The Dempster, Started

This morning we had a quick but yummy breakfast at the Baked Cafe at 100 Main St. in Whitehorse, YT, right near the corner of Main and 2nd Ave.  We only had some pressed breakfast sandwiches, but it seemed like a good place to get a warm drink and hang out.  I wished I had found it before spending hours blogging at the campground yesterday.

We then headed over to Yukon Honda, where we had two sets of knobby tires shipped earlier in our trip.  We got there right at opening, and John from the service department was able to mount and balance our tires right away.  They were fine with Dad and I removing our own wheels out in their parking lot, which saved us $40 and allowed us to keep the bikes partially loaded instead of having to strip all the bags off.

We shipped the street tires that were taken off down to a friend in Prince George BC on the Greyhound bus.  We'll have those installed and change our oil on our way south to Vancouver next week.

We left Whitehorse a bit before noon, and headed north towards the start of the Dempster Highway.  The Dempster Highway is the only road in Canada that crosses the Arctic Circle (the Dalton Highway is the only road in the US to do the same.)  Completing this highway is one of the main goals of the trip, but is also one of the least likely.  Road conditions change as quickly as the weather, and can range from "hard and fast like pavement" to "road closed because there is no more road".  Those that make it often have tales of wipeouts, and very commonly flat tires.  Buying oil at Canadian Tire this morning, I started talking with two locals who were full of warning about riding the Dempster.  One guy drove a maintenance truck on the highway for a few seasons, and repeated the common warning of Just Keeping It Slow.  Most flat tires apparently happen when you're going above 90 or 100 km/h and the front tire throws sharp rocks up in the air, and the rear tire rolls over them and gets punctured.  Keep it around 80 km/h and we should be fine.  The knobby tires we just installed should help avoid both the flat tires and the wipe outs.  Having read plenty of accounts of others attempting the Dempster, I figure our odds of reaching Inuvik at the north end are 50-50.

Our goal today was just to get as close to the Dempster as possible, which worked out quite well because we camped at Tombstone Campground, about 70km along the highway.  Tomorrow we try for the Arctic Circle and Inuvik NT!

Father and Son at the start of the Dempster Highway

Camping at Tombstone Campground, on the Dempster Highway