Dempster Highway

Continuing north towards the Peel River, still up in the Richardson Mtns.

Open, empty, and silent country!

In this picture the road is heading down a very long hill out of the Richardson Mountains, down into the MacKenzie River valley.

In the far distance is the Peel River.  You can see dust being blown up from dried-out mudflats in the distance to the left.

This was the loneliest section of the entire Dempster Hwy, because it ended at the Peel River.  To come up here to the Peel River and then turn around and go back to Dawson City, in 1978 you would've needed to carry enough gas for 770 miles!

Giant trucks that had been used to construct the Dempster Hwy were lined up a few miles south of the Peel River.  They were awaiting a barge to come and transport them out.

Earlier on my trip, I had to share the Alaska Hwy with these type of trucks barreling up and down the highway!

They looked rather odd here, all lined up in the middle of nowhere.

Mile 335: The Peel River.  The far shore is the south shore, and in 1978 that was the practical end of the road for most vehicles.  There was no way to get across the Peel River until at least the next year.

I wandered down the river a little ways and asked a local freighter canoe owner at a camp to take myself and the moped across.

Afterwards, I continued on my journey north towards Inuvik.

Fort MacPherson is ahead of me, at Mile 342.