yukon – the dempster

i’ll admit, i was a little intimidated by the thought of driving over 800 kilometres on a purely gravel highway, with one gas station, an awesome tire shop, and a sort of hotel halfway to the arctic ocean. logically, it seemed a more comforting thought to go to sleep once we hit the gravel start outside dawson city, and hopefully just wake up once we got to eagle plains many hours later. let’s be honest, we all know that it’s easier to just go to sleep than think about NOT hitting these rocks that look like they’ve come from the moon to take out our tires leaving us stranded in the middle of no where with bears, moose, elk and just about everything else you can think of.

but, travel is as much about the journey as it is the destination. often more so about the journey, and while i joke about sleeping through it for the comfort – we knew we’d be alright, and there just wasn’t any way we’d come this far north and not push on. so, we’d spoken with countless locals – gathering advice, taking some to heart that felt good, listening politely to others which did not. in the end, we somehow convinced ourselves that jerry cans & a real spare tire were luxurious we just didn’t have room for – so we took a chance, and headed away without them.

i feel repetitive already praising so much the company in which we travelled, the astounding scenery that was abundant to us, and the incredible people we met along the way – but like we found out, the more we appreciated, more to appreciate flowed to us. always. no exceptions. so, here we are – headed inside the arctic circle, via my fourth country, and finally, my very own backyard – dempster highway style.

ohh, just cookin’ some pasta while eating nibs inside our hotel room with the screen off our window.

just another ridiculous arctic sunset at a few minutes before midnight.

and the phrase ‘slept the dempster’ was coined! patent – vancrewver 2010 – yukon trip! zingc!