July 1, 2008: Dawson City, Yukon, Canada
We’d asked various folks, including a few locals about the chances of riding the Dempster in this weather and some said “No way”, while others said we could try it the next day, provided the rain stopped and the wind and sun came out to dry it. But it had rained, and continued to rain!
So, our final push up the Dempster and across the Arctic Circle to Inuvik was now in real danger of being sidelined for this trip. Man, that would be a major bummer!
We had less than 500 miles of dirt to go!
Mike had an early shower in the spotlessly clean showers at the campground, after doing some laundry and packing his bike and after Jaryd and I showered and packed our bikes.
We headed off into town, to visit the tourist info center for the latest news on the Dempster road, given the un-ending rain, and we found the town was alive with thousands (OK, many hundreds!) of people for the Canada Day celebrations. They had a parade down the dirt streets, and lots of tents and activity on the edge of the Yukon River, next to the town.
We didn’t have much luck at the Info Center, because the place was filled with tourists and the brightly dressed helpers behind the counter did not have the latest road info on the Dempster.
Anyway, we needed to find an extra plastic gas can, for the long dirt road to Inuvik, as there is no gas for around 250 miles from Dawson City to Eagle Plains, the only place with gas before Inuvik on the Dempster.
The store at the campground only had the large 5 gallon cans left, after Mike picked-up the very last small can available at that store, so Jaryd and I found some 2.5G cans at the hardware store in town, which would be perfect.
We figured that we would need maybe 1.5G or so to make it to the mid-way point with gas, on the Dempster, so these would be perfect.
We headed back to the campground, to get our tires into storage, and Mike took some pics of the woods and stream near the campground….
I negotiated with the attractive young lady in the store and her father on storage for our street tires, which we did NOT want to have to take up the Dempster with us. We were trying to run light for the dirt and mud, and the extra 40lbs of tires loaded up high would have been a pain to deal with! Anyway, they agreed to store the tires in a little closed trailer, for a few dollars, so we struck the deal and dropped the tires off at the trailer before heading out mid afternoon to the Klondike River Lodge, which is right opposite the start of the Dempster Highway, where it Tee’s off North from the Klondike Highway.
The new dirt tires were VERY slippery and uncomfortable on the wet asphalt, and I thought it may even be better to simply ride in the dirt on the side of the road! Anyway, we only had about 25 miles or so of asphalt, backtracking down the Klondike Highway until we got to the T-junction with the Dempster Highway, so it would not be too bad. (We had to go right past the Dempster turnoff yesterday afternoon, to get to Dawson City and our campground.)
I must say, that I think we were all starting to feel more than a little nervous of riding the Dempster in those very wet conditions, from the mis-adventure stories we’d all heard about this road in the wet. We’ve heard of guys getting stuck for literally days on end out there in the wilderness, having to wait for the road to try out, and of mud slides taking out the road and making it impassable, etc, etc, etc.
So, we decided that we’d stop at the Klondike Lodge for lunch, and perhaps see about a room (which we’d heard they were offering on special price the day before), and either wait out the rain, or give it a try later.
What a pleasure, without the heavy tires loaded on the back!!!
Notice the knobby dirt tires!
A blurry pic of the huge lunch we had at the Lodge. It was meat and fries with gravy on toast, and peas. Delicious, and with a few cups of coffee, warmed our cold, damp bodies in no time!
By now, it was 6PM, and we decided there was no way we were going to attempt the Dempster at this time, in the drizzle.
As the Klondike Lodge did not have any more room, and as we did NOT feel like going back to the campground we’d left earlier this morning, we agreed to head back into Dawson City and find a cheap boarding room or hotel room or something, and wait the weather out until tomorrow, and then decide what to do.
We were very worried that if we could not start the Dempster Highway ride tomorrow, we would run out of time to get back home, as I needed to be back at work on the 12th, and we have a LONG way to go, to get home!
So, we rode back to Dawson City and looked for a place to stay, with the rain starting to come down real hard. The locals told us that the 40 hours of straight rain was almost unheard-of at this time of the year, and that it should be clear the next day….but now we were very concerned about the state of the Dempster already, and we weren’t getting much update from the Info Center, which we tried again.
We settled on a single room in the “Bunkhouse”, a modern boarding-house type place which seemed to have all sorts of young travelers staying in the tiny rooms, with available shared showers and toilets.
When we paid for the room, the young lady behind the counter was almost insistent that we look at the room first, because it “is very small!” Well, as “hardened travelers”, we felt that it could only be a step up from the camping facilities that we’d been quite happy to stay in, on this trip, but MAN…..she sure was right about it being SMALL!!! 
This room, for all three of us, with Jaryd sleeping on the floor between the beds!
A somewhat dejected Mike and Jaryd, looking out over the wet balcony, at the Canada Day activity, and the bikes parked below…we should now have been approaching Eagle Plains, half-way up the Dempster Highway! 
One bright little event for us on this day, was the arrival of a pair of Husky’s, which Jaryd and Mike got up close to, and discussed the the owner, who told us that the one dog was very shy and nervous of people and camera flashes, due to some abuse history. How cruel can some people be? They were beautiful dogs.
and this was the shy one….
While waiting for the rain to subside, Jaryd and Mike took a walk-about with the cameras and took some pics of Dawson City.
You can see how the town is trying to keep the old historical style intact, and uses tourism as one of its key income generators for the hardy folks who live here.
The restaurant in this pic, was where we ate last night, after not having any availability at the Drunken Goat Greek taverna.
Various pics of interesting buildings….
I just dig that roof!!!
and of the Yukon River itself.
You can just see the (free) Yukon River ferry in this pic, on the right, which enables travelers to cross the Yukon at Dawson City, to travel the “Top of the World” dirt highway on the other side, and on into Alaska.
Won’t the damned rain ever stop????
The store we bought the spare gas cans from….
A restored ferry boat that used to ply the Yukon River, back in the day…
So, as night fell, the three of us walked around the corner to the Drunken Goat taverna, for a nice meal. This time, we’d cleaned-up and looked much more presentable, and the Canada Day visitors had mostly left, so we were able to enjoy a quieter meal, while we discussed what to do next about the Dempster piece of our trip.
We universally decided that we simply did not have enough time left, to attempt the final stretch to Inuvik, especially with the road so very, very wet. We therefore decided we would change plans and head into Alaska from Dawson City, across the Yukon River, and do the “Top of the World” highway, which is a gravel road running along the top of the mountains/hills, and into Alasla, where we could visit the famous little town of Chicken, in Alaska, before heading down and south-east again to Tok and finally Haines Junction, before re-connecting with the same Alcan/Alaska stretch that we’d ridden up from Dawson Creek.
On top of this realization that we were not going to be able to reach our goal, I started having a personal issue from all the riding on that hard and unforgiving saddle – saddle sores were developing on the old butt! This was something I needed to really look after, as we were not even halfway through our total journey! In desperation, I’d started applying foot powder to the nether regions of my body…but while this is an anti-fungal treatment, it clearly was not helping much at all with the saddle-sores.
The change of plan was really pretty devastating for all of us, as all of us were so looking forward to riding the Dempster and reaching Inuvik, but we took solace in the fact that this was really, truly, a trip for the sake of the trip, and not just to reach some end destination point.
I wanted to ride an incredible journey with my son and my buddy, and we were in the midst of doing that, and Alaska would in itself be a fun little diversion for us, so once we’d made the decision, we planned (sic!) for that piece of the trip, with enjoyment!
Our new extra diversion into Alaska, for the Chicken-Tok-Haines Junction loop would then look like this…
Tomorrow, then, we’d cross the Yukon on the Ferry and head out to Chicken and Tok, Alaska!