_WID2668

Truck driver waiting for repair of 2 blown tires, Fort McPherson, YT. Drivers prefer the road in winter. This driver told me he has "driven every ice road in the North". He was carrying some of the first supplies in weeks to Inuvik after the ferries opened. The northern section of the Dempster Highway in the Yukon was built on crushed shale to raise it up from and insulate the permafrost. Pieces of this shale regularly puncture tires. A tire repair awaits at each end of the worst 150 mile (230 km) section. The Dempster runs nearly 500 miles (800 km) unpaved from Klondike Highway near Dawson to Inuvik, far above the Arctic Circle.
67°24'37" N 134°52'40" W