Eagle Plains to Inuvik

After a refreshing night in the "oasis" we set out on our journey, looks a little wet.....

Well the road's not closed, that's a good sign

We start questioning our wisdom

We are crossing the Artic Circle again, we did it in Alaska, remember we are not in Alaska now, but in the Northwest Territory, like the distance between Washington and Montana, we both have never been farther north than here Quick take the picture, I'm dying out here

I am being ate up by mosquitoes, I can hear them, they sound like B-52 bombers, and I am spraying musk oil like mad

These trees are in permafrost, (the ground stays frozen all year long) if the ground thaws the trees start leaning everywhich way, and they call it a drunken forest

Up and down in mud is like up and down in snow

I'd keep telling Cindy to speed up so that she could make it over that hill, I could just see me pushing in all that mud, she assured me she was floored

We are now in the Northwest Territories and it is wet, cold and there are no bathrooms, well...a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.......

It clears up a little bit and we can see around us but not the mountains ranges we have been told are there

These were the rest areas in The Yukon Territory, a man comes by everyday and cleans and restocks them, very nice, in the Northwest Territory, there are no rest stops with facilities

This is the first free ferry we take on the Dempster Highway, it is a short ride over the Peel River, sorry about the windshield

It rains on us some more and then our windshield wipers shred, never seen that happen, guess it had too much mud

I try my best imitation of a windshield wiper, not good

We catch a glimpse of a little town before we get on the ferry

A front loader is getting off the ferry, it's big enough to take semi's and does

This man washed your tailights off and washed our windshield while we ferried across the Mackenzie

This ferry is the second and last free ferry ride on the Dempster Highway

Going across the Mackenzie River takes 10 minutes, there are two stops however, one stop at Tesigehtchic, or you might know it as Red Artic River, just changed it's name, beautiful church there, Catholic Church over 80 years old

There's a bathroom aboard the ferry, we haven't seen running water in a toilet for 2 days, thought that was nice that they pump it out instead of letting it flow into the Mackenzie River

Burnt land Almost looks like fall, until you look closer

Muskeg has started to grow over some of the burnt ground

Strange how the fire leaves some area untouched

It's still pretty muddy, early in the morning I was wondering if we were going to make it up some of the hills, we were going sideways and the cliffs were getting closer

Even driving on the flat surfaces was challanging, we have ABS and Traction Control, the ABS will brake the wheels that are slipping, but if they are slipping too long, for example going miles in the mud, the ABS and the Traction Control will stop working, it is designed to do this so that it doesn't heat up your brakes, but then the ABS light and the Traction Control light comes on and scares the heck out of you....until you read your manual

Our ABS light did not go out, like the manual said it would, and also our light that says our emergency brake is, on came on and stayed on, Cindy says, not to worry, so we don't have the ABS brake working, at least we have one brake working, it's telling us the emergency brake is on!

The landscape changes the farther north we go, not as many
trees, and when we do see them
they are short and pretty scrawny, Inuvik is the start of the treeline, when you won't see any trees at all, because of the cold, Inuvik's ground is frozen all year long

Gwenich Indians picnicing on the river, soon they will get in their canoes and fish the river and smoke all the fish they can catchGwenich is pronounced just the way it sounds, they are one of the First Nation's tribes that have lived here for years and years

Starting to see little lakes everywhere, getting close to the Mackenzie Delta, lots of water, lots of mosquitoes, take a look at a map and you will see how many lakes there are......lots

While Cindy is showing me her little mosquito dead carcass she doesn't see the one on her ear lobe

A mud rainbow

I have cleared the mud off the back of the car twice now, I'm going to pressure wash it, everyone's car wash around here consist of a pressure washer, tied to a timer that charges you a dollar a minute, gotta do it, all our fancy luggage (garbage sacks) will get all muddy

We are finally there, the farthest north either of us has ever been and more than likely ever will be, you can only drive further in the winter, when the lakes are frozen over and it creates a road to the Artic Ocean, if we wanted to go there now it is a short flight toTuk, a village on the Artic Ocean

As I was pressure washing the mud off the PT Cruiser, Gracie was jammed under the dashboard hiding from the noise of the water hitting the car, guess we were on her last nerve, I think Cindy wanted to be there to, as the mud and driving were on her last nerve