The Arctic Ocean and Dempster Hwy Part II

That’s the Arctic Ocean behind us. Notice the trailer–how clean–well up close it is definitely dirty but you can’t see that from here.

After arriving at our destination, we discovered we were not permitted to swim there. We also were not supposed to park rv/trailers there but we did it quickly so we could get our selfie. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. We went in search of the “beach.” John stopped at one place and they told us someone in the community had died and there were no activities or events going on in support of the grieving family but, he did say the visitor center was open. However, the girl who worked there was at lunch so the guy was going to call her to let her know we were headed there. We parked out front of the visitor center and waited about 20-30 minutes before she pulled up and told us she had to go back into town for the new brochures and would be right back. After 45 minutes she finally arrived and couldn’t really tell us where we to go or where to park. She did give us a map which showed the beach but no parking. We set out and stopped at a souvenir store that was marked on the map. We would have never noticed it had she not given us the map so our time wasn’t totally wasted and then the guy (I did not get his name) in the store was super helpful and told us where to go and where to park.

So glad we had the camper. We were parked right next to the beach with the camper so we could change clothes, walk to the water and take a dip and go back to the camper and change. Prior to our trip, knowing the plan was to take a dip in the Arctic, I bought a full body bathing suit. Those who know me know I am a big girl. So this was not going to be pretty. I knew that going in but I also wanted to totally dip in the water. Ok, that’s a lie. I thought of just dipping my toe in the Arctic–surely that would be enough but, my son had to tease me in such an encouraging way–I had to get in all the way. I put the onesie on and put my bathing suit on top–thinking that helped. It really didn’t but it made me feel better–at least until I started walking down the beach. When you see the video–feel free to laugh. I know I couldn’t stop laughing but not just because of my outfit. In addition to looking beyond hideous, my dip was–well let’s just say it was less than graceful. But who really cares? I am almost 70–no one out there cared what I looked like or what I was doing. I could not edit this. I don’t have the software nor do I have a clue how to use it so for a good laugh click here.

By the time we dipped and changed it was after 4:00. So much for our early start. We originally planned to get back to Inuvik in the afternoon, do some shopping and then either camp there again or head out some. Since Tuktoyaktuk had nothing going on due to the death in the community we did not want to stay so we headed out. By the time we got to Inuvik it was after 6:00 so we made a plan to get passed the two ferries–yeah one more time. We filled up in Inuvik and planned to fill up once more in Fort McPherson but by the time we got there the gas station had just closed. Seriously, it was 9:01 and the girl was walking out the door and would not let us fill up. Luckily we had extra gas with us so we crossed the ferry and headed for Eagle. We figured we could be there by 11:00 pm, sleep, fill up and leave. One of the nice things about driving the Dempster that late is that no one else is driving the Dempster. The only dust is what we were making and it was all going behind us.

With only 49 km to Eagle Plains John noticed one of the tires was low. We pulled over and sure enough the rear passenger tire on the truck was slowly leaking. Rather than take the trailer off the truck to get to a spare, John decided to find the leak and plug it. I asked if I could help and John told me to clean off the back seat so he could get something out from underneath. Well, that was a shocker–I thought he was going to say no. Usually our back seat is full of things like, my camera bag, extra sweaters/coats, rain coats, sometimes food and drinks. Tonight it was mostly my camera bag and computer so I moved them and then got back in the car. There were a lot of mosquitos that were so annoying. John found the hole, plugged it and filled the tire again. I did get out to take some pictures of John changing the tire and some beautiful sunsets. It’s not like I was just sitting there waiting. But I did learn to not ask if he needed any help. The sun wasn’t actually setting–sunset was at 2:00 in the morning but with the mountains behind us it sure looked like it was setting.

Remember how clean it looked at the Arctic Ocean–yeah, they were putting down some calcium choride or something. It is supposed to help with the dust and binds the gravel particles together. Good for the road-not so good for the camper and truck. And notice how dirty I got from taking pictures. I don’t know what I touched but ugh!

Just as he was finishing up someone actually came by and stopped to see if we needed help. We let him know we were ok and he drove off. And so our saga continued. At some point John had turned the car off to save gas because we didn’t fill in Ft McPherson. John turned the key and all we heard was click, click, click. Now we had a problem. No service, it was 12:30 in the morning and I am pretty sure that last car was really the last car. John decided to try hooking one of the batteries from the camper to the truck and try to jump it. I asked him if that would work and he said, “Probably not, but I’m going to try.” And he was right. It didn’t work. Then to make matters worse, when he did that something happened and now the camper wasn’t getting power from the battery. He explained things but all I heard was blah, blah, blah. This was going to be a long night. We did have a satellite radio and I messaged Christy thinking she would be up and she could try to call the service station in Eagle Plains. We had the Mile Post book but it didn’t give a number. And honestly we did not expect it to be open but certainly worth a shot. She was up. The Satellite radio takes some time to get messages back and forth and you have to hold the radio upright which is a pain. In the meantime John had turned on the generator to get power back to the trailer so he could keep the refrigerator going. I was sitting in the truck just trying to think of how I could pass the time. We really couldn’t get in the camper and sleep–we were in the middle of the road and there was a slight chance someone could pass by and just maybe give us a hand. John came up to my window and asked if we had a cigaret lighter plug–I looked over to the left then I looked to the right–right outside the passenger window and then looked at the floor and said, “I don’t see one.” John said he knows he has one. He had one at home and remembered he grabbed it just in case. Seriously? Just in case. Anyway, he found it and he rigged up something to the generator and jumped the battery! We were in service! I love having a McGyver husband. I waited patiently while he picked up all his tools and put them away. We were heading to Eagle and I noticed Christy had responded so I let her know we were ok.

After arriving in Eagle Plains around 2:00am we filled the truck and parked in the lot. We slept until 5:30 and we were on the road by 6:00. By that point John wanted to get off the Dempster and be done with it. Once we were off the Dempster we had 2 options, go north 30 miles to Dawson City which is the opposite direction we ultimately were headed or go south to Whitehorse. We opted for Whitehorse. It was only another 5 hour drive. We were able to wash off the truck and trailer in Pelly Crossing and we filled up with gas. We could see smoke in the distance and we were outside Pelly Crossing about an hour when we received notification that the road between Stewart Crossing and Pelly Crossing was shut down due to wild fires. Whew! We just made it. Had we not, we would have had to go back to Dawson City which was more than an hour at that point. It was all good. We arrived in Whitehorse around 5:00 and stopped at the Hi Country RV park. The girl remembered John and gave us a great spot. Not a lot of pictures. I took a lot of videos on the Dempster and haven’t even checked them out. Goodnight for now. I am really behind–by like a week. Will catch up shortly.

July 31, 2024 2

Chicken, Top of the World and Dawson City

I’m on the top of the world lookin’ down on creation And the only explanation I can find Is the love that I’ve found ever since you’ve been around Your love’s put me at the top of the world. . . by the Carpenters

We left Fairbanks heading for Chicken, Alaska. We planned to meet up with Judy and Mike at the campground before we cross the border back into Canada. It took much longer than we had anticipated as the road to Chicken was probably the worst road we have traveled so far. In addition we had no service for the longest time. Longer than I had thought we would. I honestly thought we would have service as soon as we arrived in Chicken. Joke was on me. Chicken is comprised of 12 residents–and I believe they all work at the 2 campgrounds there. Back in the day Chicken was a gold mining town–well actually they are still mining gold and the 2 campgrounds allow you to pan while you are there. Guess what we did?

We indeed met up with Judy and Mike–they are feeling much better–not 100% but much better. Dawson City is only about 100+ miles from Chicken but, the road is dirt and gravel so it was slow going. Our plan was to camp in Dawson City and prep our campers for the Dempster Highway. We received lots of good word that the Dempster was in good shape. The road to Dawson City is called The Top of the World Road and it is rightfully named. Would you believe the picture at the top is pretty much the picture I took at the Top of the World. Oh, and this one.

The Top of the World Highway on the US side was paved from Taylor Junction but I don’t remember how many miles that was. It was paved to the Canadian border and then it was dirt and gravel again. We had to wait for a ferry to get across the Yukon River to get to Dawson City. It’s free but we waited about 40 minutes while 2 ferries transferred others. Judy and Mike were right behind us and they actually made the same ferry as us. We checked in Bonanza Gold RV Park and John and Mike are sealing up windows and such. Tomorrow we will head out on the Dempster Hwy to Tuktoyaktuk where we will see the Arctic Ocean and I am hoping to be brave enough to take a dip. I know John will and I really want to but, it is cold water. On the bright side it is going to be somewhere in the 80’s. We can only get the weather as far as Inuvik which is still 144km or 90 miles from Tuktoyaktuk. When we leave here we will lose our service. I will lose my wordl streak. I better see a lot of wildlife.

July 23, 2024 2

Whittier, Denali, Fairbanks all Jumbled into One Post

I am jumbling up the last four days. Christy and Leeman and the kids left us on Thursday–well technically we said our goodbyes Wednesday night. John and I got up with no real plans. We decided to go to Whittier because we did not get an opportunity to take the tunnel that is shared by the train and automobiles. We got so lucky we hit the tunnel exactly on time to go through on the way there and just 2 minutes to wait on the return. It doesn’t get any better than that. Whittier is a small fishing village–as is most all the coastal towns along the Kenai. Whittier can only be accessed through that tunnel or by boat or air. Only one road in and one road out. There are only about 272 residents who mostly live in one large apartment building that was once used as Army barracks. The remaining, I think about 10% of the residents reside in another apartment building. They do have a school which actually has an underground tunnel for use during the cold winter months.

We headed back to Palmer and prepared to head to Denali. We knew we would be headed back after the kids left to do some more hiking. On the way there we could see Denali in all her glory and we are proud to be 30%’s. They say only 30% of the people who come to Denali get to see Denali–because of the weather. But this day was beautiful!

That is her behind us!!

We were still 100+ miles from Denali National Park. We got there around noon and decided to take the 43 mile bus ride–as far as you could go into Denali. Originally we thought we would get off the bus and walk some and then catch another bus but it took almost 3 hours to go 43 miles. We stopped for some animal sightings but even with a long lens it wasn’t worth the shot. I still took some- of course but they are really bad. Imagine all those people with their phones taking this shot. This is with a 600mm lens.

But we did see some Dall sheep, caribou and a black wolf–no shots of that. It was on the other side of the bus and no one wanted to open their window so you not only are trying to take a picture of this running object that is a mile away but everyone was shooting through a dirty window. We left Denali to head for a place on the side of the road that we saw on the way in. We got a great spot along the Nenana River along with several other campers.

It was a beautiful spot and one of John’s favorite because it was FREE. That’s right no charge. John made some burgers on the grill and we sat out there on the river just enjoying the quiet. I asked John if we had to worry about bears smelling the food and he said, “I hope not. The van people cooked out.”

I told John I thought the easiest access to our camper was probably through the plexiglass he had used to replace our broken window. I sleep by the window, btw. He asked if I was worried and I said, “well, I would feel better if we didn’t have plastic between me and a bear.” Then he asked if I wanted to change places in bed but I thought, what if a bear uses the door? I have seen videos. After a while I reconsidered because we never disconnected from the truck so I told John, “I think because we are still connected to the truck it might make it more difficult for a bear to get up through the window.” Which he responded, “Unless it is a circus Bear.” Well, shit! So I thought, “Maybe it will be easier for a bear to access a van–like the one in front of us.” John said, “Don’t worry, we have tenters here too.” So I slept peacefully and I still prayed no bears ate the people in the tent.

The next morning I asked John if we were one of the last ones to leave. He said the camper in front of us left. And I asked if the van people were still there. He then told me the camper he was referring to is the van people. So I asked why he called them campers and he told me because the van is a camper too. But last night he referred to them as the van people. When I questioned him his reply was, “I was differentiating who they were.” I said, “Yeah, you differentiated them as van people so why wouldn’t you continue to differentiate them as the van people so I know who you are talking about?

I think he is starting to get on my nerves. It has been a while and we are with each other 24/7. In all honesty he isn’t bothering me that much–just a few little things like his communication skills. Oh and maybe is driving. He has become the Sunday driver and I am sure people behind him are experiencing road rage. I know I am, and I am sitting next to him. Just step on the gas pedal PLEASE. I asked him if I was getting on his nerves and he said no, so we’re good.

Our next day or should I say 1/2 day in Denali was strickly to do one more hike. I picked on that was moderate but only about 1 1/2 miles. UGH! I don’t know who decides what moderate is but that was not moderate. Well, it probably was but I didn’t want a lot of hills and there were long ones. I know when you start a hike going down hill you have to come up that hill when you have completed the hike. I don’t like those. In fact I hate those. I just like downhill all the time. It’s easier that way. The hike was nothing to brag about but I finished it and that is something to brag about. We made it back and set out for Fairbanks.

We were boondocking at someone’s house in Fairbanks and I notified him that we would be arriving between 2:00 and 3:00. He said to find a place to park as he would be in town at the Golden Days Festivities. So I looked it up and saw they have a duck race. It started at 3:00. I tried to buy a duck but you could only purchase on line if you were a resident. We made it in time for the race but not enough time to buy a duck. They drop 8,000 ducks into the Chena River at Wendall Street Bridge. The first 40 to make it to Cushman Street Bridge are winners. This is the dropping of the rubber duckies.

After that exciting start in Fairbanks we set off to do some gold panning. We went to Felix Pedro’s monument on Pedro’s Creek and the next day we went to Nome Creek. No luck but still fun. Then we visited a friend of John’s who lives here and then did some laundre. Tomorrow we head out to Chicken where we should meet up with Judy and Mike again. Then we will be heading to Tuktoyaktuk to the Arctic Ocean. I am sure we will have no service for at least a week–so talk to y’all later.

July 22, 2024 3