Tuktoyaktuk

One thing we wanted to do on this trip was see the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans.  Unfortunately, there aren't any public roads that go all the way to the Arctic Ocean.  There are two roads in North America that cross into the Arctic Circle.  In the US, you can take the Dalton Highway north from Fairbanks AK to Prudhoe Bay AK.  You can't ride right up to the coast though because the oil companies have it locked down as a secured area.  You have to pay to take a bus tour.  In Canada, you can take the Dempster Highway from near Dawson City YT to Inuvik NT.  Unless the ice road is open in the winter, there is no way to drive from there to the ocean though.  The only choice is to take a boat up the MacKenzie river, or to fly.

We knew we wanted to fly to Tuk, but we didn't even think about booking tickets because we had no way of knowing if or when we'd make it up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik.  When he woke up this morning to find we were actually in Inuvik, Dad started making phone calls (hiding in the bathroom to avoid waking me) to find out how we might get to Tuk, and how much we might pay.

I woke up to find out our only real choice was a $420 scheduled flight with Aklak Air, and we had to be at the airport in 1 hour.  The $420 was steeper than I'd expected, but my wife had been encouraging me to take the flight since before I left on this trip, reminding me that I'd probably never get the chance again.  We decided quickly, and Dad bought the tickets on the phone.  We got dressed, booked our hotel room for another night (no time to move to a local campground), wolfed down some free continental breakfast, and took off for the Inuvik airport.

I met the pilot of our flight while checking in, and he offered to let us store our motorcycle gear in the hanger so we wouldn't have to take it to Tuk with us.  He had coveralls on, and at first I thought he was a baggage handler or something, not our pilot. His accent immediately gave him away as a Newfie, as did the way he asked where we parked our bikes: "Where yer bikes to?"  He was somewhere around my age, from out east, had flown out of every province and territory in Canada, and rode dirt bikes.  We had lots to talk about, but not much time since we had to get flying.

Read the white sign posted behind my Dad

The flight was only about 20 minutes, which gave us just enough time to get a good look at the insanity which is the MacKenzie River Delta.  We also had a decent look at Tuk's pingos during the landing but, as is often the case, my photos didn't really turn out because my camera has little zoom.  We left the airport, stopped for some photos at the greeting sign, and started the short walk into town.

Welcome to Tuk, elevation: 5m!

We were maybe a minute down the road when someone stopped and offered us a ride into town.  We hopped in the bed of the truck, and were taken directly to the main store and gas station.  We hopped out and exchanged introductions with our driver, Chuck Gruben, a local guide and outfitter.  Chuck took the time to describe the town to us, some sites we should see, and to talk about the traditional sod huts that are right beside where we'd stopped.  He gave us the name and number of a tour guide, Joanne, in case we wanted a tour.  He'd have given us one himself, if he weren't so busy that day.  Thanks for the great welcome to Tuk, Chuck!

Dad in the back of Chuck Gruben's truck on the ride into Tuk from the airport

There are two sod houses built in "downtown" Tuk.  Actually, I guess only one is a sod house because the other was left unsoded so the supporting structure would be visible.  The house with the sod is in very good shape inside, and was surprisingly roomy.

After looking at the sod houses, we headed over to the store to call Joanne for a tour.  While waiting for her, we looked around the store and it's shocking prices. 

I knew coke habits were expensive, but this is ridiculous!

It turns out Joanne, our tour guide, is also the only taxi driver in town.  Dad and I ended up getting a driven tour of Tuk, while Joanne also picked up and dropped off other customers going about their day.  After we'd seen most of town, and learned some of the stories behind sites we'd seen, we were taken back to "Million Dollar Beach" at the northern tip of Tuk.  We planned on walking back through town to have a closer look at things, then meet Joanne later for a tour of the communal ice cellar built 30" underground in the permafrost.

The "Million Dollar Beach" is a local nick name for the shore at the northern end of town since a significant amount of time and money has gone into ensuring it doesn't wash away - at least not any more than it already has.  Besides boulders like the one you can see me standing on (below), there was a huge section covered with numerous concrete slabs that were each at least 10"x20".  There we also several substantially constructed picnic tables, one of which we used while eating a packed lunch.  One thing I noticed about Tuk, not just at this "beach", was that I couldn't find any garbage cans.  The streets were awash with litter, but even when I wanted to properly dispose of my trash I couldn't find anywhere to put it.

Dad at the Arctic Ocean

Me at the Arctic Ocean

One of three ends of the Trans Canada Trail

After lunch we walked over to Our Lady of Lourdes, a ship that is now permanently resting in town near the churches.  We learned that the ship used to be used, among other thing, for missionaries to gather children from the surrounding area to bring them to Residential Schools.  It would also be used at the start of the summer to return the children home for a few months, "if they still knew where the parents were."  Of course, there is still a lot of strong emotion around Canada's history of Residential Schools, and we were told many residents of Tuk would be happy if Our Lady of Lourdes had never been preserved.

Our Lady of Lourdes

 

While taking photos of the ship, we were approached by a nun who is visiting Tuk's Catholic rectory for several weeks.  She told us some more about the history of the ship, the churches in Tuk, and a bit about herself.  It turns out she was born in Fredericton NB (where my parent's live), and lives in St. John NB (where I was born).  She's been coming to visit Tuk for several weeks each summer for the past few years.  She ended up inviting us to the rectory to try some Beluga whale flipper they had recently been given.  We met the nun who is a permanent resident there, as well as a visiting priest.  We chatted while the whale flipper was heated up, and had some fresh bread.  The flipper was very tough to cut, especially for hands where were sore and week from all that motorcycle riding.  It was very fatty, the meat itself was very dark, and I thought it was delicious.

Beluga whale flipper.  Left half is cooked, right half is still frozen in plastic wrap, but included to show full flipper size.

After the whale fat we were properly insulated for a dip in the Arctic Ocean (Beaufort Sea, actually).  It wasn't nearly as cold as you might imagine the Arctic Ocean would be, which was somehow a little disappointing.  Still, it was very satisfying to actually go for a swim in The Arctic Freakin' Ocean!

Joanne, our tour guide / taxi driver, had said she'd meet up with us later in the day to take us down into the communal freezer that is dug 30 feet under the town.  Since we hadn't seen her driving around town, we followed the backup plan to meet her at the freezer's entrance at 2pm.  We waited for her for 30 minutes, but unfortunately she never showed.  (We later called her from the airport so we could pay her for the part of tour we had gotten, and found out she'd just forgotten about us.)

We stopped back by the store to mail some postcards from the post office, then continued walking through town.  At Joanne's suggestion, we headed to the RCMP station to check out their swag.  Instead of the normal Mountie on a horse, the RCMP in Tuk have their own logo with a Mountie on a polar bear.  I thought the logo was awesome, but I've got more than enough t-shirts so I didn't buy anything.  Dad was interested in one of their jackets, but they only had women's left.  Apparently it had been a busy tourist season.

Finally we walked over to the radar station that looks out over the town.  The lady at the RCMP office said it was the highest ground around Tuk, besides the pingos, and that it offered a good view of town.  It may have been slightly higher than the rest of town, but I'd hardly call it high ground.  Still, it was cool to visit one of the DEW Line sites and have one last good look at Tuk before heading to the airport.

DEW Line sit at Tuktoyaktuk

We walked back to the airport with almost an hour to spare before our flight.  That gave me time to take my boots of and air out a little.  Joanne came to drop some passengers off, and realized she'd forgotten about us and the freezer.  She stayed around for about 30 minutes to chat though, and did her best to answer Dad's questions about local power generation.  Chuck Gruben came by too, so he was the first and one of the last Tuk residents we saw today.  The Gruben family seems to be prominent in Tuk; besides the mayor being a Gruben, the airport is name after James Roger Gruben, a local charter flight operator who died back in 2001.  There is a cool statue of him in the airport, with his arm appearing to rest on a propeller blade.  The propeller isn't attached to anything though, and is actually hanging from the statue's arm.

James Roger "Havgun" Gruben (Aug 28, 1957 - Apr 13, 2001)

As he'd promised us that morning, the same pilot that flew the flight in came to pick us up for our 7 pm flight out to Inuvik.  The official boarding call was him walking up to us in the airport and asking, "y'buys ready t'go?"

MacKenzie River Delta during flight from Tuk to Inuvik

After landing we went to The Roost again for dinner and to say hi to Fadi before heading to back to the hotel to get cleaned up and hit the sack.  Not much riding today, but a tiring and unforgettable day nonetheless.  I'm thankful for all the people we met today who were eager and happy to help make our day enjoyable and interesting.  I just can't get over how many great people we're crossing paths with on this trip!