Inuvik

July 12, 2024 – Friday – Day 19

It sprinkled most of the night and was raining a little when we left camp.  The mosquitoes were terrible at this camp and everywhere on the Dempster Highway.  We had not had any issues with bugs for the past 3 weeks, but they are making up for it now.

We continued to drive north on the Dempster Highway, stopping for gas at Eagle Plains.  This was the most expensive gas we have paid for so far.

About 30 mile north of Eagle Plains we crossed the Arctic Circle and a few miles past that we came across two grizzly bears foraging just off the road.  They were only 20-30 feet away and they just ignored us as we took videos and pictures.  These are the first grizzlies we have seen after seeing 5-6 black bears.

In this section of the highway we crossed two rivers using ferries.  The ferries are run by the government and are free to cross.  The first ferry crosses the Peel River and we were the only ones on the ferry.  The second ferry crosses the Mackenzie River and the ferry is much larger.  Our ferry had 4 vehicles and a semi-truck on it.  The Mackenzie River is quite wide and it took 5-10 minutes to cross it.

From the last ferry we only had 1-1/2 hours of driving to reach Inuvik.  This is the biggest city in northern Canada and is 90 miles from the Arctic Ocean.  

They were holding the Great Northern Arts Festival this week, so we stopped by to look at the exhibits.  Also, while in Inuvik we ate dinner at one of the two restaurants to celebrate Eva’s birthday.  

While walking back to the van we stopped by the only grocery store and bought a small cake so she could have her birthday cake.

There are not many places to camp for free this far north, so we got a campsite at a territorial park at the edge of town.  It was nice because they had showers.

It has surprised us how warm it is up in the north.  It was close to 80 deg today and right now it is 10 pm and the sun is high in the sky.  We are hoping it will cool down in the evening.

The sun was up in the sky long after midnight.  The camper next to us pulled into camp around 11 pm and was using a chainsaw to cut wood at about 11:30 pm.  It was too light (and noisy) to sleep so we took a picture from camp of the sun at midnight.