2004/07 Yukon trip - Trek to the Arctic - |
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The road north from Fort McPherson was not exciting, mainly through a spruce bog forest of stunted trees with a few lakes and the occasional island of solid ground where the trees could grow to a normal height. Eventually we came to the junction where the Arctic Red River flows into the enormous Mackenzie River. There we met up with our motorcyclist from the Arctic Circle Crossing. He’d already made it to Inuvik and was on his way back! He had stopped in Tsiigehtchic and they had invited him to a wedding and he was agonizing over whether he should have accepted and gone to it, but he’d declined, not knowing what his responsibilities would be as a guest of the Gwich’in. Tsiigehtchic is actually pronounced as Ziggachick so I don’t know why they don’t just spell it that way and make life easier. A single ferry does a triangular route, connecting the two ends of the Dempster Highway, and also visiting Tsiigehtchic, which lies at the junction of the two rivers. The Arctic Red looked low enough to wade across but the Mackenzie is a Mississippi sized river, headed for the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.
When we arrived in Tsiigehtchic the tribal store was closed and there was nobody around as they were all at the 
wedding, but then the cheering started and the horns were honking, and the wedding procession came through all the streets in town with the bride and groom and a whole bunch of kids in the lead pickup, and all the other cars following. All the dogs in town joined in with a great howling.
We got back on the ferry to rejoin the highway. It was now sand covered gravel and dead straight. For the first time we could drive at 50 mph and not be bouncing all over, but the dust cloud behind us was enormous. We found a gravel pit full of water to camp by, not all that scenic but popular with the bird life. We had herons and yellow warblers and red grosbeaks as well as the usual ravens sitting in the tree tops. We still had the spruce trees here but also tamaracks or larches similar to those in northern Minnesota. The tamaracks are conifers but not evergreens, and they turn a gorgeous gold in the fall before dropping their leaves.
Sunday 8th August
There was a great sunset, but it happened at about 12.45 am! I was out there taking pictures, attended by a massive crowd of admiring mosquitoes. I should have used spray or one of the nets but the sky was glorious and I didn’t want to miss anything.
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