10 Tips for Driving the Dempster Highway

My thoughts about the Dempster highway.

The road that leads to Tuktoyaktuk is via the Dempster highway. I love saying this name and writing it. Microsoft Word has no auto correct for Tuktoyaktuk, so I have to be careful when I type it. Driving the road requires two things. Firstly, patience. You will not be able to drive as if you are on a normal road for extended periods of time. The potholes, the mud, the washboards all conspire against the thing drivers covet which is of course speed. At some points in our drive our travel speed doesn’t even register on the speedomemeter. “We are going zero km/h said Alyssa earlier.” She said this not as a complaint, in exasperation or any other emotion. She was merely stating a fact. You have to stick to the rule that the driver, in addition to choosing the music, also is in charge of the route around all of the potholes and washboards. I try hard to refrain from saying “slow down, go left, watch out!”. Instead, I opt for “nice moves, yeah good one!” to acknowledge driving excellence and on the fly decision making. The second thing you require is the complete and total removal of any expectations that you will be driving on anything that resembles what you have come to know as a road. The Dempster highway, except for what it looks like on any map, is unlike any road you will ever experience unless perhaps you are involved in forestry, resource extraction or road construction. Once you have these two things firmly embedded in your psyche you will be amazed at the landscape, the people you meet and the idea that you are able to travel through one of the least inhabited and utterly beautiful parts of Canada.