drive
map quest A drive along the shores of the Arctic Ocean includes rare splashes of colour care of the Hotel Tuk Inn and the historic schnooner Our Lady of Lourdes.
tourists who are surely grinning under their balaclavas. As Fortune takes wide turns on the river, he keeps his foot off the brake, simply steering and letting the electronic stability program correct the slightest skids. “You can feel just the slightest adjustments,” he says, adding, “I tend to drive cars hard.” Soon, with Kok’s crew up ahead communicating a clear path via radio, Fortune shuts off the ESP, accelerates well past the limit and jerks the wheel. Powder whips around us and we spin wildly in sport mode, surely rearranging the contents of our stomachs. The seatbelt gives a reassuring hug as we drift, then releases with a soft sigh as Fortune takes back control. My envy growing, we swap seats halfway to Tuk, just past an embroidered shirt on a stick that signals a turn to Aklavik. At 90 km/h, aggressive winds whistle past my window and try to sway the light-truck-rated tires, but the aggressive tread clings to the ice. The wheels make constant micro-movements to maintain traction, even as unavoidable pressure ridges become more frequent closer to land, forcing my hands to gesture like I’m sharpening chopsticks. 90
Our convoy stops again to take turns posing in front of the Arctic Ocean sign – the only thing to do when you’re on top of the world.
Treasure hunt
After a three-hour drive through barren tundra, Tuk looks like a mini Manhattan.
After our three-hour drive through barren tundra, the beige trailers and stilted houses on the horizon make Tuk look like a mini Manhattan. But, really, it is as traditional as an Indigenous community can be in 2017, where hunting and fishing are both sacred and essential for a town with high unemployment and astronomical grocery costs. We spend a few hours photographing the unique landscape, stop at the RCMP station for a bathroom break (where else would we go?), then head back to Inuvik to rest before the full-day drive to Dawson City. But we soon learn that a blizzard and 100 km/h winds have forced the closure of the Dempster. Ploughers can’t even work it, and over lunch the next day, Kok explains that we’ll have to be flown out. It is just a taste of what locals experience most of the year, and evidence of why “the road,” as they’ve come to call it, is so vital.