(1,620 kb)
(1,620 kb)
Motorists can wend their way across the breadth of Canada, from Atlantic to Pacific shores, on an impressive network of highways. Only in winter, though, when the Mackenzie River freezes over, is it also possible to drive to the Arctic Ocean. For more than two decades, the Dempster Highway has been the only all-season highway in North America that crosses the Arctic Circle into the farther reaches of the Canadian land mass.
Named for Inspector W.J.D. 'Jack' Dempster of the Royal North West Mounted Police (RNWMP), the Dempster Highway leads the adventurous traveller from east of Dawson City, in the Yukon, 720 kilometres northeastward to Inuvik, in the Northwest Territories.
Inspector Dempster is known as the hero who went out to search for the 'lost patrol'. In December 1910, 4 men and 15 dogs set out from Fort McPherson (now named Tetlit Zheh) on the RNWMP's yearly dogsled patrol down to Dawson City. When the patrol failed to appear in Dawson City, Dempster set out in severe winter weather to search for them. Two weeks later, he found their bodies.
The Dempster Highway was planned in the 1950s, as part of John Diefenbaker's policy of 'roads to resources' for the North. A land route was needed to access the hilly region of Eagle Plains north of Dawson City, where it was believed there were oil fields. Construction was cancelled in 1961 when the quantities of oil and gas discovered proved uneconomical. Ten years later, when oil was discovered in the Beaufort Sea, the need for an all-weather land link reappeared and construction resumed. Opened in 1979, this northern highway winds its way over mountain and plain on the same trail blazed by those dogsled patrols in the early 1900s and crosses the Mackenzie and Peel rivers, which are traversed by ferry in summer and by ice bridges in winter.
The northern terminus of the Dempster Highway is Inuvik—Inuvialuktun for 'place of the people'—which boasts the famous landmark Catholic church built in the form of an igloo.
For a period of less than four months every year—late December to mid-April—the intrepid motorist can drive 194 kilometres beyond Inuvik on the frozen Mackenzie. The plowed ice road leads to Tuktoyaktuk at 69°26' north latitude. This hamlet is located on a spit of land where the Mackenzie estuary opens into the Beaufort Sea, which is actually part of the Arctic Ocean. Here, the motorist has truly reached the northern end of the road.
Tuktoyaktuk is the ideal lookout for watching the aurora borealis, or northern lights, at their awesome best on a crisp winter night. The little community is also a good base from which to set off to visit the pingos, ice-cored hills unique to permafrost areas in the North. The Inuit harnessed these reservoirs of ice by excavating cold stores inside the hill and using them to preserve food acquired during their hunt.
Pingos can be as high as 50 metres and may measure as much as 300 metres in diameter. Ibyuk pingo, which is close to Tuktoyaktuk, rises dramatically 49 metres above the surrounding drained lake bed. With over 1,300 pingos, the Mackenzie delta has the largest concentration of these hills in Canada.