once again - rumours persist of the newly built diamond mines yielding less than expected profits, and even after only a few years of operations talks of closing them up entirely. More years of unemployment for the locals who are constantly hard done by for work?
Into the NWT though - along a soft bed of gravel, the worst stretch of road being between the two ferries, and the town in between them, Fort McPherson. This town brought back memories of my first trip up here to the arctic in 2000 - a mess of small wooden houses on blocks(since foundations cannot be built on shifting permafrost), gravel roads, idle first nations folk and a single general store and gas station. Teenagers milled about and locals sat on their porches, gazing at the two tourists rolling through town for a peak as we gazed back. On our way out I caught the RCMP truck rolling behind us stop, its doors fly open, and a cop burst out to chase a native teenager across the gravel landscape. I could only wonder if he had deliberately done something wrong or if he was just antagonizing the local cops in this small isolated town as a way of keeping busy. Or if the cops were antagonizing him as a way of keeping busy. In a place like this, with only a few hundred residents, all of those are distinct possibilities.
To the next ferry though, and across the mighty Mackenzie into the lowest marshlands and our worst campsite - stormclouds of mosquitoes at this place just outside of Inuvik, a terrible conundrum when you're trying to get to sleep in the back of a massive SUV. Open the door to let three out, six more fly in. Ultimately we had to shut all doors and windows and start the killing to get a buzz-free sleeping environment. Though, a few would survive the genocide and proceed to suck blood from a few spots on my forehead over the night.
And finally, 17 hours of driving later, we arrived at a paved road and the outer limits of Inuvik. Like Fort McPherson, the look and feel of this town was wholly different than the frontier-ish design of Yukon towns - this was an arctic town, an Inuit town, though its business owners all seemed to be non-native. Its dome shaped church is famous, its streets were quiet on a saturday morning, and basic necessities cost way more than they needed to. This is the remote, inaccessible arctic that stands as another facet of Canadian mythology, isolated towns consisting of first nations and RCMP and a few crazy immigrants who found their way up here for one reason or another.
Accomplishing the Dempster this year was a better deal than most as the girl at visitor's information was handing out certificates and little Dempster passports - all in an effort to promote tourism along the Dempster for its 25th anniversary, I am now a proud holder of a Dempster Highway Passport(get stamped at 8 sites along the Dempster and enter a draw in Dawson City to win a prize!), and a certificate of the Arctic Circle Chapter Order of Adventurers. But beyond both of those we also each received a swank 25th anniversary certificate proclaiming us both as honourable members of the exclusive Dempster Highway Order of Arctic Adventurers. That's going on my c.v. for sure.
We spent perhaps half a day in Inuvik and began back. The arctic ocean is close, but also very far - Tuktoyaktuk is a small town on its shore, but roads to there are only available in the winter as slowploughs carve a road along the ice that forms. On our way back we encountered thick mud, heavy rains, and hard roadwork, all in the Northwest Territories. Upon emerging in the Yukon at the border the sun suddenly came out, the roads became dry, and the entire experience became more pleasant. That ruler line has done something to this land. We spent more time at Tombstone park on the way back, and if you're the type to keep hiking until it gets dark you'll be hiking for a long time here indeed.
The sun moved in circles around the sky, round and round, but never set. I did not entirely believe it until I saw it, and if your internal clock is as messed up as mine it wouldn't matter much anyway. With this continuous sunlight the lower arctic regions burst into life for a brief four month period, then quickly fade back to white. The Dempster is a very gratifying trip, not as difficult as some may say, though consider that I did take the most appropriate vehicle for a 700 kilometre stretch of mud and gravel road.
Here are my Dempster Statistics:
Fastest speed: 135 km/hour (stretches between Tombstone Park and Eagle Plains)
Slowest speed: 50km/hour (mud near the NWT/Yukon border and roadwork)
Average speed: 110km/hour
Cheapest gas: 95.9 cents/litre(Whitehorse)
Most Expensive gas: 1.224 cents/litre(Eagle Plains)
Gasoline used: 4 tanks(320 litres)
Tires blown: 0
Windshield nicks: 1, very small(on the last stretch of gravel before Whitehorse of all places!)
Vehicle used: 2004 GMC Yukon SLT
I'd recommend the trip to anyone. Hope you're all well.
-July 2004
