Inuvik, eventually. . . and then I'll just wander around.

[MediumAdventure]

Hello! A quick introduction: I quit my job in May, and decided that I'd spend the next while poking about western Canada in the tracker until I either get too nervous financially or the wheels all fall off. So far, I've managed a number of nice day trips and overnights, a mostly-off-highway multi-day run from Kelowna to Salmo, and a ten-ish day wander around Alberta and Saskatchewan that I'll write up once I have a chance to sift through all of the photos.

Now I'm headed north. My rough plan is to head up to the Dempster to Inuvik - as it's a goal I've had since a cross-country roadtrip over a decade ago - and then to take my time meandering around BC and the Yukon on my way back south before returning home at the end of August. A simple, open-ended itinerary with plenty of buffer time. No problem.

Unfortunately, everything has decided to go haywire. I left Vancouver July 24th headed for Kelowna to make what I had expected would be a quick stopover at Hotel Mom&Dad to take care of some basic maintenance before rolling onward. It's July 30th, and I'm still in Kelowna.



This is the one photo from the trip so far, taken on the back way between Penticton and Peachland. Long, frustrating story short: Since then I've been through three U-Joints, three trips to a driveline shop, a new radiator, and just about all of my patience. I am finally rolling again, and will be headed out in a couple hours or so. After following so many great trips on here, I'm looking forward to being able to share something of my own. Despite a pretty disappointing first week, I'm still pretty optimistic, and very antsy to get into it.

 

[MediumAdventure]

I'm on the move and am in Fort St. John with a minute of downtime, so I figured I'd throw up a quick update. I'm apparently not clever enough to figure out how to link images, but hopefully these attachments end up being of decent enough quality to get the idea.


I finally got moving late in the afternoon of the 30th, and spent the evening playing tag with thunderstorms while trying to make some distance. I eventually called it a night in Williams Lake, and slept on the decision to cut out the back route that would pass through through Likely, BC to eventually make it to Quesnel. This is a gravel back route that I didn't know much about, but figured would be a bit nicer than the straight shot on the highway. Come morning, I told myself I'd make up some time later, and was thankfully rewarded with a day of fantastic views, and relatively quiet roads considering I was unknowingly ********** in the middle of a long weekend.


I'm usually not much for restored ghost towns - especially their associated crowds of screaming, clambering children - but Quesnel Forks was thankfully quiet, and pretty fantastic.


Rolling along Caribou Lake.


I poked my head up a couple deactivated spur roads that branched out from the main Likely-Wells road. This one brought me up to a ridge overlooking the river.


At this point, I was pretty glad to have taken the long way.


Another side road took me a ways up a mountainside. There was another branch that appeared to head pretty far down the valley. It's on the list now.


Unfortunately, the lost week in Kelowna means that I'll be somewhat stuck in head-down, highway mode for the next bit. There's still plenty to see, though, and I always have a tough time turning down a side-trip when I see a sign for something interesting, so I will hopefully not be missing out on too much.


I'm often amazed at how easily I take my home province for granted. This is just a regular highway-side view.


I've a soft spot for lonely, shut down roadside burger stands. I believe this was at McLeod Lake.


I'd told myself I was going to put my head down and bomb straight along for a few days, but, as usual, I ended up taking a quick 50km detour to have a look at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam.


The scene last night. Hopefully this will be the last parking lot camping I'll do for a good while.


If all goes well, I'll be updating from Whitehorse in a couple days.

 

[gabskings]

Subbed, sounds like a fun adventure!

 

[AggieOE]

Looks Gorgeous! Is it crowded in the car when sleeping?

 

[MediumAdventure]

Turns out I made it to Whitehorse about a day early, which was a pleasant surprise.

Fort St. John was the last place on this trip that I'd previously visited, so from now until I hit Williams Lake in a few weeks, everything will be new to me. I'm excited.

I took care of some errand running and drudgery in Fort St. John, and then hit the road for the Yukon. Aside from checking in on some of the assortment of abandoned service stations, lodges, and restaurants along the side of the road, it was mostly a day of highway blasting, and I eventually called it a night next to a lake on the outskirts of Stone Mountain Provincial Park.


I have a soft spot for little old churches, and spotted this one tucked away off the side of the highway.


Yesterday saw me up with the sun, which let me catch some moose grazing nearby. Despite being Canadian, I don't think I've ever seen a moose in the wild, so that was a satisfyingly exciting start to the day.


Can't complain about my Wednesday morning front yard.


I had intended for another day of hammering along the highway, but did make a point to venture out to the abandoned Smith River Airfield. The Expedition Overland folks visited it on their Yukon/Alaska trip, and although I'd heard of the pre-highway airstrips, I didn't know many names or locations, so it was nice of them to do some scouting for me.


The stretch from Fort Nelson to Smith River is probably the most beautiful place I've ever visited.


Rolling out to the old Smith River Airfield.


I was quite shocked at the scale of the operation. At one point, I was standing in the middle of what was once the airstrip, wondering to myself where the airstrip was. The clearing was so enormous that I wasn't even recognizing it as having been cleared out.


Aside from that, it was a day of incredible scenery, spotting animals in the wild for the first time, helping a guy with a roadside motorcycle repair, and an eventual road-weary arrival at the Wal-Mart in Whitehorse, where I met a group of great folks from Quebec who were on their way down from Alaska. I was pretty dazed from a few days of short sleeps, but it was nice to spend a few minutes with them.


Poked my head in at the sign forest in Watson Lake, YT.


The bridge to Teslin.


Overnight, my water container decided that it was tired of holding all the water, so I'm just waiting for some things to dry out a bit, and then I'll roll out to Dawson and beyond. Fingers crossed that I've seen the last of the rainstorms, although that's probably a bit optimistic from what I've heard.

 

[MediumAdventure]

Looks Gorgeous! Is it crowded in the car when sleeping?

It's too beautiful to describe.

It's definitely cramped. I've pulled the rear seats out and built shelf/bed out of a hacked up old futon frame that an old roommate left at my place. Then I push the front passenger seat forward and flip out an extension that gives me a little bit less length than I am tall. I sleep diagonally, and have been sleeping really very well.

 

[32vsnake]

View attachment 359347
I'm usually not much for restored ghost towns - especially their associated crowds of screaming, clambering children - but Quesnel Forks was thankfully quiet, and pretty fantastic.

Quesnel forks was awesome when we visited a couple of years ago.. and if you get the mist/fog coming off the river it's downright old school spooky.

It's beautiful country where you're headed...Enjoy the journey!

 

[MediumAdventure]

I've unexpectedly arrived back in Whitehorse, and I'll take advantage of having stable wifi for a moment to do some updates. I'll hopefully not get too long-winded.

From the last time I posted, I was delayed by a slow start and some road construction, so I made a pretty straight run from Whitehorse to Dawson arriving pretty late in the evening. I decided I’d take advantage of the long days to get everything sorted and chop off at least a bit of the Dempster that night.

I’d been warned the night before by a group with much heftier rigs than mine that they’d turned back at Tombstone Park because the road was such a mess from a season of heavy rain. Needless to say, I was very nervous, and very eager to get in the midst of things. Instead of getting a head start on the Dempster, I ended up spending a good hour and a half repairing my exhaust pipe, eventually calling it a night at KM0 of the Dempster Hwy.


The gas station at KM0 of the Dempster Hwy at roughly 230am.


The drive up and down the Dempster has all kind of mushed together for me. It was a lot of storms, a lot of beautiful sunny patches, and absolutely incredible scenery beyond anything I could have imagined.

I ended up taking three days along the highway: I spent a night just outside Fort Mcpherson, pulling into town at half past midnight to find the gas station closed, but the baseball field full. I only spent an hour or so in Inuvik - mostly just wandering around - but it seems a pretty interesting little town. The work involved in making regular infrastructure function in that environment is remarkable. On the way back down, I took in a couple short hikes in Tombstone Park, vowing to return to spend a week just hiking around the area. I slept again at KM0 of the Dempster, after pushing the timeline a bit far on a hike and arriving to the end of the road after dark.


Poked my head down a couple short side roads to the various rivers along the way.


Truck traffic wasn't as heavy as I'd expected, and they were all very courteous.


The scenery is just relentless. Wave after wave of spectacular mountain ranges, river valleys, weirdo struggling forests, and wildlife for however-many-hundred-kilometres.


Tsiigehtchic peering over the riverbank.


The view from a short hike in Tombstone Park.


The dempster wasn’t the nightmare road that I’d heard about, but I can understand how heavier rains would have made the situation dangerous. As it was, even though I think that the rains helped keep the traffic down a little bit, I’ll still be out a windshield. So it goes.


Just outside Inuvik.

 

[MediumAdventure]

The next day, I had intended to visit Dawson in the morning to find a coffee shop to relax a bit and access the internet. I got to town, and found myself driving straight through to the ferry at the other end. I crossed over to drive the Top of the World Highway, because you can't really turn down that name.

It was another day of on-and-off rain, and another day of beautiful scenery. The rain put a damper on my photo-taking efforts, but it was still a fantastic drive. I ended up at a pullout viewpoint right before the border, and somehow pulled over, got out of the truck, and checked out the view, all missing seeing the border crossing entirely.

I saw a two-track road leaving from edge of the pullout toward some hills and a valley back in the direction of Canada, and figured I ought to check out the view from over there. The road eventually dropped into a river valley, and got somewhat more narrow, rocky, and hairy. With no room to turn around, I ended up descending all the way down to the valley floor, where I was greeted by a man and his dog. He was pretty clearly suspicious of me showing up down there, and asked what I was looking for. I told him that I didn't really even know where I was, much less what I was looking for.

It turns out that during the descent, the road had turned back on itself, and I'd just accidentally crossed the border to the US. He explained that the border folks could see me from up on the ridge, and would no doubt come chase me down once I made it back to the highway, assuming that I'd picked up a package or a passenger.

“There's no excuses with those people.”

I apologized for barging in on his spot, and asked if I could stop for a moment on his property to lock up my hubs for the steep, rocky trip back up to the highway. He'd softened by this point, so I also got to get a quick hello in with his dog, but I now had bigger things to worry than a slightly irritated prospector.

In the end, the border folks were more than reasonable about the whole thing, and probably had a bit of a laugh at my expense. I'm sure that it was pretty quickly quite clear to them that I was more idiot than criminal, and they wished me well and sent me on my way. At least now I can say that I've been to Alaska.




Don't tell me you wouldn't have wandered out here, too.

From there, I dropped back down to Dawson - now too late to catch anything much still open. I wandered around a bit, fuelled up, checked out some of the old mining relics outside of town, and slept yet again at KM0 of the Dempster.


The view on the way out to the Dredge No.4 National Historic Site.


A decent farewell from Dawson.

 

[MediumAdventure]

Again at my familiar Dempster home, I was up early, and was able to make a rare pre-6am departure. My goal was to truck over to Ross River, and maybe even get a short distance up the North Canol Road. On the way, I made a side trip along the Silver Trail to visit Keno, Elsa, and Mayo, poked my head in at a couple old silver mines, changed the oil in the gaps between rain clouds, and eventually arrived at Ross River to find the ferry closed for the night.


Rolling out from Dawson with the morning fog.


The former townsite of Elsa. An old school surrounded by piles of core samples.


Keno. It was absolutely pouring at this point, so I made a retreat back to the highway.


As I got set for sleep, I figured I'd take advantage of the cellular reception to make a final check on the North Canol road conditions, and found that there would be a bridge closed 100km short of the spots I really wanted to see. As I saw it, these were my options:

-Drive to the bridge, and hike the rest of the way? Nope. No tent.

-Buy or rent a bike from someone in town and ride from the bridge? Again, no tent, and 200km on a supposedly brutal mountain road was going to be outside my range in a single day. I thought long and hard on this one, though, and went to sleep feeling pretty demoralized.

Eventually I just started the truck and got on the road hoping that I'd be able to talk my way through the workers' detour, or ford the creek, or convince someone to swing me across with an excavator, or maybe they'd just be plain ol' finished by the time I got there.

Unfortunately it wasn't to be. I spoke to the workers, who estimated 3-4 days before I could get across. I considered camping out there, but decided instead to head back down to Whitehorse, get a shower (maybe even a hotel!?), and come up with a plan from there. The North Canol was much more important to me than the Dempster, and I was absolutely crushed that I wouldn't make it. It would be one thing to make a go and fail because of a washout, or mud, or something like that, but to miss out because they're fixing a bridge felt awful.


Floating across the Pelly River to start out on the North Canol Road.


Usually a good sign that you ought to keep yourself switched-on.


Even the signs along the road have seen better days.


On my way back from the road closure.


If anyone is looking to really improve their fuel economy with their next rig, let me know.

On the way back down, I pulled over to have a look at an old hunting camp, and went from 100 to 0 upon hearing a loud hiss coming from the rear wheel. As I set to repairing things, the sky proceeded to dump rain for right about exactly the amount of time it took to swap out the wheel and plug the flat to ensure I'd still have a spare. Okay, I figured, now I've even more reason to head to Whitehorse, and hopefully I'll be halfway there by nightfall.

Unfortunately, the Pelly River still stood between me and the rest of the Yukon highway network. I pulled up, and found that the ferry was again closed for the night.

 

[MediumAdventure]

Quesnel forks was awesome when we visited a couple of years ago.. and if you get the mist/fog coming off the river it's downright old school spooky.

It's beautiful country where you're headed...Enjoy the journey!

You really weren't kidding.

 

[sg1]

Great write up. I am heading up there tomorrow leaving from Canmore. Hopefully we have better weather.
Stefan

 

[MediumAdventure]

Great write up. I am heading up there tomorrow leaving from Canmore. Hopefully we have better weather.
Stefan

Thanks!

Take this for what it's worth, which is basically nothing as I have no idea if any part of it is even true, but I was told that they had a warm winter this year, which apparently makes for a wet summer.

That said, the rain makes for strikingly moody scenery, and from what I've experienced, multiple fronts will generally blow through over the course of a day, so it's not as if it's just solid rain forever.

It'll be great either way, though. Hope the trip goes smoothly!

 

[kojackJKU]

Awesome trip....Even better that you did it in a "non regular expo rig!" The ole zuk is awesome. I always had a soft spot for those. I like the xl7 in that body style for the extra bit of rear cargo storage. I need to get going on some trips.

 

[zzz150]

nice trip! brings back a lot of great memories from my trip up that way two years ago.