Neat. That's the same year and color as mine.
... why... why would you want to bike to Tuktoyatuk?
I'm... not even sure there are enough gas stations for you to limp from one
to the next. Motorcycles have made the trip, but I don't know that they've
made it without spare tanks or a chase vehicle.
I'm wondering if you have any idea just how desolate the northern half
(heck, the northern 90%) of Canada is.
After Fort MacMurray, which is only like, 1/4 of the way there from the
border (you wouldn't actually go there though)... there are 80,000 people
total... total... TOTAL, in the entire northern 50% of all of Canada. In an
area half the size of the United states. Imagine if you left New York
headed for the west coast, after you passed Philly there are no more cities
bigger than 50,000. When you hit half way, in Kansas, it's thinned out so
much that there were only 65,000 total people living in the entire western
half of the USA ahead of you and literally only a single road built for
political reasons. There are a few government weather stations that have
grass landing strips, but none of them are within 1000 miles of a dirt
path, some of them not withing 3000 miles of a dirt path. And imagine it
was frozen swampland, and when you got to the ocean you'd arrive at the
biggest settlement for 1000 miles in any direction... a village of 900
people.
The biggest city is like, 25,000 people, you'll pass through. The second
biggest city is 15,000 and your route will be 1000+ miles from it. The
third biggest town is 1,400 people. It goes down from there. You'll be
traveling 2000 miles on the only road, and run into scattered hamlets and
shacks. Mostly, fly-in mining camps and float-in fishing villages.
Where will you sleep? You may say "I'll travel in the summer, during the
few weeks when the swamp melts, and camp along the road", and I say, you
will be kept warm with the two inch thick blanket of biter flies and
mosquitos that will attempt to abduct you a piece at a time, the wolves and
the bears will make snacks of you, at least until you're half way there,
after which you won't see any predators other than polar bears ("If it's
black, fight back, if it's brown lie down, if it's white, goodnight")
because there are nothing, because there is nothing, because it's thousands
of miles of frozen mossy swamp without so much as a tree.
The only reason there's even a road to Tuk, is because the federal
government wanted to do some saber-rattling to assert Artic sovereignty
since the Russians are making similar plays. The last 80 miles of highway
cost a staggering $300 million dollars to build, out of gravel. That's as
much as an entire multi-lane concrete highway ring road system around a
city of a half million people, complete with a dozen overpasses... for a
town of 900 people. That's $350,000 per person for each of their 500 foot
section. Just mindblowingly colossal waste of money. Not that you care
about politics, but just to emphasize, this place is so meaningless and
deserted, that it didn't deserve a road to get there, the road only got
built for political reasons.
If you think you're going to experience some amazing local culture, well,
for one, there's just not many people so there's not much culture to
experience, and two, you're generally looking at run down shacks and
near-slum-like existence. There's a some mines along the way that people
never leave, and the rest is a few government employees to help everyone
else, who's on government assistance. There's probably an interpretive
center to learn about the end of the road, and that's about it. It's not
like going east-west coast and seeing totally different things every stop.
You're not going to tell one hamlet from next, for 2000 miles.
Is this because Jesse James did it, before they built the road? (He did it
in winter, used studded tires, not much help).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-7g7bMvXuw
Here's 3 guys who made the trip on bike, before the actual road to Tuk was
built (stops at Inuvik, close enough, the last leg isn't going to be any
better or worse). Looks like pretty much straight dirt-bike tires and 2
spares each, nothing street-like about them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK-IMzG2hZ4
I've done all I can to inform you, if it wasn't convincing, you at least
know what you're in for, good luck on the trip :)
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