Chapter 4

June 18

It’s been a while but NOW we have water, elec, and telephone service so I can use myhotspot.  South of Yellowknife, all asphalt road for close to 300 miles. Not much to see but woods and a few black bears and bison.  We stayed the night at Fort Providence witha population of 750. The next day it was 200 miles of dirt road to Fort Simpson, population of 1250.  We took a guided tour of the town with a young 1st nation girl, who had grown up in a village 65 miles off the dirt road, which was accessable only in the winter because it was through a swamp and over many lakes. Anyway, the towns claim to fame was a visit from Pope John Paul in 1987.  His seat of honor was a chair made from moose antlers, which he used and now sits in the visitor center.  Next day another nearly 200 miles of dirt road when “EUREKA”, “I Have Found it”, theborder of NWT and BC.  Asphalt again all the way to the ALCAN Highway.  Now the discussion begins, should we go east and backtrack to Ft Nelson for the night or continue west to the next campground.  My logic says we go west, since the 18 miles back to Ft Nelson would equal 36 miles further west towards Alaska. My other half says “Fort Nelson has a campground with all utilities and a restaurant.”   “Besides we’ve traveled over 6000 miles and an extra 18 miles backtracking won’t make any difference.”  I put up a shallow defense but gave in to her logic.  We arrived with the dirtiest rig in the campground and spent two days cleaning everything including ourselves.

Now it was up the road to Watson Lake, home of the sign forest.  A quick look and there it was, our license plate, RUG HKR, which we had attached to a post 3 years ago.  It was shinning brightly among the other 75,000 signs.  On the road again to Whitehorse, a couple of black bears, some Stone Sheep in the road, and a quick tour of the sternwheeler “Klondike” and on to gold country and Dawson City.  Fueled up at Dawson City and headed up the Dempster Highway to theArctic Circle.  Oh Yes, another dirt road, with water and calcide to keep the dust down in places, but makes black mud and an oily film on everything.  We spend the night at a campground and leave early, I mean really early, three o’clock early, the next morning, in just the truck and head for the arctic circle.  We get to the gas station at Eagle Plains before it opens and I’m low on fuel, but it’s only 18 more miles to the circle, so we push on.  We do our thing at the sign, pictures and all and head back to the gas station.  The low light comes on, but I know we are going to make it.  Now it’s 7:30 and the station is still closed so we eat some breakfast at the motel. Best pancakes ever.  Now why would anyone build a motel with restaurant and gas, 200 miles up a dead end dirt road and expect to make a living?  The gas station opens up at 8:00, we fuel up and return to Dawson City.  We did see 4 stone sheep and one young, but the prize was a wolf walked out in front of the truck, but went into the woods before we could get the camera ready.  It’s just amazing to me the distances between fuel and eating places on many of the roads in NWT, Yukon and B.C.    I’m going to close this off for now and finish later.  We are in Fairbanks, AK.Cheers,    and Keep Trucking,      Steve