Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

4x4 trips to Mexico, to the ski hill, or to the local grocery store...

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Erebus
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

Posted 04 August from Whitehorse

Post 3 of 3
The next morning I took the time to photograph our deli with its badge of dirt. The tailgate doesn't like to stay open, there is so much mud on it. The trailer hitch actually has 2 strips of conspicuity tape on each side, I only cleaned off the outside ones. Green1, thanks for the ladder, you never specified it should be kept clean.
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We'll probably clean it in Watson Lake, but in the meantime, we keep bragging rights.

Shortly after hitting the road, we came to Braeburn Lodge. Figured we'd stop for coffee and bathroom. The guy who runs it was really quite rude, and apparently that is normal. So if you are up this way (about 90 km N of Whitehorse), pass that one right by.

We got to Whitehorse by lunchtime and decided to check out some B&Bs. But they were all booked up. So decided to go to WallyWorld to get an overdue oilchange. This being Sunday, nothing else was open. Well, out of the door walks Ian. Ian, a good friend who I worked with for years back in Montreal, and haven't seen in about 15 years. We instantly recognized each other. I knew he was in Whitehorse, but he didn't know I was in the area. So now we're staying at Ian and Karen, day 26 (of a planned as 21-day trip) and nowhere near home. Boo hoo, so sad.
Ian and his overactive dog Sadie, half German shepherd, half springer spaniel.
Ian and his overactive dog Sadie, half German shepherd, half springer spaniel.
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This was taken on the paths by Miles Canyon, near Whitehorse.

next post whenever from wherever ....
Image "I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
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Erebus
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

Posted 05 August from Whitehorse

Yes, we are still in Whitehorse. Too easy to stay. Couple of random thoughts.
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Ravens are amazing. I never knew they talked in so many voices. We've heard chirps, squwacks, grunts, barks, meows, whooo, ribbit, hickup, and probably others we didn't realize were ravens. One morning in a campground we though some campers were doing real poor imitations. But after an hour we wondered how the group leaders could tolerate it, not to mention the kids not get bored. Then we saw the ravens, and realize that it was the young ones demanding food.
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Whitehorse is a very inviting town. They give out free parking passes to tourists, so you don't have to pay the $1 per hour meters. They have recycling bins on the street beside the garbage bins and benches (ya, normal in many cities, too bad Calgary isn't one of them). And they have imprinted images into the concrete on the sidewalk. Various designs scattered about. These fish are cavorting around the fire hydrant. Neat.
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Today we went for a drive up to the top of Canyon Mountain, where all the TV and radio transmitters for Whitehorse are. It gives a great view all around, including of Marsh Lake. Part of the Yukon River, this was the route the gold rush miners took back 1897-1900.

Dawson City is unusual. I've been trying to figure out how to describe it. The entire town is a museum, a working town, and filled with historical landmarks. Granted, all of them no more than 120 years old. During the Klondike Gold Rush (Wikipedia link) it had a population of 30,000, making it the largest town north of San Francisco and west of Winnipeg. However, what it is not is handicapped-friendly. Sure, they try, but with dirt/mud roads and boardwalk sidewalks, it is an uphill struggle.

Oh, the link to the video from the border back in an earlier post should work now. To make it easy for you, here it is again: Click this link to play it (warning, it is 90 MB).
Image "I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Green1 »

day 26 (of a planned as 21-day trip)
extremely jealous, of your trip, and of your flexibility! my boss wouldn't like that sort of thing too much!
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by konadog »

Ravens are amazing.
Yes they are! And, in Whitehorse no less, they have been observed landing atop the street lamps on cold days when it is still light out and covering the light sensor with a wing. Lamp turns on and the raven gets nice and warm - ahhh, that's nice :-D Just love the little devils!
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Happy Day!
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by marsgal42 »

A wonderful story! Thank you for posting it.

Here's a video of the Pointer Brothers doing their thing at The Pit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUDcr0_1huE These guys are good. Richard (my brother) does their sound, and is fanatic about getting it right.

...laura
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

We're home. We got back last night (Monday 11 Aug). I'll post details of the run from Whitehorse to Calgary when I get a chance. It won't be tomorrow, because a friend and I are going to Rocky Mountain House for an airshow. Just because it is a 2.5 hour drive, and we came through there yesterday on the way home is no excuse.
Image "I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

Posted from home, post 1 of 3

We finally left Whitehorse on 06 August, not that we wanted to leave. Ian says he is working hard to get us jobs so we'll have to move there. Not sure how serious he is, but we think we could tolerate living there.

We had debated whether we should take the detour on the way home and visit Skagway. Everyone says it is just a tourist trap for the giant cruise ships. But they also say the drive is worth it. And they are right. The drive from the Alaska Highway down through Carcross to the White Pass and Skagway is through some amazing terrain. Lush grasses combined with scrub trees, ponds, lakes, rivers, and exposed rocks that look like glacial morraines. Also, it meant that we have now driven the entire route (more or less) that all the wannabe miners took in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. The gold rush looms very large in the history of the Yukon -- actually, it pretty much is the history of the Yukon, and small wonder. To drive the route takes at least a day on paved roads. To see the terrain these men and women slogged through, having no clue what lay ahead really makes me wonder what bad conditions were they were leaving behind to try this journey.

The first unusual feature is the Carcross Desert, an anomaly created by glacial lakes.
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Canada Customs is nowhere near the actual border, nor is the US Customs stop 25 km further down the road. The American customs officer was curt to the point of rude. "Purpose of visit?" Well, let's see, we are driving what is obviously a tourist vehicle, heading down a dead-end road to a tourist town. Lesley has the giant Milepost guidebook on her lap. "Passports." Not identification, but passports, even though the requirements for passports doesn't take effect until next year at the earliest.

Skagway (or Skankway as we started calling it) is a nice little town, if you stay out of the tourist trap downtown. The buildings are mostly obvious fake "old west", with lots of jewelry stores catering to the cruise ships. When you see signs like, "70% discount for passengers of XXX" you know the rest of them are being ripped off.
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Then there are the stores selling fur clothes, or rather overpriced clothes trimmed with fur. The labels don't even specify what kind of fur, except the one that showed "lapin". Ya, but my French is good enough to know the word for rabbit when I see it

Since 9/11 the Americans have become obsessed with security. But seeing (literally) the signs proving it is another thing.
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Notice that the lowest level is "significant risk". Skagway has a population of one or two thousand, and lies at the end of a fjord and strait and is almost 400 km from the ocean. I'm sure that bin Laden and his buddies, when compiling a target list, will have Skagway right at the top of the list. I could think of many much easier and better targets.

After we left Skagway, we came to Canada Customs. We pull up to the outside (uncovered) lane because the roof was too low for the antennas on the Delica. When I apologized for making the guy walk over, he just said, "No problem, that's why we have this lane. How long have you been in Skagway, couple of hours?" Then he asked if I had brought the Delica over from Japan myself. Nope, importer. "Oh, which one?" I'm starting to get worried that I'm going to get hassled. Then he says, "I've got a RHD Land Cruiser from Outback in Whitehorse." He leans in the window and says, "So, what toys do you have here? Hmm, your turn-and-bank and altimeter are on the dash. In mine, they are mounted on the ceiling." He asks how the Dempster was, obviously having read the dirt writing on the side. He asks which way we are heading now, and proceeds to give us directions and wishes us a wonderful vacation. Wow! What a difference from the Americans. A few minutes later a bear wandering across the road in front of us made the side trip even more worthwhile.

[Continued in next post]
Image "I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

Posted from home, post 2 of 3
The next day we stopped in Teslin at the Tlingit Heritage Centre (http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/cultural/teslin/teslin.html) (pronounced Klinkit). We had stopped on the way north, but then they were about to close. An excellent exhibit, clearly from the heart of the community, about the Tlingit (Indian) culture (Wikipedia link). One of the special "exhibits" was sculpter and master carver Keith Wolf Smarsh working on painting a fibreglass replica of a dugout canoe. Also on display was the real dugout canoe he had carved 10 years earlier. He was also jointly responsible for carving the totem poles that greet the visitors outside the Centre.
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Also special was the exhibit showing photos of a recent "culture day" they had for children and youth of the community. They unabashedly talk about teaching them how to kill and skin beaver and wolf. It seems weird, violent, and unnecessary to us southern city dwellers, but up north the First Nations people still live off the land, and the beaver and wolf are not endangered.

In Tuktoyaktuk, each family will kill about a dozen caribou to provide meat for the winter. Do you blame them, when a dozen eggs is $9 and a gallon of milk is $12? There is a reason they have the community freezer.

We in the cities tend to forget that the food we eat comes from the land. There, they hunt for food, and use ALL of the animal or bird, not just the choice bits. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

The homeward trip continued south on the Alaska Highway, that magical, mystical road they idealize and talk about like it is still the mud trail hacked from the wilderness in 1942, not the paved all-weather road it is now. Around the area where the highway crosses from BC to the Yukon and back half a dozen times, we finally saw bison, lounging around in the grass.
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A nice (I'm running out of superlatives here) sunset made the evening special, since it has been a while since we really experienced a sunset. We found a really nice spot on a side road to sleep. The next morning we passed the start of the "road" to Smith River, a now-abandoned airstrip that was part of the WWII Northwest Staging Route (Wikipedia link). It was very tempting to go up the road, but we left it for a future Delica meet. Forty kilometres of road "not recommended for travel" even with four-wheel drive. Enticing, or what? (For anyone thinking of doing it, the start of the road is at Mile 514.)
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Folded Mountain is clearly visible from the road. The forces that would take level rock and bend it into the twisted forms in front of you are impossible to imagine.
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A stop at Liard Hot Springs, that everyone raves about, was hardly something we could pass by. I went in, but Lesley didn't have a bathing suit, so she wandered around while I baked my brain.

Many of the old lodges on the Alaska Highway have closed up. With modern vehicles being so much more reliable, and the road being so much better, the reduced need for garages has closed up so many places. But they are still there, boarded up but not fully abandoned yet.
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Just before Fort Nelson we notice that most of the traffic on the road is no longer tourists with RVs, but is now oil patch pickups, tankers, and picker trucks. That evening we had dinner in Fort Nelson, a town whose sole reason to exist seems to be oil and gas. We could see some major storm systems passing to the south even before dinner, so we decided not to go too far south. We found a nice deserted well access road and parked there for the night. The thunder and lightening went on for hours, but we only got some rain, not the downpour that the Vogel family put up with. The next morning, the hard-packed dirt road was a slick gooey mud. I probably could have got out in 2WD, but switched to 4WD after about 1/2 km.

[Continued in next post]
Image "I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

Posted from home, post 3 of 3

The next day (09 August, Day 31), about lunch time, we pulled into a rest area. There, a family of 4 was having lunch, their bicycles leaning on the picnic table. The bicycles looked familiar. But how could that be? A bit of thinking and I had it -- west of Watson Lake, as we went west to Whitehorse, we had seen them riding east. I went over to talk to them, and found out that they are the Vogel family, father, mother, and twin 10-year-old boys, biking the Pan American Highway. They started in Prudoe Bay, Alaska, two months ago, and plan to bike to Ushuaia at the very southern tip of Argentina. If they succeed, the boys will be the youngest to ever bike the Pan Am. (See their website at http://www.familyonbikes.org) And we thought we were on an adventure!

The stretch from Fort Nelson to Fort St. John is rather blank. Other than too many oil or gas well access roads, there's just nothing there.

In Fort St. John, I made a few phone calls to try to arrange a meeting with CASARA (Civil Air Search And Rescue Association) members in the Grande Prairie, Alberta, zone. Too many people away on vacation, but I was able to arrange a meeting with their training officer, who lives in Fairview. So after dinner, instead of heading south to Dawson Creek and the south end of the Alaska Highway, we headed east into Alberta. In Cleardale, there is a wonderful campground on the Cleardale Agricultural Society grounds. No one there, so we had a very peaceful night. The next morning after a quick run into Fairview, we had a brunch meeting with Jeff, the zone training officer.

After that, on to Grande Prairie, where I showed Lesley some of my hangouts from my oil patch days. Next stop, Fox Creek, then Whitecourt, were we spent the night in the Demonstration Forest (kinda scary that Alberta feels they have to demonstrate that they can grow a forest), a quiet spot I knew. The next morning we discovered the spot was a major raspberry patch, so we ate for an hour or so before leaving.
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I showed her the town, where I spent 13 weeks in 2004 for one of my jobs (see this link for that weird and wacky story.) We went for a walk at the Forest Interpretive Centre (different place from our sleeping spot), and found that the trail had lots of blueberry bushes, so we spent some more time berry-picking.

Finally, the run down Highway 22 home. We arrived home at about 10 PM on 11 August, 33 days after leaving home. An incredible trip that will affect us for a long time. Even now, several days later, the house still doesn't feel like home, but the Deli does. Hard to believe it is over.

Thank you all for sharing in our voyage of discovery.
Image "I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by GWr »

This is one of the most incredible photo journals ever.... Completely magnificent. Thanks so much for sharing your trip in so much detail, and with such awesome pictures. it felt like actually being there while looking at some of the photos. This is bookmarked for inspiration. Kudos.
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

First, I'd like to thank everyone who posted and gave me such positive feedback. It was and is gratifying to know that the time I was spending was worth it. I'm not sure why it took so long, but each batch of posts often took an hour or two. So while Lesley was out wandering the various places, I was at the computer. I'm not complaining, since I enjoyed doing an on-going running commentary rather than an after-the-fact posting.

Suggestions and comments

In this post, I'll suggest what I found useful and/or necessary.

Keep in mind the conditions of our trip:
* two people sleeping in the Delica, not tenting. We sleep with our heads at the tailgate end
* most meals were purchased, though often as takeout to be eaten further down the road (we had planned to cook dinners, it didn't happen)
* summer time, so insects and hot weather were an issue
* we did no day hikes, although we planned to (with the terrifying exception of the Moosehide)
* we drove the Dempster (yes, that had a significant impact on our planning) It is gravel/mud/shale/dirt, all the rest of the highways are paved
* we were in the far north during the summer. In Inuvik, it was never dark the 6 days and 4 "nights" we were there.
* the only major roads we drove that could/should be considered remote were the Cassiar and Dempster highways.

Our route, in brief (highways in parentheses):
Calgary - Vancouver - Whistler (Sea to Sky) - Lillooet - Williams Lake (Cariboo) - Prince George (Yellowhead) - Smithers (Yellowhead) - Kitwanga (Cassiar) - Stewart (Cassiar) - Watson Lake YK (Alaska) - Whitehorse YK (Klondike) - Dawson City YK (Dempster) - Inuvik (Dempster) - Inuvik (Dempster) - Dawson City YK - Dawson City YK (Klondike) - Whitehorse YK (Alaska) - Fort St. John BC - Grande Prairie AB (no-name highways) - Whitecourt - Calgary.

These suggestions are in no particular order

1) Bug spray. Depending on the season, and your level of outdoor activity, and suceptability to bugs.

2) mosquito netting. We used one designed for tropical beds, and covered only the bed/matress. It clipped onto the tailgate curtain rails, then with rare-earth magnets to the upper sides of the roof, hanging down to cover the entire back inside of the Delica around the matress. (This works on CrystalLite roof, would not work on high roof without CrystalLite because its upper sides are not magnetic.) Meant that the rest of the vehicle would have mosquitoes in the morning, but putting screens on the windows would have let them all in when you open the doors.

3) Dark curtains and/or eye patches recommended if you have trouble sleeping in light.

4) Install cutoff switches for all doors. These switches mean a door can be left open for ventilation without any lights coming on to attract bugs or ruin night vision. Stock Delicas can't do that unless you have a cutoff switch on the sliding door step. If you are going to do that, might as well finish the job. My tailgate switch also allows me to turn the lights on without moving, since it is mounted in the centre just below the window.

5) A strap or handle to let you close the tailgate hatch without getting out of bed. I put a foot-long strap, attached just below the window, that you could pretty much reach without getting out of bed. When staying in a campground and it wasn't raining, we would have the hatch wide open (till mud made it too heavy) and the sliding door open. The strap was handy when it started to rain to be able to close the hatch easily. When we "wild camped", we only had the hatch propped open 6" or so, and kept the sliding door closed. We aren't normally paranoid, but this year (2008) the bears were too numerous and hungry to risk otherwise.

6) If you have monsoon guards on your front windows, keep them on. Very handy to be able to have the front door windows open some for ventilation without the rain coming in.

7) If you have a newer Delica with the centre brakelight (1992+) and therefore no access to the tailgate's lock button, do the fix (link). Yes, most nights we would remember to unlock the tailgate before getting out of the driver's seat, but it only takes once to make you appreciate the effort. Also handy during the day if you don't have aftermarket remote locking.

8) Handle on the bottom inside of the tailgate so you can close it when standing behind it without touching the outside. Useful when you've driven gravel or dirt roads (or offroading) and the outside is covered in mud. You can use the strap mentioned above, but a handle at the bottom gives much better leverage.

9) Jerry cans for fuel were not used, but very comforting to know you have 20 or 40 litres of extra fuel. The longest stretch without gas stations (or any other services for that matter) is the south half of the Dempster at 370 km long. If no fuel is available at Eagle Plains for whatever reason (e.g., they close at 10PM), then mile zero to Fort McPherson is about 525 km.

10) The Northern store gas station in Fort McPherson is at the far end of town. The Coop gas station is right by the highway. The Northern store's diesel was 12 cents per litre cheaper (July 2008).

11) Get the Milepost. It is the best guidebook out there for most of the northern highways. Details of what is there, kilometre by kilometre. Covers the Cassiar, Alaska, Dempster, Top of the World, Dalton, Sea to Sky, and many other highways. Worth the 30 bucks, even if it is big and heavy.

12) Lots of windshield washer fluid. We happened to hit the gravel/dirt/mud roads when there was no traffic and only 100km of dust, so we ended up doing 10,000 km without having to refill, but I think that is very unusual. By the way, we got enough mud on the tailgate the rear washer stopped working until I cleaned the mud off the nozzle.

13) For those who are radio-inclined, a VHF radio on LADD1 (154.100 MHz) is very useful. Many truckers on the Dempster call out their location every 5 or 10 km, giving you advance notice. On the Alaska Highway, coming up on Summit Lake (eastbound, west of Fort Nelson), where the road is narrow, winding, and has no guardrails, we heard an oversize load coming up on us. So we pulled off at a rest area to let them go by, rather than testing our nerves and driving skills. A VHF radio is also useful in emergencies.

14) CB is pretty much useless. Only once did we hear anything on it, and that was on the Coquihalla announcing an accident that closed the highway in Chilliwack. But LADD1 gave us the same info a few minutes earlier, and without the swearing. CB has a range of about 5 km, VHF can be up to 30 km. But take the CB if you got it. In an emergency, anything is better than nothing.

15) Have a full size spare tire (2 recommended for Dempster and anywhere in Alaska). In Pelly Crossing we helped a rental van put on their temporary spare. They then faced the prospect of driving the 200+ km to Dawson City, the nearest place with anything resembling a garage. A fully loaded van at 70 km/h for 200 km on a doughnut tire is not a fun prospect. The Dempster can easily eat tires. I've talked to people who went through 4 tires, and others who destroyed none (ourselves included). Our Delica wears light truck tires (Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo LT 235/75R15, not the P 235/75R15 version), 6 of them, all on the same rims, so all 6 are part of the tire rotation scheme. We knew when we bought the Delica we would be doing this trip, so bought tires to suit.

16) Don't follow the grader when it is scraping. A maintenance truck driver on the Dempster told us this. He said the grader scrapes off the top layer, exposing the sharp rocks underneath. Parts of the Dempster are surfaced with shale. When it is fresh, it is extremely sharp and will slice the sidewalls of the tire. (Keep in mind humans have been using shale and slate and flint to make arrow- and spearheads for thousands of years.)

16) Carry a tire repair kit and compressor. Won't fix a shale slash, but a quick plug and fillup on a nail is a lot easier than putting the spare on.

17) If you plan to wild camp (i.e., not in a campground), PM or e-mail me your route and I can supply the locations of the spots we used. We didn't wild camp as much as planned due to the bears. So we stayed in campgrounds instead.

18) In the first couple of hundred km of the Alaska Highway (Dawson Creek, BC to west of Fort Nelson), be careful of wild camping. There are lots of great well access roads that are very untravelled, but many of the wells are sour gas wells. When you see the "Danger Poisonous H2S Gas No Camping" signs, you might want to heed them.

19) Carry a towstrap or towrope at the very least. Hopefully used only to help someone else, but, as Docsavage has demonstrated, it only takes an instant of inattention to get into a situation.

20) Spare parts? We carried belts, oil and fuel filters, and a couple of air filters. We ended up not needing any except the oil filter (routine change in Whitehorse), but slightly different conditions on a dirt road like the Dalton, Top of the World, or Dempster could easily require several air filters. I will probably change the fuel filter soon.

21) Carry fuel additive. I don't want to start up the always/sometimes/never debate, but some of the fuel up there doesn't seem the best. I noticed that the fuel tanks at a couple of stations were labeled "low sulpher", not "ultra low sulpher". Some stations' fuel caused the Delica to smoke quite a bit, then the next it wouldn't smoke. I'm normally in the "occasionally" camp for additives, but on this trip I ended up adding it "usually" in the Yukon & NWT.

22) On the Dempster, drive "Dempster style." What does that mean? Slalom, use the entire road, drive wherever it is the smoothest, even if that is along the very left edge. (Subject to oncoming traffic of course.) Why bounce through potholes if you don't have to? BTW, the guy in front doesn't always pick the best line, so use your own judgement.

23) Awning and lawn chairs aren't necessay. The few times we stopped reasonably early and could have used them, it was either too buggy, or we were too tired.

24) Yukon territorial campgrounds are great. Outhouses, pumps with boil water notices for water, free firewood, no hookups, no electricity, $12 per night. So most RVs go to the private campgrounds with the full hookups, leaving the territorial campgrounds for the more adventurous types. And they are never full.

25) Get the free Yukon tourist guide available everywhere up there. The 2008 one has coupons for 4 cents/litre discount on fuel at a bunch of places.

Just my opinion. Hope it helps others plan their journeys.

Fred & Lesley
"Erebus" & "the Raven"
Last edited by Erebus on Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
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The Pinkfingers
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by The Pinkfingers »

Incredible.

Thanks for this. I've enjoyed it immensely.
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Jaz »

Fred,

Spent some of the afternoon going back through this (you know why!), and made up a map on google for where you went.

Check it out here.

This was an amazing journey, and something I'd love to do some time, even if it's just to see if I can find the Delica.ca sticker :-D

Google showed it up to be about 8600km, is that similar to what you estimated you actually did? And how much diesel do you think you used over the trip?

J
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Erebus »

Jaz wrote:Fred,

Spent some of the afternoon going back through this (you know why!), and made up a map on google for where you went.

Check it out here.

This was an amazing journey, and something I'd love to do some time, even if it's just to see if I can find the Delica.ca sticker :-D

Google showed it up to be about 8600km, is that similar to what you estimated you actually did? And how much diesel do you think you used over the trip?

J
That's quite the synchronicity -- I re-read it this morning! Google didn't do the exact route, but close enough for everyone to be able to follow, thanks. Maybe when I have a chance I'll take my GPS tracks, overlay them on a usable map, and upload it.

It certainly was an amazing trip, I hope to do many more amazing trips in the future. Maybe one day I'll have a Unimog or Cantor with a real expedition body on it, and we'll go traipsing around the world. All we need is to win the lottery (probably help to buy tickets), or have an unknown rich relative leave us gobs of cash.

We did 9,935 kilometres according to the odometer, so the real number should be about 9,736 km (odometer reads about 2 percent high). We used a total of 1228 litres of fuel that cost $1,912.27 Cdn. Fuel consumption on whole trip was 12.4 L/100km. Cheapest fuel was $1.30.9 in Calgary, most expensive $1.85.0 in Eagle Plains. Ya, I tracked it all. Easy to track, fun to play with statistics, impossible to recreate later.

Thanks again for your enthusiasm!
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Re: Inuvik or bust by expedition Delica

Post by Bessie the Mud Slayer »

Great read, great trip. My wife and I were planning/thinking an Alaskin trip come summer 09. Though act to follow, lol....
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