125 km on the Dempster and of course we get a flat.  Thanks to Wysup and Pullman building supply we had all the tools we needed.

I went all NASCAR pit stop on it while Karen was on Griz patrol.  It would have been really sad to be eaten while changing a flat.  With sharks you don’t have to worry about that because you very seldom have to change a flat with sharks around.

It’s odd driving 450 miles on a highway and only seeing 7 cars.  We may not know what we’re doing but we look good in a muddy Jeep with a tire and gas can strapped to the top.  Now we’re muddy from the tire change so we look all rugged and local.

Bear in the road, he was extremely camera shy and I was too slow.

Tundra travel tip 12: when driving in the tundra don’t stop to take a photo and leave the window open.  The Jeep now has 1.7 trillion mosquitoes in it.

Karen: This isn’t what I expected the Top of the World Road to look like.

Me: Were you expecting to drive the curvature of the earth?

Internet service is sketchy above Dawson City so it’s catch up day here in Eagle Plains, around 30 km south of the Arctic Circle.  It’s the only place to stay and eat on The Dempster and we had to gas up and get the flat repaired.  Next stop, Fort McPherson and the grave site of The Lost Patrol.  In 1910 4 Mounties went on patrol in the Yukon Territory and got lost.  They eventually starved to death.  Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories is their final resting place.  I’ll have photos of that tomorrow.  I’ll feel a little guilty eating a cinnamon roll at the site.  Maybe I’ll eat it in the parking lot.

Today I may have to break down and put on pants.  Rainy and cold with a 100% chance of freezing mud.  I haven’t seen a Mexican Restaurant in ages and that makes me sad.  I don’t know how Canadian Mexican would taste but at this point I would try anything.  I miss my friends at Vallarta!

Met a Northern Shoshone woman who ran the heritage center.  She was a descendant of Chief Big Johnathan Campbell.

Four days after I bought this homemade cinnamon roll it still tastes good.  It was huge.  We cut little pieces off of it like a starving expedition would ration biscuits.  That way we wouldn’t eat it all at once and feel guilty.  I think I’ll get another one on the way home and eat it like a zombie eats slow moving city folks.

Found out I’ve been saying “Inuvik” wrong for 35 years.  After yesterday, I’ve now been to every major gold rush site in North America.

 

even this far north you can find culture, it was extremely educational as well as cultural.  I have to say it’s historical or Karen will get mad at me.

Met a wonderful German couple today and, well to make a long story short we drank a shot with a human toe in it.  Not that we had to do it, we weren’t forced to do it.  In fact, were not sure why we did it.  As Robert Service once said:

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

Well, after drinking a toe we certainly don’t fit in.

In a very remote location with a limited satellite internet connection so no photos today.   The drive up to Summit Lake, the highest point on the Alaskan Highway, was wet and stormy and very hard for photography.  Road work, RVs, Motorhomes, and oilfield frackers made it a very hard day.

I made this trip in the late 80’s and things are very different today.  It’s congested with industry, and fracking crews.  It reminds me of depression era WPA and CCC camps.  The only thing missing is Woody Guthrie, poverty, and hunger. New pickup trucks fill the work camp parking lots, reward for migratory work.

Boomtowns spring up around the fracking sites, towns that will dry up and litter the highway when the crude is gone.  The Alaskan Highway will bear the scars long after the oil is gone.  Those who financed their dream in and around these boomtowns will go broke long before their 30 year mortgages are up.  This is a 21st century “Grapes of Wraith”, dirty oil replacing the grapes of old.

As I write this I drove by a sign that reads, “Danger, poisonous gas”.  All around the open wound in the earth from fracking you see nothing but dead trees.  A little further down the road fires sweep across the landscape.  Fires caused by gas blow outs and carelessness.  You have to ask yourself, is it worth it?  How long can we hide this from the public?

To the owner and all of the staff at Nuevo Vallarta, thank you so much!   Pullman Building Supply, we couldn’t have done it without your support during our recent kitchen remodel.  If it wasn’t for the knowledgeable and friendly staff we would still be tiling floor.  The staff of Wysup, without you and your friendly service we would be driving a Hyundai.  Wait….didn’t you sell us that Hyundai?