As I packed up at Tombstone it was a beautiful day and I was confident the ride would be easy judging by the first 75 miles I did the previous day. I would learn the hard way that the Dempster has a lot of tricks for the unweary rider. Like the grading machine.

Or the calcium something or other that I think is used to keep the dust down.

Sometimes it was just a beautiful ride.







I had passed these two just before arriving at Eagle Plains. The road had gotten very muddy and they were having a hard time of it. It was a nerve racking couple of miles of sharp curves and steep elevation changes to south of Eagle Plains, the halfway point and first gas for over 200 miles.

We met again after dinner at the Artic Circle, which proved to be a turning point in the trip for me.

The sky looked threatening and the F650 couple were worried about continuing on. I on the other hand, was feeling pretty confident after a day of riding fully loaded in the mud without a drop. This turned into my worst night of the trip to date.

As I pressed on north, the rain eventually caught up to me. This was not just rain but a blinding rain that I crawled through and eventually limped into a campsite totally soaked and exhausted. As I looked for a campsite I noticed the van of a couple that were at the Artic Circle sign earlier. It turns out that as they pulled into the campground they got a flat and were in the communal shelter trying to start a fire to cook on the iron stove inside. As my stove was still not working I tried to boil water on this big old stove. It boiled but took a long time and I decided the sign to boil all local water for at least 10 minutes was just some bureaurocratic caution– probably some lawyer!

The next day my stomach was rolling and I thought I would vomit in my helmet at any moment. So, no pictures till Inuvik. I did make it but I immediately found a hotel and fell into bed, leaving my fully loaded bike out in the street (these picture were taken two days afterwards).

Three hours later I dragged myself down to the bike and started the process of unloading the bike. As I am doing this a young guy stops and starts interrogating me about my bike and the trip. At this point my patience for these “civilians” was thin but I also had not energy to do anything else but answer as I unloaded. Then a Canadian Indian comes over, sees my license plate and says “did you ride that all the where here?!?”
So I say “Yes”
He says “Oh shit!!!”
So I say “Oh shit is right!”
He then says “We should take you Beluga hunting!”
I then say, “yea that would be something”
The kid asking me questions, Johnny, says that it was a big honor/compliment for him to say that so I thank the man.

It turns out that Johnny watched my bike as I made several trips up to the room and back and then took me to a bar where it was $2 scotch night. The bar stopped serving food after ten and my dinner was liquid barley for the night. I don’t know how I didn’t get seriously ill but somehow I felt okay and they next day just had a mild hangover. I ended up spending the next two days in the hotel. One day recuperating and then the next day it was raining so hard I couldn’t bring myself to go to the campground.

Didn’t take many pictures. Summer solcistice was a dud. There is some California guy on a Harley up here but we haven’t met yet. I did meet some local riders through Horizons Unlimited. They happened to have breakfast every morning at the hotel where I was staying. They were a fun bunch and really helped me out by arrainging for a tire to be shipped from Whitehorse to Dawson City where Northern Superior Auto/Napa actually had a motorycle tire changer. Big thanks to George and all the other “Frozen Chosen”.