Top of The World, DC and Dempster

 

8/31/25:  We woke up to 35* with rain and the occasional snow flake.  The mountains to the north had a pretty good dusting on them.  We hit the road early for our big day.  The drive across the Top of the World Highway was beautiful.  The sun peaked out a few times and gave us spectacular views.  The road snakes along the spine of the mountains towards Dawson City, Yukon Territory, views in all directions.  The fall colors are out!  

We made our way to the mighty Yukon River and got on the ferry for our short trip across to Dawson City.  Katy was a nervous wreck but handled it okay.  We were at the front of the boat and were so close that we could not see any of the deck over the hood of the truck.  We didn’t stay in Dawson long.  We gathered some provisions, ate at the Eldorado (not worth the $) and fueled up the truck.  This gold rush town has so much history and a lot of the original buildings.  It also has very little blacktop and wooden sidewalks.  We hope to get back after our big trip.  

After 25ish miles on the Klondike Highway we turned onto the Dempster Highway towards Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean (880 kilometers).  This road is famous for very few services and is mostly gravel.  The first stop with services is 222 miles (370km).  The road didn’t seem too bad and I got the truck up a little too fast.  We found some bumps and plenty of washboard.  At about the 45km mark we pulled over to let the dogs out and check on the trailer.  

I heard Katy yell for me from in the trailer to come and see what happened.  Well, the fridge door fell off and was sitting on top of our plug in cooler/freezer.  Our power station/converter also came out.  It is missing a capacitor on the converter side so I’m not sure it will charge our batteries properly on the generator or shore power.  We kind of got things squared away and taped the fridge and freezer shut.  Back on the road…slower this time.  

Despite the inside of the rig rattling apart, the drive is so beautiful.  The landscape and fall colors are like a painting around every new turn.  There is a lot more traffic on the road than we imagined.  I feel if someone needed help, there would be helping hands.  We did see a lady in her 60’s I assume, stopped in her car and facing our direction.  She was in the middle of the road and another rig went around her.  She then started driving towards us and I could see she was talking or yelling to “no one” as she was alone.  Katy waved at her and she cocked her head back and spit at our truck.  Hopefully she had a better day after that…. We also saw a group of 5-6 rigs coming our way that we recognized.  We boondocked with them our first night out of Valdez.  They are from Cali and are getting after it.  

We parked the rig at about 6pm along a small stream.  We grabbed some tools and put a few things back together.  Mostly loose screws and window shades.  We hope the rest of the trip is worth it in the long run.  Traffic really slowed down as it started getting dark and we hope to have a quiet night.  Tomorrow will be a lot of windshield time and hopefully the rig doesn’t come apart!  We made it 160km in 4 hours.