It had rained overnight, but the sun was out now, there was a wind off the lake and we had no agenda for the day except to get to Whitehorse, so we had a chance to let everything dry before packing it up.

We are staying with our friends Robert and Carl for the next few days while exploring around Whitehorse, so we don’t have to worry about getting a site at a campground. It will be nice to have time to visit with them, it will also be nice to have a bed and shower for a few days.

We had a great sleep and went downtown to find someplace other than McDs  to access wifi as we are getting a bit tired of fast food. We found a great little place at the end of main street called Baked. I had a flatbread with pesto, blue cheese, pears, walnuts and arugula. Boy was it good! Linda had a scone. I think she may really like scones as she gets one every time we are at a bakery.

While I was making use of the wifi, Linda went exploring in the mall and found a cheese shop. They had a wonderful selection, it was had to make a choice. We ended up with 2-year old cave aged Gruyere which should keep really well for camping and L’edel de Cleron, a soft cheese wrapped in bark that should be awesome heated on the campfire.

We parked at the visitor’s centre then shopped our way up main street. We definitely helped to support the Whitehorse economy today. We dropped our bags at the car then waited for the waterfront trolley. We had planned to take it all the way to Shipyards park, almost the end of the line, but it only went 2 stops down from where we were. The trolley is purely a tourist attraction, as almost anyone can walk faster than it goes. But, it is only $1 and was an interesting experience. We walked back to main street after we got off and headed to the Yukon Quest office to look for T-shirts. I wouldn’t have said anything, but Linda had to tell them that I had been in the Quest years ago. That prompted the lady to look in the history book that was published a few years ago and pointed out where it clearly says I scratched. Sigh. That will always be something I remember as an adventure and a huge challenge, but also an abysmal failure.

Quite night at home with Robert and Carl binge watching Happy Valley.

The next morning we headed out to Haines Junction as it is one of my favorite vistas on the planet. We had lunch at the Village Bakery, a great place to stop if you are passing through. It is a little off the main road and easy to miss if you are not looking for it. Everything is scratch made, and on Friday evenings they have a Salmon Bake with live music. I had a salmon pot pie, Linda had a black bean stuffed pepper and we picked up a nice loaf of jalapeno cheese bread to take home.

Haines Junction is a small village on the edge of Kluane National Park and Reserve. Kluane Park covers about 22,000 square km, has vast icefields and 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the country, including Mount Logan, Canada’s highest peak. I would have liked to take a helicopter tour of the park, something on my bucket list for quite some time, but we didn’t have enough time as we had to be back in Whitehorse at Lumel Studios for 5pm

At Lumel, we spent an hour in the hot shop blowing glass. An hour isn’t much time, but they go through things quickly with you, and most of it is hands on with the exception of gathering the glass from the crucible. We started with a blown ornament that could have been a ball or we could flatten it out a bit, we chose flat. Once that was done, we made a paper weight, using big tweezers to pull the glass into interesting (we hope) designs. The finale was making a drinking glass, which had to be shaped and the bubble opened. By the time we were done, we were both sweating and ready for a beverage.

It was fortuitous that our next stop was Epic Pizza for Peggy Hanifan’s Whitewater Wednesday open mic night. I had not see Peggy in over a decade, so it was great chat for a bit and hear her play. We also got to have one last visit with our friend Kathy again as well, so even better.

We called it an early night and went back to Robert and Carl’s for a few more episodes of Happy Valley.

Our last day in Whitehorse was all about visiting with friends, as we have no idea when we might be back. We spent the morning and early afternoon with Robert, then headed to the Kopper King to meet up with Eric, a friend from Mexico who we have never seen in Canada before.

We had to pick up the glass we made at Lumel yesterday, so headed downtown. Wow, I was pretty happy with the results. When glass is hot, you cant see what the colours will look like when it cools, so it is always a bit of a surprise when they come out of the kiln or annealer the next day.  I hadn’t thought the paperweight would turn out very well, the mixing of the colours was kind of rough, and there seemed to be blobs of colour as well, not what I really wanted. None of that showed in what we picked up though, it is really quite nice. It will live on my desk at work. The ornament and the glass both came out quite nice as well, although the ornament kind of looks like something an Oilers fan would have. The drinking glass will now be my favorite glass at home, but we are not sure where the ornament will go.

Next we headed over to Sanchez Cantina to meet BJ for a dinner. Sanchez Cantina makes real Mexican food, and does it well. Supper was fabulous and the visit with Beej was great. It was tough to say good-bye, again because we do not know when we will be able to get back up to the Yukon.

We went back to our temporary home and got everything packed up so that we could have an early start the next morning. Then we “had to” finish watching the Happy Valley series. What an unhappy valley it is. We are hooked though, and will have to keep watching it when season 3 comes out in the fall.

We woke up quite refreshed, enjoyed another shower. What a luxury! We needed to pick up a couple of groceries and ice for the beer, then grabbed a quick bite to go at Cheechako’s Bake Shop on Front St. It was fast, tasty, and inexpensive.

We had considered taking the highway to Keno, an old silver mining town, as I had never been there and would like to see it. But surprisingly it was overcast and rainy, so we just stayed on the Klondike highway and continued south. We didn’t have time to take the little hike down to the 5-finger rapids on our way up, so we stopped around 1:30 at the Tatchun Creek Campground, which is only a few kms up the highway from the rapids viewpoint. We would hike down the tomorrow. Because we stopped early, most of the sites were open and we found a nice one by the creek. It was sunny when we set up camp, so we had an opportunity to dry out all our gear.

The next morning had a hot breakfast, struck camp and headed over to the 5-finger rapids viewpoint. While we were in Dawson City we had picked up a copy of the Yukon New, a Whitehorse newspaper. In it we had discovered that the Yukon River Quest had started on Jun 27^th. The River Quest is the worlds longest annual canoe and kayak race and goes 715km on the Yukon River from Whitehorse to Dawson City. The race started out as a fund raiser for the Yukon Quest dog race, but quickly became an international event of its own. The teams all have a mandatory 7 hour stop in Carmacks, which is just a little bit upriver from the rapids, so we had hoped we might still be able to catch a few of the boats.

We took the stairs from the viewpoint then hiked down the trail to get a closer view of the rapids. If there were any boats left, they would most likely be going through the closest channel which would not be visible from up above. And even if we had missed them all, I still wanted some pics of the “fingers”.

We were in luck, the safety boat was still there so that meant that there must still be at least one more boat. We ended up seeing 4 teams go by, which was a nice unplanned experience.

We stopped in Whitehorse for some supplies, and again had trouble finding fuel canisters for the stove. I knew we would not be able to find the canisters in the arctic, but they used to be available through the Yukon, so this lack of availability was unexpected. If we do another long trip we will have to look at one of the multi-fuel stoves. For now, we picked up a propane camp stove that was on sale at Canadian Tire. We already have one at home, but we figure we can sell this one once we get back. And, we won’t have to worry about running out of fuel.

We grabbed gas and supplies we headed out to Marsh Lake Campground about 30 minutes south of Whitehorse, just off the Alaska Highway.  It is one of the largest Territorial campgrounds, but also one of the busiest. It would be our home for the next 3 nights. We were glad we were getting there early, particularly on a long weekend. If we wouldn’t find a site, we did have a couple of friends who had grabbed sites the day before. We ended up finding one that was mid-way between them both, so it worked out really well. Linda is still amazed at the government campgrounds in the Yukon. They are all $12 a night, and all have pit toilets that are kept clean and stocked, and all of them have free firewood. The firewood is often split, though you still need an axe to break it down a bit more. Down south $12 doesn’t even buy you a bag of firewood at a campsite, let alone pay for a site.

Once we got set up we head back towards Whitehorse, to the Carcross cut off. Our friend BJ MacLean was playing at the Cut Off Restaurant, so we were going to have dinner and listen to BJ and Kietha Clark. The music was great, as usual. It does our souls good to hear BJs music, and even more so live. We also had an opportunity to visit with some other old friends which was an added bonus.

After the show it was back to the campground for a bonfire, beverages, and catching up with old friends.

We had to run into town the next day to take care of some paperwork from down south and made use of McDs wifi. Then back to the campground for dinner and another bonfire. A few friends came out from town, and we had a great evening of music and laughter, sheltered from the rain by a massive tarp strung over the fire pit. A late-night snack of peaches, marshmallows and hotdog buns toasted over the fire in pie-irons rounded off the night. While heading back to the tent for the night, I saw the moon through the clouds and had to go sit on the bluff and watch it for a while.

The next morning, we woke up to discover that the cooler, which was plugged into the 12v socket in the car, had completely drained the battery. I was sure it turned off a while after the car was locked, but I was wrong. We had a booster pack with us. It usually has enough juice to jump 20+ vehicles, but we almost drained it getting the car going. But it did start, of which I was thankful, as Linda was giving me the I-told-you-so look.

Some of our friends had gone to the Marsh Lake community centre for Canada Day celebrations. There was a parade, music, and a free BBQ. We opted for a lazy day hanging around camp and watching a movie in bed.

There was another campfire in the evening, with some different friends popping out for a bit. More music and more bevies, but an early night for us tonight as we played a little to hard the night before.

We had a remarkably good sleep considering how chilly and windy it was last night. That hot-water bottle was a great help, not to mention the stylish head gear. The ensured everything was dry for packing up this morning though, so that was a nice bonus. It also meant that we had to cook in the car, as the heat was being blown away.

After everything was packed up, we put on our sandals and waded into the ocean. OMG was it freekin cold! I have been in glacial lakes and thought it would be pretty much like that. Boy, was I wrong! And, I have to confess that the original plan was to put on bathing suits and take a quick dip, but we wussed out and only went in to our shins.

We stopped at the Northern Store looking for Tuk shirts, but they didn’t have anything that really grabbed us, and I was looking specifically for a Tuk-U shirt. So, we headed over to the town office, they didn’t have Tuk-U shirts, but we wanted to support the local economy at least a little, so I picked up a long sleeve T-shirt, some stickers and we got our “I traveled the highway to the arctic ocean” certificates. We seem to be getting quite a collection of certificates from this trip. We’ll have to scan them when we get home to put them in our photo book of the trip.

We drove around town looking at the sites and taking photos. We discovered that Tuk is the northern end of the Trans-Canada Trail. We also saw a sod house, and the under structure for making a sod house.

Just outside of Tuk is Pingo National Park. Pingos earthen domes unique to the north and are formed when lakes dry up and permafrost pushes up the previous unfrozen ground and water. There are around 1400 around Tuk, ranging in height from 3 to 45 meters.

The road to Inuvik was just as challenging as when we came up, but it seemed to go by a faster even with us stopping to take some pics we didn’t get the day before. One thing we found interesting is that snow-machines and sleds (kamiks) are left in what seems to be random places along the road. We wondered if they might be at someone’s trap-line, but honestly we have no idea and sometime we just make stuff up.

When we got to Inuvik, we had hoped to have lunch at Alestine’s Restaurant as they are rated the best in town and serve local fare such as Reindeer chili, local fish and Eskimo donuts which are pretty similar to what we would call fry bread on the prairies. Alas, they are only open for supper until next week. There are not a lot of restaurants in Inuvik and after looking at short list we picked up at the visitors centre that included the hospital cafeteria, we decided on Cloud 9 at the airport. As we didn’t want to have to double back we decided to get gas and do our shopping before we left for the airport. Still in search of a Tuk-U shirt we headed over to Mavis’ house as she sells the shirts. We were looking for some sort of sign attached to a house, but no, there was nothing. I did see a woman standing in her window waving us in, so figured we had found the right place. Unfortunately, she had no Tuk-U apparel left and wouldn’t get any until next week. Too late for us. She did have a great assortment of hand-crafts, the bead-work on the moccasins was amazing. It seems she used to work for the development corp and when she left the elders kept bringing her their work anyway. The north really is a different place, with a different pace of life and a different way of doing things than we are used.

Next stop was the Inuvialuit Development Corporation. They have a craft shop and hold the copyright for the Tuk-U apparel. At last, we sort of had success. There were only 4 shirts left, 2 small and 2 XXL. Since it took me over 40 years to get here to pick one up I couldn’t leave empty handed, so picked up an XXL sweatshirt. Maybe it will shrink a little, and I can always use it as a hoodless hoodie.

Lunch at the airport was ok, but certainly not something to write home about. If we lived in Inuvik, I don’t think we would be eating out much. The airport did have decent wifi though, so I was able to upload some pics to the blog. The relevance of this will become import in the next day’s blog.

Although the scenery is beautiful, we are starting to be done with the Dempster, and are looking forward to hitting pavement again. So, even though we had intended to make a stop in Tsiigachtic, it would mean an extra ferry crossing, so we went directly to the McPherson landing and continued south. A little after McPherson, there was a lot of road maintenance going on, grading and applying calcium chloride. Although it made the road wet and slippery, it also got rid of the dust that made visibility quite bad.

We ended up in Rock River again for the night. Had a lovely campsite right by the river even though it was a little busier than it was 2 days ago. Our food supplies are starting to get a little low, but we got creative and had quesadillas for supper. Just one more way to serve pepperoni, olives and cheese 😊 By the end of the trip I may not want to have any of the above for a long time.

As we were getting dinner ready and sitting by the fire afterwards, we were visited by a rabbit (Arctic hare?) with white feet who did not seemed afraid of us, and seemed to be friends with a squirrel, we also had a grey jay come and visit and we were expecting Snowwhite to pop out of the forest at any minute.

We slept a bit late after a cold night in the tent. If we were this cold here, it should be fun in Tuktoyaktuk!

The clouds were very low and made driving a bit challenging as we went through Wright Pass into the the Northwest Territories.

Of course we stopped at the NWT  border for a pic. We also learned that not only do birds migrate to the western arctic from all over the Americas, the Northern Wheatear migrates from Northern Africa. Now that is one heck of a trip! Shortly after we left the border we encountered a Grizzly running down the road towards us. Unfortunately it dashed off into the bush before we could get a pic, but Linda was happy as she had never seen a griz before. We also saw 2 arctic foxes along the way. Again, no pics, but really we did see them.

Our next stop was at a view point that gave a 180km view down the Mackenzie Delta. The vastness of this land continues to amaze us.

There are 2 ferry crossings on the way to Inuvik. The first one is the Peel River ferry, a cable ferry that operates on demand.

Next was a quick stop into Fort McPherson to get our passports stamped, then back on the road to the MacKenzie River ferry at the confluence of the MacKenzie and Arctic Red Rivers. This ferry has 3 landing points, 1 on the McPherson side of the Dempster, the 2nd is for Tsiigachtic a small village between the 2 rivers, and 3rd is on the Inuvik side of the MacKenzie.

We stopped for directions and our Arctic Circle certificates at the visitor centre in Inuvik, got fuel at Bob’s Welding, and hit the road.

If we thought the Dempster was a bit challenging before, it now seemed like a cake walk compared to the new Tuk highway. Because it is such a new road, there are many areas that have not quite settled in yet and for many kms the gravel is deep and loose, it is like driving in sand. There is a not bad section in the middle, then many kms of pot holes and washboard. We drove slow and had ample opportunity to enjoy the view.  2.5 after we left Inuvik, We’ve arrived!

We stopped at the RCMP to ask where we could camp, as there are no campgrounds in Tuk. In Dawson we had heard that people were using the ball diamond and “the point” The RCMP told us the point was our best bet, so we joined a handful of other die-hards who were spending the night here and not heading right back to Inuvik. There were only a few other tents most were campers or vans. We got a site about 50 yards from the shore of the arctic ocean with the use of a picnic table and fire pit. It was very cold and windy and we used the car as a windbreak for the tent. We also put on all the headgear and jackets we brought with us.

Dinner was weenies roasted over an ocean driftwood fire, and canned beans.

Some enterprising residents have erected a wall tent and will be running a concession from it shortly. In the mean time, flyers taped to the outhouses let you know that you can get burgers and hot dogs delivered to your tent.

We campers seem to be a source of entertainment for the town.  Carloads of residents drive around the point to look at us. It kind of makes us feel like we are in a zoo, but is fun none the less.

As one might imagine, is was chilly sleeping in a tent a few feet away from the Arctic Ocean in June. We used a Nalgene bottle as a hot water bottle and even I had pants on in the sleeping bag.

The influx of tourist, and campers has put an extra burden on the town, for example the porta-poties need to be emptied with greater frequency. And, I think so far the economic benefit to the town has not been that great. Next year will look a lot different I think, with an actual campsite, and fees. We feel privileged to be in the first few to experience it the way it is this year.