Long-time readers may remember the heady days of my Klondike summers, when I finally fulfilled my dreams of seeing Canada’s far north. Oh, those days seem so far away now, but they are some of the months I will remember most fondly in my old age. They taught me that dreams really do not have deadlines and that achieving them is particularly sweet after you’d given up hope. I may never again drive the Alaska, Klondike and Dempster Highways again, may never again see a show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s or fly over Tuktoyaktuk’s pingos, but I did it!
Exploring the north is going to get a little easier for tourists because this coming Wednesday, November 15th, 2017, after years of delays, the all-year gravel road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk is finally going to open. For the first time in Canada’s history, it will be possible to drive year-round to each of our three coasts.
I would like to invite you reread my series about Driving the Dempster Highway and to revisit the towns of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. I feel privileged to have done so and to have spoken to locals so that I know that while this year-round road will change life in Tuk, in some ways not for the better, this road is ultimately a Good Thing worthy of celebration.
Standing in the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, August 2010
I remember your trip. I do wonder what the unintended consequences of that road will be. I hope they turn out to be good.
There will be more good than bad. These people are going ahead with the road with their eyes wide open. Their children will be able to stay home and still get a good education. Food and other costs will go down. These are a people fiercely tied to their old ways and traditions and I can’t imagine that changing just because they have a year-round road.
Like them, I left a settled life,
I threw it all away
To seek a Northwest Passage….
In my case, literally…
Indeed.
No regrets.