Welcome. Described are some of our travels around Canada with Robin - the travel trailer - and Ruby - the car. The initial video series documents travel, cultural, geological, and other natural science highlights of our 2019 trip from Ottawa (Ontario) to Yukon and ultimately, the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk (Northwest Territories), Canada.
The Dempster Highway is not for the faint of heart for many reasons. Gravel and can really damage the paint, windshields, and sand blast the underside of a vehicle and travel trailer. But, we have done it two and a half times without major issues LOL. But, there is always some damage.
I did not see any fur bearing snakes, but they do sell fur coverd Ookpik owls. And I am certain you would have seen many changes! Thanks for commenting.
I want to do this in my Outback pulling a small teardrop- any issues towing? Your grandsons are very fortunate to have grandparents who take them on adventures!
Issues mean different things to different people. On the 2023 trip, we lost the gas function for our 3-way fridge, lost our backup portable electric freezer - fridge, and sustained several rock chips on the windshield. BUT, the Dempster was in really poor condition in Yukon in 2023. It may be better in 2024. We had no towing issues. Best practice is to carry a full-sized spare tire for the tow vehicle and for the trailer. Good luck.
I would describe muktuk as cold clam meat attached to some beef suet. Back in Dawson we ran into a Toronto traveler we had met in Inuvik and I told him it would go well if sliced thinner on some rice with wasabi and soy sauce and he says "You must be from Vancouver" Good guess as I live about 40 km from there. I was surprised when taking a dip off the spit there that the water was brackish, almost fresh, but I guess that's the influence of the MacKenzie river. Great video....next time I really want to take more time on the Dempster, we only had a 5 day weather window and could only spend a few hours in Tuk. Also, I didn't know about the two grocery stores. Thanks
Lovely to see the Dempster again. I've driven it twice to the Ogilvies, doing day trips from Tombstone campsite, and in 2022 all the way to Tuk. I may be up in the Yukon this year, and not sure if we can get to Tombstone, so thanks for taking me along on this trip.
Exactly! That thinly layered rock is shale. It represents a small basin that lay off the west coast of ancestral North America, before the Rocky mountains started to form. Good eye!
Thanks for your comment and clearly we agree. I have been to Clinton Creek minesite in 2023 and also in 2019 looking for unusual plants growing on the serpentinite rock. Didn't find anything unusual but that too is an interesting trip. Also met the couple who bought the Clinton Creek townsite and live there!
That would certainly be unusual as pingos are typical of permafrost areas, found in the subarctic and arctic. I have not seen the geology in the Albany area, but could the dome-like shapes you see be volcanos are landforms created by erosion of the abundant volcanic rocks in the area? The confusing part of dome-shaped landforms are the many geological processes that can form them. You have tweeked my interest. Thanks.
The car top tent is "fixed" on the vehicle for the duration of our summer 2023 travels. We did not use it on this trip along the Nahanni Range Road. This trip was a (long) day trip.
This was very interesting. I have always wondered about the strange looking landscape there. I figured that it had to have been underwater at some point, but the process is interesting. Given the high rate that the land rises, and it's flatness, the shore must recede quite quickly. I wonder how far since the Husdons Bay Company was building forts and catching furs. You might even be able to see a difference within 10 - 20 years.
The land that is rising the fastest lies along the southern shore of Hudson Bay. My my "back of envelope" calculations, it would be easy to see the new land exposed during the lifetime of human. There are more subtle clues about the rising land as well. I recall reading that some inlets and ports along the southern the bay are getting more shallow and that has/will affect shipping.
I found your website while searching for more info on Tufa, and planning my yearly summer trips (after reading the western hotsprings book) then your Facebook then this, your a very informative and interesting fellow. I also enjoy roadside attractions, murals etc, I’ve been some of the same places as you even the far north ones. I’m slowing working my way through your videos and finding we have many common interests , thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thanks for leaving your comment. There are so many features and destinations to visit and share. Personally, I am way behind schedule! Enjoy your 2024 summer travels.
WONDERFUL!!! We loved it! FYI...significance of toaster sign...they were newlyweds, and a toaster is the classic wedding gift, butt of many jokes on sitcoms.
I know there are a huge amount of signs with historical context but have to admit the two that caught my eye.......a pair of underpants and a board that said "are we there yet", hahaha. must have had young kids with the last sign eh. what a fascinating sign post forest!
I love that "are we there yet" as well. Many of us have been there!! Notwithstanding it is a long drive for most people regardless of age :) . As for the underwear, it shall remain a mystery LOL.
Thank you, Andy. I remember hanging out train windows (the windows opened then) as a kid whenever I spotted cows in a pasture. I would definitely have to be in the passenger seat driving that highway, because as a driver I would not be able to keep my eyes straight ahead and we wouldn't be going anywhere in the ditch.
Very welcome. I can assure you that there are many times we stopped along that highway just to look...and we were never alone. Many others stopped and looked as well. Thanks for sharing your perspectives.
Great video covering one of my favorite areas to explore the back country. I live in the Yukon which is a hiker and back country enthusiasts playground, and this place has always been one of my gems ever since I drove through it in Sept 2022. I came back in the first week of May 2023 and it was an amazing start to the season. I saw tons of wildlife, had the first T-shirt weather and got to camp and hike the stone sheep trail as well as the alluvial fan near strawberry flats campground. I even found a ram horn lying on the sediment on the stone sheep trail and came pretty close to a Caribou on the strawberry flats trail! On the drive I saw a bison calf with its umbilical cord still attached to its mother and its head still soaking wet. The streams were flowing strong all the way down to the lake, and the strawberry flats trail took me to the base of this gigantic mountain. It's a 8 hour drive, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to go there every year.
I consider this one of the amazing areas of Canada - although, there are many fabulous places in Canada. But this area is still stunning, offersgreat hikes, and is full of wildlife, despite being on the main access route along the Alaska Highway. Good for you to return when you can. Thanks for sharing with us.
Very interesting video. Thank you for the geology lesson. I camped at Muncho Lake campground in 2019 on my Vermont to Alaska road trip. Heading back on another road trip to AK in July with a stop at Tuktoyaktuk & the Arctic Ocean before heading to Gates of The Arctic & Kobuk valley national parks.
THank you and welcome. That was quite a trip in 2019! 7,000 miles at least! We were also there in 2019. We may have passed each other LOL. It is a very different and beautiful world up there. Thanks for sharing your comments.
When we were kids living in Vancouver visiting our grandparents in Saskatoon, our parents once detoured to Watrous SK on the road trip there or back so we could swim in Manitou Lake... or rather "float". It was a great game to try to get our feet to go down in the saline water. Thanks for this informative video Andy.
What great fun, Janet. Sadly, it was still a little early in spring when we passed through and the water was cold. We passed on the "float". Thanks for sharing your memory, Janet.
As an amateur prospector, an Alluvial Fan is historically known as a 'boulder field' through my research (1890s) and these are low pressure zones where a river fans out and gold and heavier minerals and rocks accumulate. Makes me salivate with the prospect of digging my shovel into this Alluvial Fan as you call it. Nice video, thank you. I'm headed to the Yukon in late April from Ottawa. Muncho is actually a place that I Have to pass through on my way. Hopefully there's a nice spot to pull off with truck and trailer.
There is a pull-off beside the Alaska Highway suitable for big rigs. It is located within Muncho Lake Provincial Park, so it is not a place to dig around ;) . Also, the sediments in an alluvial fan are so poorly sorted, with boulders sitting beside sand-sized granins, that you don't typically get separation and concentration of heavy minerals. It is a lovely place to hike, though.
Best to manage expectations if you are headed to Forty Mile as a tourist in spring 2024. The ice breakup of spring 2023 was wicked and the Forty Mile townsite was decimated. Unless accompanied by a local First Nation person or a Yukon Government rep, all other visits to the town were discouraged during the summer of 2023. I don't know the present access conditions.
I have such mixed feeling about seeing the churches, given the horrific history of abuse the Indigenous peoples of North America were subjected to in the name of Christianity. Preserving this buildings without acknowledging the documented abuse of the church seems wrong in every possible way. Having said that, this site looks amazing, a part of history that will hopefully live on as a testament to the European colonial takeover of lands occupied for thousands of years by our Indigenous brothers and sisters… and yes I’m a white guy of European descendants who took the time to learn the real history of colonialism and was forever changed by the knowledge gained by my education. Beautiful video, well done and super interesting, I’ll definitely sub and support your channel! Thank you for this! Rick
You raise an issue that is important to all Treaty people - and we are all Treaty people. Fort Selkirk was an important cultural hub for the Selkirk First Nation people. They, in collaboration with the Yukon government reps, and leading the restoration and maintenance of Fort Selkirk. Freda Alfred, the on site historical interpreter, is a member of Selkirk First Nation and she was very open to discussing the impacts of colonialization. I found Yukon, in general, was a very aware jurisdiction in regards to past colonialization history...more so than most other Canadian jurisdictions (although I should not generalize). Thank you for raising a topic that all Canadians need to be aware of as a reconcillation step.
Teri-Lee Isaac, owner of Tutchone Tours, is a member of Selkirk First Nation and does run tours to Fort Selkirk. You can google her or her company to gain insight about her tours.
very insightful, though there is much that is questionable in the assumptions that human-caused climate change is valid. This earth has always gone through cycles and the facts are more important the the propaganda. Even the locals knew this when they recommended that the airstrip NOT be built where water levels were rising, and that is waaaay before all the alarmists started their chanting.
You raise an important point that few would disagree with - that the Earth has gone through cycles. As a geologist, I spent a career looking at many of those cycles. What is different today is the rate of change that some cycles are experiencing today, like the rate of greenhouse gas increase in the atmosphere and temperature increase. The present rapid change in greenhouse gas emission began in the period 1750 to 1850 - with the start of the industrial revolution. But, there is much more evidence that points to human influence and that we are at or are approaching the limits of what the Earth can do to absorb those greenhouse gases. Humans have never experienced that rate of change that we are seeing today. We can see glaciers melting really quickly. The oceans are warming and expanding. Both of those are contributing today to rising sealevel. Permafrost is melting faster than experience by indigenous people. Animal and plant species are migrating north, where they have never been seen in the life-time of indigenous people (not geological time, by the way). There is a lot of land-related evidence that is consistent with the rapid increase of the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. There is a large "bucket" of evidence all points to a very rapid change in the Earth's climate over the last 200 years. But, I do appreciate you taking the time to comment. Thank you.
@@rambleswithrobinandruby9422 If I recall correctly he was born in Arcola, SK and then lived on the Davidson family farm in Chelan, SK until he left when he was 14 or 15. His youngest brother farmed the land until his death a few years ago. I do believe that his daughter and her husband are still living on the farm. I think Chelan has a population of about 50 ppl... My great grandma lived in Bjorkdale, SK and died in Tisdale. Lots of great memories.
Cool ! our rock band, as 22 yr olds drove fr Calgary to Inuvik to play in The Mackenzie Hotel, June - Sept, 1983. Did the drive in a schoolbus, it was awesome. The North is fantastic.
1983! Wow. And in a school bus! That must have been an adventure of a lifetime. The Dempster Highway itself would have been an adventure. We stayed in the MacKenzie Hotel back in 2007 or 2008. It was hopping LOL
First time for me to see one. I confess, it is the strangest ground squirrel call I have heard. We looked around the tree tops for about 5 minutes before we found the source LOL.
