Dempster Highway

Here I sit in Dawson City again, but this time it's just long enough to update my blog, get some groceries, go to church and move on.

Sunday afternoon I took a little drive up to King Solomon's Dome and saw this rainbow. I figured it would be cloudy all night but it actually cleared off in time for me to see my first northern lights of the trip. I thought that was pretty cool and I did get a couple pretty feeble photos but they really weren't worth posting. Especially compared to the photos I got the following night.

Tombstone took only a couple hours to reach. It was very beautiful with a lot of the fall colors coming out.

I got some more close up landscapes, and went to bed. It was cloudy again but I thought I would get up at around the same time I saw the northern lights the night before, 3:00 AM, just in case they were out again. For some reason I woke up at 2:00 and when I looked outside this is what I saw...




The northern lights were going like crazy! I've see then before in Michigan and in Ontario but not like this. Down there you look for them on the northern horizon and you hope the moon isn't out to ruin the show. Here they filled the sky, north, south, east and west. And, the moon was full. That's the bright sun-like object in the third image. It might have had some effect on the brilliance of the display, but as you can see it didn't ruin it.

Also, I noticed something unusual about the moon. There was a little bite shaped notch out of it. A Lunar Eclipse was in progress! How lucky could I get (thanks God). After the Auroras died down a bit I shot the moon.


Here it is in nearly full eclipse...

full eclipse...

starting to come out of eclipse. I lost some sleep that night, but to a good cause.

The next morning I found this Arctic Ground Squirrel munching on some Crow Berries.

It also took some time to pose for photographs.

I found many beautiful things to photograph.

This is Red Creek. It gets its color from minerals in the water.

I crossed the Arctic Circle... again.

Then I crossed over into the Northwest Territories... for the first time. In the background you can see a cloud of dust form a truck. Things were pretty dry up there so the road was very dusty. It got scary at times because a passing truck could leave you unable to see the road for a few seconds. They also kick up some stones. I ended up with a golf ball sized whole in my camper. Duct tape works for now. I'm just glad it missed my windshield.

The road has two ferry crossings. This one at the Peel river and one where the Arctic Red river flows into the Yukon River.

Right after the first crossing you come to a Territorial Park. I got there shortly before noon and I found this guy sitting in this chair pretending to be asleep. I was the first visitor he had that day. He had coffee and tea made up so I had a cup of tea and talked with him for a while. A asked him about those no good Rock Ptarmigan (still eluding me) and he told the story of how they got there call. The Rock Ptarmigan and the Long-tailed Duck were fighting and somehow or another the force of the fight blew them each in opposite directions. The duck landed in the cold water. Its call sounds like "that's cold" in this guy's native language (inuit maybe?). The ptarmigan landed in the rocks and its call sounds like "that hurts". This guy loved to talk but he was a bit hard to understand because of his accent and the fact that he didn't have many teeth.

I made it to Inuvik, the end of the road, on Wednesday. It was larger than I thought it would be but I wasn't overly impressed. I heard that this as a great place to get native art, but the gift shops were a little picked over and the prices weren't all that great. Also it seemed like there were a lot of kids and scary looking people just hanging around. It made me nervous.

This is the famous "Igloo Church". You can find photos of it on anything that has to do with Inuvik. The town also has bear proof trash containers. I think they're mostly for Brown Bears but they had a Polar Bear sighting not to far from here a couple weeks ago.

I got many more photos on the way home. You'll notice that there isn't a cloud in the sky. It was like that the whole time I was up there.

When I came back down to the Tombstone area it was cloudy again. It even rained a little.

And you could see some snow on the higher peaks.

I got some more mountain shots there.

This is about as close as I came to finding one of those dastardly Rock Ptarmigan. I'm about 90% sure it's a Ptarmigan feather and about 10% sure it's a Rock Ptarmigan feather. 90 plus 10 equals 100 right? Can I count it? No, I'm afraid that would seriously compromise my birding integrity. I still have a few more chances to find the rotten good-for-nothings so I haven't given up yet.

This is Kai. He's an air traffic controller from Germany. The campground was full and he was going to sleep in the parking lot so I invited him to share my wonderful free campsite with a view. In gratitude, he taste tested my experimental cranberry pancakes. He didn't turn green so I knew they were safe.

He flew into Whitehorse in June and bought this truck and canoe. He's been traveling around and now he's going to meet a friend in Inuvik for a paddle down the Eagle river. Germans get a lot more vacation time than Americans do and they seem to travel a lot more. I've met a lot of them on my trip. Especially in this area. Safe travels Kai.

From here I head for Kluane National Park. I want to get some photos of the Dall Sheep. Kai got some great ones there. I will also have to make a stop in Whitehorse. I have a little recall issue to take care of with my cruise control and I have some uneven wear on my front tires. Hopefully that won't amount to anything big. You can add that to your prayer list. Take care until next time.

Steve