Tuktoyakyuk

July 13, 2024 – Saturday – Day 20

We left camp at 9 am and after getting more gas, we drove north on the Inuvik/Tuktoyaktuk Highway.  This is the last 90 miles to the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk (Tuk).  This hamlet was founded in 1928 and is mostly inhabited by the Inuvialuit people.  The sun does not set here between May 19^th and July 24^th.

The road north was gravel, but not in bad condition, except where there is a lot of washboard on the road. North of Inuvik the terrain turns into a true tundra.  Everywhere is green with a lot of water.  As we got closer to Tuk the trees disappeared and then it was just grass and pools of water.

After arriving in town we drove to the end of the road at the Arctic Ocean.  We have now been to the El Fin del Mundo (The End of the World) in Ushuaia, Argentina and to the top of the world in Tuktoyaktuk, Canada.  But we have only driven about ½ of the distance in-between.

We ate lunch at Grandma’s Kitchen, the only open restaurant in town and then took dip in the Arctic Ocean. We were lucky it was a warm and sunny day.  The water was cold, but the sun was warm.  Some local people told us there was ice on the ocean until the end of June.  They also mentioned that they had a family of polar bears on the beach just a few days ago.  Too bad we missed that.

We decided to stay at the city campground on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.  The campground was almost full, but we found one of the last spots.  The campground is just parking spots along the northern shoreline.  It was a nice evening, except the campground is on the main road and I think the locals like to drive back-and-forth on the road looking at the tourist, so it was a little noisy.  Hopefully it will calm down before it is too late.