Day 40 (June 23). Dempster Highway, Part 1 (of 4)

From: Dawson City, YT

To: Eagle Plains, YT

Miles today: 255

Total miles: 9211

[Note to followers -- thanks for sticking with me as I traveled through the lands of no fiber.  I will now attempt to upload the blogs I have been faithfully writing throughout this period, as I wrote them and not modified by what I learned or experienced later.  Lots of adventures!  --LG]

Basically all I did today was ride; most of this was 230 miles over the unpaved Dempster Highway, to the half-way point at Eagle Plains.  This highway was built during the 1960’s and finally completed around 1976; it was not built to connect existing places (Eagle Plains and Inuvik, where I will hopefully be tomorrow were created at about the same time as the highway).  In the 1960’s, Canada had figured out that the US was going to build a road (which we did) and probably a also an oil pipeline (which we also did) to get at the vast oil reserves in the Arctic.  Canada concluded that if it did not build a similar road of its own, it would lose mineral rights in the area to big brother down south.  They had visions of building their own parallel pipeline as well, but this never came to pass for various reasons. 

The route of the Dempster follows an old dog sled track, but it also follows closely along what is believed to be the ice-free route that allowed humans to cross into North America from Asia some twelve-to-fourteen thousand years ago.  I could tell that the route is stunningly beautiful, but unfortunately the heavy haze caused by a fire in Alaska obscured most of the views.  Fires burn every year in Alaska, Yukon, and NWT, and with them comes smoke.  As a tourist, I guess I have to put it in the same category as rain in terms of impeding visibility; it just happens.  The hope of clearer views gives me something to look forward to as I retrace the 450 miles of this route in the days to come.

Tombstone Park, Yukon. Hey, I think those are finally some "Ice Floes" up there!

In constructing the Dempster, the engineers had to deal with the issue of permafrost.  Basically, if the ground under the road melts, the road just sinks into it and disappears.  Therefore the road is built on a gravel berm that varies between about 4 and ten feet off the “ground,” thus insulating the permafrost from the roadbed.  This means that you better not drive off the edge (no guard rails), because it will be almost impossible to climb back up; very steep and pretty high.  The surface itself varied between gravel and chip seal; parts were pretty good and other parts were pretty rough. Hey, I wanted an adventure, right?  Overall I averaged about 40 mph.  It is nominally two lanes wide, but it is really just one.  Cars, trucks, and motorcycles slow down when an oncoming vehicle is approaching and carefully move to the edges.  This happens three or four times an hour; this road is more heavily traveled than the Campbell.  Most of the vehicles I saw were RV’s, followed by transport trucks and the occasional fellow rider.

Intellectually, I know that I am in the middle of true wilderness.  There is not another town, not even First Nations, within a hundred miles.  There is not another road for 250 miles, and that is the one through Dawson.  Yet in the “Oasis in the Wilderness” that is Eagle Plains (that is honestly what they call themselves on their placemats), you’d never know.  They have gas, they have a motel, they have a nice sit-down restaurant and a separate lounge.  They even have satellite TV somehow (almost at the Arctic Circle!), specifically via the Canadian Anik II.  (This information is available in the lobby!)  This sense of civilization in the wilderness actually reminds me of my days hiking the Appalachian Trail.  There was one route, and everybody took it either north or south.  There were shelters about a day apart along the way where people would gather (though no bars).  Wilderness to the left and right, but straight ahead was the trail and there were other people on that trail in case you got into trouble. Move me a mile from my present location in some random direction and everything would change; but as long as I’m on the “trail” (these roads even look like trails), I could almost be in, say, the Appalachians.