Top of the World

The Dempster Highway was closed for four days because a tanker rolled. They opened it yesterday but an hour later, another truck came off in the same place, so they closed it for a few more hours. But we got word that it was open again late last night. So we appeared at the car hire early in the morning, ready to drive up to the Arctic Ocean. Unfortunately, the previous hirers were still at Inuvik, so we couldn’t get the car, but another (not equipped for the Dempster) was available for the day. So we drove it on The Top of The World Highway to the Canadian border and back (we weren’t allowed to take the car into Alaska because of insurance).

This is supposed to be one of the world’s most beautiful drives. I wanted to go this way when I went to Alaska, but the ferry just outside Dawson City was closed at the time (the ice on the Yukon River was breaking up), so I couldn’t go that way. It’s aptly named, as the highway follows ridges the entire way to the border, and you feel like you’re on top of the world. Every corner you go round is a new vista over mountains for an immense distance. There aren’t many places to take pictures, but with the autumn colours, it was just magnificent.

We saw into Alaska and the border post.

At the ferry crossing we saw a paddle steamer being moved, and Dawson City.

Then we visited the Midnight Dome at Dawson City. This is a viewpoint far above the town, where you can see the Klondike River meeting the Yukon River and the mullock heaps from the gold dredging operations.