Trapped on the Dempster HWY

We started early and began driving from Jak Territorial Park down the Dempster Highway. It was immediately obvious that the fires around us were creating thick haze, but we were able to make it to the Mackenzie River crossing without incident.

The view across the Mackenzie made us realize that the entire Mackenzie Valley was smoke filled. However, once we drove up out of the valley, we found that the visibility had cleared a bit and we continued driving South. There was constant haze, but visibility improved somewhat.

As we drove up into the mountains that separate the Northwest Territories from Yukon we started to see many Caribou. Some were up high on green tundra ridges and some were down in tundra covered valleys.

We made it to the Yukon border, where we saw a Grizzly Bear far up on nearby mountain top.

Our plan was to stay at the Rock River Government Campground just inside the Yukon border. We had looked at fire maps before we left Inuvik (While we had cell service) and determined that Rock River should be safe from the fires near Eagle Plains and the Ogilvie River to the south along the Dempster. I also reckoned that a solid rest before tackling the middle section of the Dempster would be good, since the fire services were recommending no stops along the remaining Dempster Highway until you reached Tombstone Territorial Park, which is only 70 KM from the end of the Dempster.

We made it to Rock River Government Campground and it was a forested Oasis in the middle of the Richardson Mountains. It was down in a valley and is named Chii Deetak in Gwich’in, which means, “River flowing between the rocky hills.” It was a nice green and shaded campground. We selected a site along the river and set up camp for the night, planning a one night stay to keep driving South.

Another small creek runs into the Rock River and carries minerals into the Rock. The Grayling fishing was fantastic on the Rock River above where this mineral laden creek spills into the Rock River. I started catching small ones on my 4 weight fly-rod, but then started catching some bigger ones.

We had arrived in the early afternoon so, I spent most of the afternoon and early evening fishing for Grayling. I let them all go. After I finished fishing and was making my way back to camp, I ran into three adventure motorcyclists who were on their way North and who had set up camp a few sites away from ours. They indicated that they had driven through some active fires along the Dempster today on their way up and just as they passed Eagle Plains Northbound, the fire authorities had closed the gates, shutting down the Dempster Highway, yet again. They showed us photos on their phones which portrayed active crown fires mere feet from the road. It did not look good.

We were trapped in a Government Campground with no cell service and the only means of information was to watch the Highway for Northbound traffic to know if the road had re-opened. Fortunately, there was good Grayling fishing, so being trapped at the Rock River was not going to bother me one bit. Unfortunately for Sarah, who was not as enthusiastic about fishing all day as I am, the mosquitoes were as bad as we’d seen them on our entire trip, so she couldn’t just sit out on her folding camp chair and read without hordes of bugs attacking.

On our first night in Rock River, the girls had just fallen asleep and Sarah and I were reading when I heard rocks disturbed on the shore of the River, not 30 yards from our tent. I sat up and looked out from our tent to see a big old Grizzly Bear meandering down the shoreline past our campsite. It was a true “Grizzly” Bear with the long light blond grizzled hair on the hump on it’s back. It was just casually walking down the shoreline, it showed no interest in our camp, tent or anything from the campground.

My Camera was in the truck, so I quickly got out of the tent and retrieved my camera. The bear was still in sight and it was going to be amazing video, but just then, one of the motorcyclists who had informed us that the road was closed, began walking toward the river, and the bear, with an armload of dirty dishes to wash. I tried to get his attention quietly at first, but when that didn’t work, I yelled “Grizzly!” loudly. This caught his attention and he ran back to his campsite. I watched as the bear, picked up it’s pace and disappeared into the thick boreal forest, frightened by my shout.

Warning the motorcyclist had cost me some amazing Grizzly Bear footage.

We met some other campers who indicated that the Yukon Fire Services were going to be making a protective burn around Eagle Plains and that was why they had shut the Dempster Highway down again. It made sense, as the fires threatened the mid-point outpost for fuel and vehicle service along the route, they couldn’t afford to lose that important facility to wild-fire.

We slept in and enjoyed relatively clear air in our little oasis on the Rock River. For whatever reason, the wind, the geography or who knows what, the Rock River valley was being spared the smoke and haze of the fires just to the South.

After a lazy breakfast, which we prepared in the bug netted, kitchen cabin, Olive, Petra and I set out to fish some of the upper sections of the Rock River that I hadn’t fished the day before. Olive tried her hand at fly fishing, all on her own, for the first time in moving water. The voracious little Grayling in every little pocket of water were perfect for her first try. She landed several small Grayling all on her own, it was amazing to watch her figure things out, mostly, on her own.

I can be a bit of a micro-manager, trying to impart my hard-won wisdom to do things the most efficient/safe/reliable way in fishing, camping or paddling tasks on the girls (and even Sarah). Needless to say, this can cause friction with Sarah and I, but it can cause the girls to, “Just let dad do it,” when I take over, because their slow learning process has exceeded my patience for whatever the task may be.

I tried to just sit back and watch Olive figure it out on her own. It was great to see her solutions to fly-fishing in moving water problems that I had long-since even seen as problems. Once in a while, I was needed to get a fly unstuck from a high branch or untangle a snarled leader (it was fairly windy), but, for the most part, Olive came up with her own solutions to her own issues and even made some beautiful drifts down some tricky runs. She was rewarded each good drift with a voracious strike from a Grayling. Her biggest frustration that day, was that she just couldn’t keep the bigger fish hooked. Grayling are extremely wriggly and the bigger ones just seemed to get off her line whenever she hooked one. Her frustration each time she lost a bigger fish was entertaining to watch.

We fished most of the day and since we were staying put, we decided to keep some and have a pot-luck with some of the other campers who we had met along our route. There was a couple from Michigan and another couple from Arizona. We provided four decently sized Grayling with two over 14″. The couple from Arizona provided ICE-CREAM! And not just any ice cream, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, it was an amazing treat, camped above the Arctic Circle, eating fresh Grayling and Ice Cream.

From other travelers passing through the area, we learned that the Dempster had been reopened late that afternoon, so we made plans to try to get through the long middle section of the Dempster, past the fires, the next day. We knew that most fires died down a bit overnight from the humidity and lower winds, so we determined to get on our way early the next morning.

As soon as we left our little oasis, we began to see and smell the signs of fire. We passed the Arctic Circle and where, on the way North, the views had been sweeping and epic, the haze had dulled the atmosphere down and the stunning views were only just visible through the murk.

Fire haze was everywhere along our route and as we neared Eagle Plains, the forest understory was charred and smoking in spots, but the trees themselves were unharmed. Likely the result of the protective burn. As we passed through Eagle Plains, we slowed and saw fire crews stowing equipment in vehicles, but the gates were open and the road was open, so we kept going. The wind was still light and the smoke haze was bad, but not too bad.

Our luck held and where the motorcyclists had shown us photos of crown fire, ash and live embers falling everywhere, we had smoldering understory and scorched black trees. As soon as we passed the second fire area near the Ogilvie River, we began to see the haze and smoke clear away.

By the time we reached Tombstone Territorial Park, we had blue skies and clean(ish) air again. We decided to camp at Tombstone Territorial Park. It is a fairly busy campground and park for this area, due to the beauty of the vistas and proximity to the Klondike Highway, a paved highway that runs from Whitehorse to Dawson City and is named after the region of the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush around Dawson City.

When we arrived the first day at Tombstone, it had been a long and exhausting day of driving through fire areas along the Dempster, so we just ate dinner and went to bed. We decided to stay another day in Tombstone and on day two we hiked up the North Klondike River and found snow and ice, in the river valley. The hike started along the N. Klondike River down in the valley where there is Boreal Forest. The trail then climbs up some moderate hills, but moves away from the river and this is enough for the microclimate to change, first, into willow scrub and, finally into tundra. It is amazing that the landscape can change so dramatically in just a 4 mile hike.

When we had first driven North on the Dempster, I had seen the patches of snow and ice deep in the N. Klondike River valley, but could not believe there was still snow in July, given the temperatures we had experienced up here. When the trail finally wound back to the river, we found large patches of ice and snow along the river bank. The girls played in the snow while I fished for huge Grayling in the river. I caught close to 20 Grayling, every one over 14″, over the course of the afternoon. It was a fantastic day for everyone.

On the hike back to camp, I fished a few more spots on the river while Sarah and the girls hiked a small loop that came off the main trail. They saw a Cow Moose and Calf. I missed it. Oh well, the fishing was so good.

After our second day in Tombstone Territorial Park, we decided to drive to Dawson City the next morning. We didn’t know it yet, but the unbelievable 2023 Canadian fire season was still not done with us yet.

Check out our YOUTUBE CHANNEL for some short videos from this and other legs of the trip.

~ Umingmaq