Update 10

I rode up the Dempster to Eagle Plains and back, as planned. The Dempster goes up to Inuvik and crosses the Arctic Circle--and initially I was going to skip it entirely. I could give two shits about lines on map projections or various oceans. However, after reading that it is just as beautiful as the Top of the World Highway, if not moreso, I needed to see for myself.

Like Canol Rd, the Dempster is notoriously slick when wet, and it lived up to its reputation to some extent. Much of it was easy graded dirt or gravel, but a good quarter or third was two inches of muddy snot made slick by the night's rain. Sadly, this too was no adventure. The WR250R made easy work of the road, shod with a brand new rear Kenda K270 dirt tire, and even the strange mosaic tread on the Michelin Enduro 1 front tire stuck well; albeit sometimes its idea of forward progress was at odds with the true course of the road and my intentions. The front tire and I were quick to settle such differences, and no drama ensued.

I rolled into the Eagle Plains Hotel and ate an enormous two-patty burger with strata of egg and ham and overheard that the Perry River crossing to the north had just opened; high water had the trucks backed up all morning. No matter though, I was going south.

I really don't have much to narrate here. Apparently I passed through a few ecological zones. The treeless mountains and valleys near the beginning (or end) were part of the Tombstone Mountains. I am not sure why trees have such a hard time there, perhaps the soil is too poor in nutrients, too wet, or both? To the north you have vast expanses of stunted spruce. In some areas it burned, creating a strange matchstick landscape. In one of the pictures you might notice green tracks passing through the spruce in the distance. These are seismic lines created in the 1950s during the search for oil and gas. I suppose snowcats and tractors cut these paths in the forest as they marched across the area, sounding for hydrocarbons below, and these areas have regrown with low brush in the intervening years.

(The pics below uploaded partially out of order for some reason, sorry.)



Toward the end of my trip I got a rear flat tire, which became apparently by the sudden wormlike motion of the motorcycle under me. I was extremely alarmed because that tire's sidewall had been damaged by exhaust heat; at one point I strapped it poorly to the rear luggage. I feared the sidewall had failed, and my only way to run the next 100 miles back to Dawson would be with a 21" front tube stuffed into that 18" rear tire, and that's if the mosquitoes and bears and grumpkins didn't eat me first. I decided to see what would happen if I ignored the problem entirely and rode on. This led to the bike slowly and pathetically inching forward in a crablike fashion; the sidewall was so soft that the tread was running offset to the front tire. The next step was to check the Tubliss inner bladder; it had air. Good. Then I pulled out my compressor and ran air into the rear tire, which produced a sharp hiss--and not from the damaged sidewall! It was a simple round puncture after all, likely a nail. It took all of 3 minutes to put a plug in, reinflate, take a much-needed piss, and pack up. God bless Tubliss, this is the second puncture on my trip and the total collective time to fix them has been around 10 minutes. Fuck tubes and mousse. Oh, and the only wildlife I saw on the Dempster were a moose, a black bear, and a small tan ground squirrel that ran into the road and, I kid you not, stretched out and slid just past my front tire like a runner going for home plate. Good job.