early in the afternoon. Nearly 2600 miles from Moses Lake, WA to the Arctic Ocean. We'd been planning the trip for nearly three years. Had planned on doing it in 2020 but then covid messed that up for both '20-'21. This year covid wasn't even an issue. Smooth sailing through the border both ways, didn't even take 5 minutes. We went through the Oroville/Osoyoos crossing N of where we live.

I posted on 8/18 that we were on our way. Didn't finally make it out of town until nearly 2 p.m. We made it to Penticton B.C. for our first night's stay. We were either camping or staying in dry RV sites (no elec or water) depending on where we were. With 20 nights on the road, we stayed mostly at rustic RV sites, about 7 of the nights camping along the road or wherever. We spent a total of 3 nights in Whitehorse YK, 2 nights at Tahini Hot Springs outside Whitehorse, 3 nights in Dawson City YK and 2 nights in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. The rest of the nights were one-night stays along the road, usually in the wilderness.

I had done or had done a lot of work on the van to make sure that it was trustworthy. After all of the work was done, I drove it around for ~700 miles to be sure that I'd be comfortable with how it performed. A 24 year old '98 Ford van with 4 back seats, with 180K miles on it caused a lot of people (especially our kids) to question our/my sanity. I went through it totally checking and/or fixing everything. Had work done on the auto transmission (long story there), thermostat and cooling system, air conditioner (yes, air conditioning is nice even in the Arctic during the summer), replaced the fuel pump and found out the gas tank needed new fastening straps and fuel collar on it. New tires and used one of the old tires for a second spare so that we'd have two spares for the 1180 miles of gravel and dirt roads (round trip) we'd be traveling on. Front end alignment and one small part having to do with that. New belts and the pulleys adjusted. New battery. Two oil changes before leaving and had the brakes looked at, they were okay. We left in the bench seat behind the front driving seats and removed the other three.

We woke up one morning outside of Whitehorse with a dead battery. Turned out I had left the parking lights on. There was so much stuff piled in the van that I couldn't find our carry along battery pack so I ended up getting a jump start (I learned that Canadians call it a "boost" and call them booster cables). No more problems with starting after that, then the next day we found the charge pack.

We bought two 5' thick memory foam pads and laid them on a new piece of carpet I'd had rolled up for a long time. Sleeping on those with sleeping bags and blankets was just as or more comfortable than sleeping on our bed at home. We were both surprised at how well we slept.

Driving N through B.C. and Yukon is a l-o-n-g ways! We knew what the distances would be but still it seemed like it took forever just to make it through B.C. into Yukon. Going the length S-N through B.C. is about like driving from Seattle to the E side of Montana. The driving though, was a pleasure. No hurry, driving between 45-55 much of the time on narrow rural paved highways and hardly ever passing or getting passed by other cars. And the scenery . . . . . !! Whoah!! We would stop and take pictures whenever we wanted and take breaks at the tiny little villages. That far north the villages are all native population. They were all nice and polite but it was clear that we were just visitors.

Gas wasn't an issue. It was very expensive and gas stations were sometimes far between but we always knew how far it was to the next gas station was. So we never took any chances on letting the gas tank get under half full. The longest stretch with no gas station was 250 miles. I checked out the number of miles our tank would take us one time before leaving by running it dry and keeping a gallon of gas in a gas can with me. That way now I also know where the gas needle is on the gauge when it finally runs out of gas. It's a good thing to know with any car. It will go 440 miles on a full tank.

We had bought the van from my wife's sister for $500. They had tranny problems with it and quit driving it 7 years ago. It would still start and drive around but would never stay in fourth for highway driving. It would slip into neutral, but it could be driven around in 2nd and 3rd. I found out in a round-about way about automatic transmission shifting solenoids and that turned out to be the problem. The tranny didn't need to be replaced after all. After all of that, the van ran great. Yeah, it's a gas hog. But we didn't spend any money on hotels and very little on eating out. HCBW is a freeze-dry meal wizard and neither one of us mind sandwiches and cheese & crackers. Then we ate apples, baby carrots, pears, grapes, bananas and yogurt as well. It was hard to pass by small town bakeries though.

We kept some of the food cold in a nice little cooler unit that would plug into the lighter socket and become a small refrigerator. It worked great until about halfway through when the plug accidentally got crunched as the door was being closed. After that we just kept putting ice in the bottom of it to keep things cool as with a regular ice chest. We were impressed with how well it worked until we busted it 🙁

Keeping in touch by phone and internet was more difficult than we had planned. That far north there is very little phone reception and it's hard to find places along the way that have wi-fi to borrow. So I wasn't able to post much of anything on CB and it was hit & miss on trying to keep in touch with the family. But really it was kind of nice to be away from all of that anyway. I checked on getting a sat phone but the places in the bigger towns rent them out and they were all reserved or already being used. Was glad to be able to have wi-fi the day after the first BYU game and find that our Cougs had won.

Every mile was an adventure. The beauty of everything was awesome. Seeing the climate and vegetation the farther north we got was interesting. Trees became smaller and smaller the farther north we traveled. When we arrived at the Arctic Circle it gradually transitioned to tundra. Part of the southern tundra still has small evergreen trees but eventually they disappear and it's just rough grass and tough little shrub type plants.

We didn't see as much wildlife as we had hoped. Four black bears, bald eagles, ravens and seagulls everywhere, and a pair of gray foxes. We didn't see any caribou, elk, moose or grizzlies as we had hoped we would. There aren't any deer in the Yukon. Too cold for them to survive winters.

There are lakes and rivers everywhere. Canada has so many lakes in the north I doubt if most of them even have names. There are just too many. I took a fishing pole and got a Yukon license but only tried fishing twice with zero results. I think there are fish there in the lakes and rivers but I only had two lures and didn't spend much time at it, maybe 20 minutes each time. Ms. L even threw out a few casts. Then depending on where we were, there would be signs stating that the waters were under control of the local tribes and fishing wasn't allowed without their written permission. So you couldn't fish in those places even with a license.

In Dawson City we took a 90-minute Yukon River tour on the motorboat of a well-known and highly respected local native. He told us a lot about the native history of the area and even took us out to an island in the middle of the river that has been owned by his family for hundreds of years. He showed us how they smoke salmon and showed us his "fish wheel." It can be pulled out into the middle of the river and anchored during the salmon runs. It will catch fish all day long without him even being there. Even that far north, he told us that the rivers are over-fished and that the number of salmon coming up the river isn't even 10% of what it was when he was growing up there.

The highlight of all of this of course, was first - crossing the Arctic Circle and then finally arriving at the Arctic ocean. Just being there and seeing it. In late August there is no snow on the ground anywhere and no ice on the waters. We never had any time when the temperature went down to freezing. Wading in the water was cold, maybe 42-45 degrees. I said I would go for a quick swim and a lot of people did. But on our "swim" day it was windy and colder than the day before and raining a little. So we went out for a wade but chickened out on the swim. Now I wish I'd have done it. Guess we'll just have to go back again sometime and do that. In the winter the snow in the village will pile up to 12 feet or more. Their houses are basically buried in snow. They all watch out for each other. The ocean freezes to over 20 feet thick and they can take their snowmobiles out more than 100 miles onto the ocean to go hunting. We also went over and looked around a little at the mothballed DEW-line station that is just outside Tuk. Quite interesting. If you don't know what the DEW line was then you'd better look it up.

Tuktoyaktuk has these strange little mountains called pingo mounds. They're built up by underlying ponds that have frozen and are only found in polar regions. Apparently Tuk has a higher concentration of them nearby than any other place in the world. We walked up to the top of the one that is right in the village and took some pictures from the top. So look up "pingo mound" also.

There were quite a few people out taking the journey. It wasn't crowed by any means, but we met some nice people along the way and would see them over and over as we traveled along the highway. The last 550 miles of the trip is a gravel highway maintained by the Yukon and NW Territories. The first 450 of those miles is called the Dempster Highway. The last approx 100 miles is the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway. Getting close to Tuk we would see snowmobiles parked out in the middle of nowhere in groups of 10-20. We wondered if they had just been dumped there. We found out later that the locals just leave them there when the snow melts until it snows again in the fall. Then they go out and get them running again and use them to go out on hunts.

We saw just about every kind of imaginable vehicle out there making the trip. People in Camrys and Civics. Small SUV's, lots of 4WD pickups and suburban type vehicles and then bigger specialty adventure type rigs. There were even a fair number of people doing the trip on motorcycles and even a few cyclists and hikers. We met a nice father and his H.S. age son from Vancouver that were doing the trip together in a new Lincoln Navigator. They'd fly down the roads at 60+ mph but then take long stops at any place there was food. They ate out and stayed in hotels and dumpy B&B's for their entire trip. They were fun to visit with though. The last time they passed us heading back they stopped us and gave us the rest of their juice and ramens. There was this one young lady we talked to several times who had two bikes on the back of her minivan. Seems like we always met up with her at gas stations. That van was completely covered with mud including the two bikes. So following her example I decided to tie my running shoes that I used to wade in the ocean on the back door handle of our van. They're still hanging on the van now, which still hasn't been cleaned up on the outside since we've been home. Stopping in one small town in a store parking lot I waited in the van while my wife went into the store. A guy older than me came up to the driver's window and and asked me if I knew there were some shoes tied to the back of our van. I told him yes, they're the shoes I waded in the Arctic Ocean with. He turned and walked away with a puzzled look on his face.

My wife loved it. She's an adventurer herself, although not quite as much as me. She's willing to try just about anything involving nature. She didn't balk at anything. We had a great time together and I'd have a hard time imagining what it would have been like without her on the trip.

Well, I could keep going on with this but it's likely by now that no one will still be reading so I'll stop and work on the pictures some more. If you're an adventurer I would recommend this trip to anyone. There is some risk involved but there are people out there most of the time and they can send for help if needed. We saw three vehicles changing flat tires. No mechanical breakdowns as far as we could tell and one car that had ran off the road. I backed up to see if anyone was in it, there wasn't, but they never would have been able to get it back on the road on their own. Anyway, it's a fantastic trip. We'd do it again and throw in some more side trips if we ever did. Top of the world highway and Jasper come to mind. That's all.





The picture below is a preliminary test. Still — More report and pics to come in the morning.


Our '98 Ford van started the trip with 180K miles on it.


A teepee burner along the way. They remind of my early days of growing up in a Small Washington logging and mill town.


Incredible views around every corner. We couldn't get over the beauty of the clouds.


An awesome mountain on the edge of New Hazelton. A gas station owner let us spend the night in their side lot.


Another mountain and clouds to look at.


Not us. Like, I wish.


Visted a native totem village. There were 20 or more.




First sign we'd seen with Arctic Ocean on it.


Robert Service lived in Dawson City for a long time. Also, Jack London (Call of the Wild) lived in DC for a year. We visited his cabin.


Old days Dawson City buildings. Built on top of permafrost, so no solid foundations.


Nature at its best.


Still a long ways to go.


Getting closer.


Sometimes there's a line to get a picture taken at this spot.




More road ahead.


Our van, not me. Our hero, Mike. A story for another day.


Pingo in the background. Arctic Ocean in foreground. Seagull flew right into the picture as I was taking it.


TUK!


WE MADE IT!!


Nice smooth roads.


The ocean.


A co-adventurer's van.


Local buildings. Reindeer antlers on top.


My shoes.


Reppin' in the Arctic.


Pingo mound.


How they form.


Pingo mound in background.


Road through the tundra.


There is beauty all around.


Can't get enough of it.


Sunrise where we had seen the northern lights the night before.


Gorilla tape. The adventurer's second best friend.


Wind was whipping up.


Just look at that.


Sign Post Forest, Watson Lake, YK



Forest of signs.


Yeah - look out for snakes crossing.


Just resting.


Another great mountain. They're all great.


Time to head home.