When we woke up the next morning - It was already daylight !! Of course - Only 2 days away from the summer solstice !! The skeeters weren't too bad, so we packed up, but there was obviously something seriously wrong with the roof. I found that one of the bolts holding the support springs had sheered off - Thus the washer I found last night. The roof wouldn't even close properly without some violent manual effort and it was obviously that would get worse on the rough dirt roads. So while I thought about a solution, we moved up to the pumps to get some fuel. While the guy was pumping it, I chatted with him and he seemed the "right sort of person" mechanically (if you know what I mean) and as he had a big workshop available, I asked if he could have a look at the roof. So we got the car in the workshop, and Norm and I agreed that with a drill and a hammer we might be able in insert a new bolt. But first we had to remove the old one - which after a lot of hammering and drilling, we finally did. The springs that support the roof movement are super strong, so we had to do everything working against the springs. Hard work, but after an hour or so we succeeded, and got it all together, and he we tested it, it worked perfectly ! Phew ! Norm now became my new best friend, he was given enough tip to buy a few beers, and we finally set off up the road !!
Not far up the road we were warned about "aircraft on the road" ! Turns out they use the road as an emergency landing strip, just widening a straight stretch a little for a few hundred yards and marking the sides with cones. I wonder who has right of way ? !!Almost immediately after the "runway", we came to our second Arctic Circle crossing. Cold winds blowing, so a few quick photos and then it was on to the Yukon / North West Territories border, still some 57 kms further north.
We were now approaching the Richardson Range and this is land that was never glaciated. This area has such low precipitation that it is officially classified as a desert, even though it is above the Arctic Circle, and because of the low snowfall, no ice ever formed into glaciers - There just wasn't enough of it. So a much more rounded landed scape, and rolling plains of tundra with evidence of permafrost and pingos everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo Once again, just jaw dropping to drive through - Like nothing we had ever seen before anywhere. Then out onto this plain -
And there in the distance we spotted a couple of dots on the road - And as we got closer, there were two grizzlies wandering through the grass land towards us ! Janet's first wild grizzlies, so I stopped the car and we just watched and waited as they walked towards us. Both about the same size, and not too big - Must be a couple of second year cubs - (grizzlies keep their cubs for 2 years, unlike blacks which are one year). Where was Mum ? She was the danger. But mum was nowhere to be seen - This must be two cubs setting out on their own in life. So we just enjoyed them. They came right up to the front of the car, actually disappearing from view under the line of the bonnet, and then one came up on my side while the other came up the road on Janet's side. They were stopping and looking at us, sniffing the air - I was certain the one on my side was going to come up to the car - and I so want some real
grizzly claw scratch marks down the door !! But when I wound the window up, the slight noise made him skittish, and he started to move away. Eventually they moved on up the road, and I took a parting photo as they disappeared up the road behind us - It is one "rear end shot" that I actually love - We had so enjoyed having them around us and so close, that it was lovely to see them just wandering up the road, content and undisturbed. And not another car in site - It was just a beautiful 10 minutes or so of perfection in nature - Us and two wild grizzly bears in the middle of some of the most stunning country on this planet.
As we crossed the impressive Wright Pass from the Yukon into NWT, the weather went from clear blue skies behind us to very black rain and storm clouds ahead of us - I even took a photo looking back into the Yukon to show the amazing difference ! Just down the pass in the other side we found a perfect pingo right beside the road - The top was broken open, and you can clearly see the ice of the permafrost mounded up below the surface soil, and the hollow where the frozen water had been that forced the ground upwards in the first place. Nature really is amazing.
Later, we came down a hill towards Midway Lake, and noticed a large "town" on the other side of the lake. Odd - There was nothing written on the map about a town. So we turned off the road up this track and drove in on the dirt road - Huts, teepees, toilets, log cabins, even a huge metal marquee frame - But not a soul in sight. A few ptarmigan running around, a few ground squirrels, but otherwise totally deserted. What on earth is / was it ? Later
http://www.tetlitgwichin.ca/MidwayLake Obviously they just come and rebuild everything just before the festival in the summer !! You never know what you are going to find out here. But there were some stunning flowers hidden away in between the buildings ...........
we looked it up on the internet and found out that it is the site of an annual Gwich'in (First Nation) music festival, started in 1986, and now an annual event.
On through the amazing Richardson Range, with our next planned stop being Fort McPherson - Famous for the "Lost Patrol" of 1910 or so.
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/hh-ps/lost-perdus-eng.htm Since this patrol had been attempting to travel the same route to Dawson as we had just covered over the past 2 days, the story
had special significance for us. After crossing the first of our free ferries over the Peel River(we were the only car on the ferry !) we went into the town and it was a real disappointment - Just a very run down place with nothing happening - We even tried to buy a cup of coffee, but found that the only machine in town was broken !! Better remembered from its glory days, I suggest ! Even the grave site where the Lost Patrol are buried was run down.
There was a second river crossing over the enormous confluence of the Mackenzie and Red Rivers shortly afterwards before we encountered the somewhat boring last 200 kms into Inuvik. Boring because due to the climatic influence of the hug MacKenzie River Delta (2nd biggest in the US after the Mississippi delta), the tree line actually extends further north than anywhere else, with trees all the way up to the Arctic Ocean coast. And as a result, on this flat flat land, you can see nothing of the lakes and water and tributaries of water - Just trees. It is like driving in a tunnel !! However in the distance at one stage I saw a dark shape crossing the road -
Not a bear, and not a wolf - It was totally different from what we had seen before, and I am convinced I saw my first Wolverine. Unfortunately Janet never saw it, but I am sure that is what it was - I intend to claim it as one anyway !! Shortly afterwards we were quite relieved when we arrived in Inuvik, where after a long day in the saddle we just went straight to the camp site. And it was cold ! It had been 28 deg C 2 days earlier - Tonight was bitter, and we even took a powered sight so we could plug in our little heater (thank you Janet and Ted - It is perfect !!), and keep warm as we cooked our supper and turned in.
Pics are here :-
https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0042EaglePlainToInuvik?authkey=Gv1sRgCNquy_DyioGCJg#
No comments:
Post a Comment