August 28, A Day in Inuvik, Northwest Territories

200 Miles above the Arctic Circle

We got up late, needing a rest from the past few days of hard riding and driving, and took our time to start seeing the town.

We started with an excellent Canada Parks visitor center, and learned more about the town and area.  This town started in the 1970's as a planned community by the Canadian government, to relocate a community of local Gwich'in people to a place which didn't flood and was a much better site.  Some people did relocate and some didn't, but when oil and gas were found here, that added impetus to the town building.  So the buildings are relatively new, and the homes, too.  It is obvious that the Canadian government has poured a lot of money into things like a recreation center, a year round greenhouse, and other amenities.

Inuvik is a very modern town, much to our surprise, and had buildings of quite unusual design, with mostly steel or plastic panels on the outside.

On our way, we saw a restaurant with this sign, so we had to have a lunch of their specialties.  Norm and Kay had the Caribou Burger, and Deane had the Musk Ox Burger - all surprisingly good.

As it turned out, the town was having the first annual "End of the Road" music festival this weekend.  Who would believe that many people would drive this difficult highway for a music festival?  But they were here.

At the festival we met two authors of a book, the "Dempster Highway", which had tickled my fancy in a gift shop, so we had them sign our books.  In this book, they had collected stories, poems, and even menus that were unique to this area.  The one I particularly liked was a set of menu items from a "Bush Camp" of 1939. 

The menu was: Appetizer - "Boiled Caribou Hooves"; Soup - "Moose Nose Soup"; Entree - "Roasted Caribou Head"; Dessert - "Dried fish and Blueberry Pemmican".

I asked Kay if she could cook such a dinner, but she wasn't in the mood for such a feast.

The most interesting thing here was the temperatures.  After the preceding days riding up the Dempster Highway, we thought it would be really cold here.  Surprise, Surprise!  450 miles further North than where we started, it was much warmer!!  This must be the banana belt of the North, being on the shore of the great wide Mackenzie River, with its moderating influences.  They even have air conditioners!  However, one of the gift shop owners said that the temperature in the winter gets down to about 30 degrees (F) below zero.

All in all, this was a fun town to visit, at the end of a fun but challenging road.  Tomorrow and the next day we'll face that challenge as we ride back down the Dempster Highway.

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