More on this in a minute…
Travel day
I made an early start Sunday morning out of Tuk. I had a mental destination I wanted to hit and it was about an 8+ hour drive on really bad road conditions. I had the moose flies on my mind and did not want to spend another night battling the bites and buzz of these creatures. I still have welts where those darn things bit while setting up, and taking camp down. I spent no other time outside with these creatures. I learned these creatures are only in the rivers area, north and south you’re creature free.
In an earlier post I said I was pushing a weather window. I’m really glad I made that push which I’ll explain in a moment. Also part of that decision was that I could make mental notes of places southbound to idle down for a night, or several nights, in a free campsite. Good decision.
Night one
Camp for me is not about anything more than a quiet place to lay down for the night, or several nights, in peace and solitude.
This place checked the boxes, far enough off the road so that the dust settles before it gets to me, and far enough away so the noise of vehicles on the crushing stone is reduced. Once you get to about 6:00 pm there is little to no traffic on this road so the evening and night are dead quiet.
You can see smoke in the air, coming south I could see there was a fire burning. This fire, or one in the same area was active while heading north. I could see the smoke blowing to the northwest, this camp location was just south, and east of the fire area.
Houston, we’ve got a problem.
While eating dinner I looked to the northwest and saw this huge plume of smoke rising. The nice thing about Canada is they have really good websites in each Territory on fire locations and current operations. It’s also nice to travel with Starlink cause without you would be in the dark on this entire route other than when passing through the small communities. The fire reports are kept very much up to date, like within hours of each other. The report on this fire said it was 10km west of the Dempster headed towards the Peel River. With a nice wind from the southeast I felt pretty confident I would be good till morning. I did wake every couple hours to look and check the reports.
At 12:30 am the report, as of midnight, was the fire was 6km north of the Dempster with no immediate impact on the Dempster. Guess that works.
Time to go I guess. The smoke in my camp was really thick, time to hit the road.
I knew there was a mountain range about 3 hours south. Hopes were, if I get over that range, and the wind is from the southeast down there, that I’ll be good.
Heading southbound
You know you’re rural when the highway is also an emergency airstrip. There are 3 of these on the Dempster, one at the top of the mountain range I needed to cross.
My assumption was correct, I had some smoke on the immediate south side of the mountain top, but it was tolerable. I can’t explain how far you are looking in the above picture, but it is miles.
I pulled out my chair and sat at this site for more than an hour. It was still early and I still had a nearly full cup of coffee. Hard to drink when you’re focused on the road and at times holding tight to the wheel with two hands. There’s hardly a word I can come up with that can explain how quiet and peaceful this 1 hour was. Not a single vehicle passed in that 1 hour. Come to think of it, I did not pass a single vehicle during my drive so far. I didn’t take a shot at the road as it headed south, but I’ll make this comment. Far off in the distance I saw a plume of dust rising. A vehicle was headed my direction from the south. It can be difficult to judge time, but I’ll say with confidence it was far more than 10 minutes before that vehicle came up the rise to the top and my location.
Welcome back to the Yukon
Now, back to those mental notes I made about possible stops. I recalled, about an hour south of the Yukon, Northwest Territories border, was a Yukon Territorial camp. You can stay at these sites for $20.00 Canadien. The only thing these sites can offer that my free sites don’t have is a pit toilet. I have no need and would rather use a tree and shovel than enter these abominations. Sorry…
Anyways…My mental note told me there was a pull-off just north of that site that could possibly work for a free stay. JACKPOT!!!! This goes back to my post title, from the land of sky blue waters…..
A geek to nostalgia
Ok, I can geek out on nostalgic stuff. You may need to be old like me, and you may have had to grow up in Wisconsin. Maybe not. But growing up in the 60’s and 70’s the one thing there was no shortage of was beer and beer advertising. The one ad that has stayed with me, and I still sing the jingle to, was Hamm’s.
“From the land of sky-blue waters, from the land of pines, lofty balsams, comes the beer refreshing—Hamm’s, the beer refreshing.”
Check this out…
My camp for the next few nights.
If you didn’t watch the video from my opening you’ll need to go back and watch. Volume up….
I pulled in here about 1:00pm and knew I found my home for the next few days. What this location really is used for is to control the spring melt and ice jams. I can see where heavy equipment is used to move the ice and stone pushed down from the preceding mountain range in order to prevent floods up river. My afternoon was spent at the riverbank listening to the gurgle of water and birds calling out. The birds calls were beautiful, the water gurgling was peaceful. The highlife to this, and I know people who won’t be very happy with me, is watching what I believe were trout chasing and jumping to get the river flies buzzing about and above the water level. All afternoon.
I can hear it….Get the fishing pole out and catch dinner! Guess that’s not me, never had the patience or appetite to sit and fish. One of my goals of this trip was to fish. Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime. I have all I need, I believe, to fish up here. Maybe another day…
I’m pushing a weather window.
Back to that weather window from last week. The reason I pushed through to reach the Arctic Ocean in short order. During my last day in Tuk they set a record high. I had the low 80’s on my thermometer on Saturday. Funny considering I had upper 30’s on Friday morning.
The weather is coming. I got a weather message last night for tonight and the next two days. Snow, ice and high winds with lows in the 20’s. Happy to not be on the ocean during this period. I’m good, I’m tucked behind a tree line that should calm some of the wind. My propane tanks are full so I’ve got heat. My plan is to ride the storm out here and either Thursday or Friday start south. From my location I’ve got 276 miles to the Dempster entry point. I plan two days to get out to that location. All good…
Till next time
So, until next time which may be a few days, thanks. Thank you again for reaching this point of my post, thank you for your time and your likes, always appreciated. Till next time, peace!
A journey to fill my soul 
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