Why Tuktoyaktuk?

I like the arctic north, I like adventures to far away places, and I like primitive roads. So when the road from Inuvik in the Yukon to Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories was completed last November (2017) I knew I had to go. This dramatic photo essay by Tawna Brown Photography shows why the road to Tuk holds so much appeal for me.

Where is Tuk?

Tuk is situated on the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean, and is the northern most point in Canada reachable by road. The road from Inuvik to Tuk follows approximately the old ice road shown in black above. Prior to the road being finished last year residents of Tuk used an ice road in the winter to drive down to Inuvik and beyond.

The road from Dawson to Inuvik (Route 5, shown in red above) was built in 1958 and is named the Dempster Highway after Corporal William Dempster of the North-West Mounted Police who led a search party in the winter of 1910 to find a lost patrol that had died of exposure and starvation. The Lost Patrol by Keith Billington (see my book list) recounts the tragic story in dramatic fashion. I plan to visit the graves of the four men who died when I get up to Fort McPherson on the Dempster.

Riding the North

Over the past few years I have managed to make it to quite a few places in northern North America (circles on the map) including the Arctic Circle in Alaska, Churchill in Manitoba, James Bay in Quebec Province, eastern Labrador, and Cape Spear Newfoundland – all of these by motorcycle. I toured Iceland and Greenland in 2017. Ilulissat, Greenland is the most northern point on the globe I’ve been able to visit.

I hope some day yet to ride up to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the northern most point in North America accessible by road. I didn’t have the right bike on my 2007 trip to Alaska to ride all the way up the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Ocean.