It seems that, once again, the weather has turned favourably just days shy of my embarking on another bucket-list journey. Unless something unpredictable happens, I will be en route to Inuvik on Monday, right on schedule.

Driving the Dempster, visiting Inuvik, and taking a charter plane to Tuktoyaktuk to dip my toe in the Arctic Ocean is my last major North America bucket list item. Oh, there’s so much more I’d like to do and see, but nothing so pressing.

I went to the Dempster information centre today to get updated road information and literature, then I schlepped over to the General Store for some food items and the Trading Post for a small propane cylinder. I will be camping and making most of my meals to keep costs low.

It is difficult to put into words what this journey means to me. I tried for so long, the better part of a decade, in fact, to find a job north of the Arctic Circle or some other circumstance that would bring me there. And now I’m going, under my own steam, having found my own northwest passage. Life just doesn’t get any better than this.