INUVIK to TUKTOYAKTUK

 August 25, 2023

INUVIK – TUKTOYAKTUK

Italics - tour description
Today will be memorable; we’ll travel along the expansive Mackenzie River delta toward the Arctic coast. At the river's entrance into the Arctic Ocean, the road turns northeast and travels along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean toward the village of “Tuk” as it is known by residents. Not far from town, you’ll see the first of several ‘pingos’. These are mountains literally made of ice; heaved-up season after season with the annual freeze and thaw. The tallest is over 100m! We will be met by local guides who will take us on a tour of their unique village. Stops along the way include the historic Lady of Lourdes schooner and some of Tuk’s famous community buildings such as sod houses, churches and the community “freezer”; a hollowed-out section of permafrost located deep underground. You’ll also see the Northern Early Warning site (formerly DEW Line) and even get a chance to dip your toe in the Arctic Ocean! You’ll also be invited to a local resident’s home for a glimpse at home life in a northern community. Accommodation: Tuktoyaktuk

Departure 8:30

Weather cold!

Friday after a very basic provided breakfast (with nothing gluten free although it had been made clear to Leo) we leave at 8:30 for Tuktoyaktuk, on another rainy day and bumpy road which turns out to have no bathroom spots on a 4 hour drive.

As we leave, Leo asks if we want to stop at the liquor store because there isn't any liquor available in Tuk!

4 hours on the road and the toilets are locked! John was fine, he just ran behind the building!

The Northern arm of the Trans Canada Trail (now known as the Great Trail) winds along the Mackenzie River, crosses the delta and ends at the community of Tuktoyaktuk. A monument marks the northern end of the trail.

Tuktoyaktuk English: /tʌktəˈjæktʌk/, or Tuktuyaaqtuuq  is an Inuvialuit hamlet located near the Mackenzie River delta at the northern terminus of the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway. One of six Inuvialuit communities it is commonly referred to by its first syllable, Tuk. 

Tuk is the farthest north you can drive in Canada. It sits at the end of the 140-kilometre Inuvik-Tuk highway, but many people choose to take a longer road trip along the fabled Dempster Highway, leading from Dawson City in the Yukon through many of the Western Arctic stunning communities to Inuvik. The Inuvik-Tuk highway is the only place in North America where you drive a public highway to the Arctic Ocean.

 Known as Port Brabant after British colonization, in 1950 it became the first Indigenous settlement in Canada to reclaim its traditional name.

Tuktoyaktuk is the anglicized form of the native Inuvialuit place-name, meaning "resembling a caribou". According to legend, a woman looked on as some caribou, common at the site, waded into the water and turned into stone, or became petrified. Today, reefs resembling these petrified caribou are said to be visible at low tide along the shore of the town.

Pingos are ice-cored hills that form in recently drained lakes. The unfrozen ground directly beneath the lake, called “talik,” is surrounded by permanently frozen ground called permafrost. After the lake drains and the water-saturated sediment at the bottom of the lake bed becomes exposed, its surface begins to freeze.

Tuktoyaktuk sits in the midst of the world’s largest concentration of Pingos (cone shaped hills with a core of ice). There are approximately 1,350 on the Tuktoyaktuk peninsula, about one quarter of the world’s Pingos. One of these Pingos, named Ibyuk, is the highest Pingo in Canada (160 feet and still growing) and is thought to be over 1,000 years old. Ibyuk and seven other Pingos make up the Pingo National Landmark. Local outfitters offer guided services to the Landmark. Or you can see smaller Pingos right in the community of Tuk, where a building is perched atop one rounded Pingo. Pingos are often used as navigational aids by the locals.

We eat our lunch in the van as it is raining and cold. Into Tuktoyaktuk and we have some time to kill as our guide isn't ready for us. But it is raining as we approach the Arctic Sea!

S had some wine left over (from Eagle Plains) so we toasted A's 75th birthday!

Tuktoyaktuk is the only community in Canada on the Arctic Ocean that’s connected to the rest of the country by public road and the furthest north someone can drive in Canada.

Residents of Tuktoyaktuk still hunt for food, often travelling on the land to traditional hunting or fishing spots for harvesting purposes.

We get settled into our rooms at Roger's house, not impressed!

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Roger climbs into Leo's van and takes us on a guided tour. 
Roger Gruben, was raised in Tuk as a hunter of whales, caribou, polar bears and geese, but became a radio talk-show host after attending college and returning to Inuvik. From 1984-1994 he was arguably the most powerful person in the Western Arctic as CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the group founded on the millions from the land settlement.

Although Tuk is north of the treeline, some of its shores are strewn with tangles of driftwood, including large logs and stumps. Through spring breakup, these logs are ripped from the banks of the Liard and Mackenzie River and are dragged down river by ice and river currents, to be finally caught in the sheltered bays of the Beaufort Sea. As the only Arctic community with a source of wood, originally the people built and lived in sod houses, rather than traditional igloos. They also used wood for fires.

He tells us of his life in a residential school (Anglican). We sit and get numb/frozen listening to him  inside the Catholic church.

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Donated on behalf of Pope Pius XI in the 1930s, the schooner Our Lady of Lourdes sailed the Beaufort Sea for decades, delivering supplies to far-flung Catholic missions and carrying Inuvialuit children to Catholic residential schools.

It's 5 PM time for dinner...at Grandma's Kitchen. Place your order at the window and then sit inside a house on the right. 

Our dining view. Burgers (again) but these are delicious and the buns are homemade. Need to use the washroom, she'll let you go into her house!

That's Grandma on the far right, she was so surprised when John tipped her.

Leo drops us back at Leo's and we read for the rest of the evening. I got up at midnight to use the bathroom and it was still daylight outside!

And it will always be known for its fictitious university, the infamous University of Tuktoyaktuk-- emblazoned on hundreds of thousands of T-shirts that travelled the world.