Dawson City to Inuvik - Alaska and Points North: Tips and Tales from the Road - page 202

Inuvik
We awoke to rain so started the morning off feeling downhearted and a little worried about
the condition of the road to Inuvik. A few miles north of Eagle Plains we saw a shiny new
pick up truck upside down and sidewise in the ditch. Moments later a tow truck arrived with
the owner and started hooking up the truck to drag it out of the ditch upside down and side-
wise.Itlookedtomeliketheirmethodology,bruteforce,wasgoingtocausealotmoredam-
age but the owner was unconcerned. He told us this “sliding off the road thing” happens all
the time. New trucks get old real fast. With his truck back on its wheels he tore off toward
Fort McPherson, waving cheerfully out the window as he went.
First photo op of the day was 35 km /22 mi up the road at 66°33' north, the Arctic Circle!
This signals our arrival once again in the land of the midnight sun. At this latitude the sun
never falls below the horizon on the summer solstice, June 22 nd . We are a month beyond
that so it disappears, but just barely. There is a light twilight from midnight till about 3 am
when it starts getting really bright again.
From here on north we are also in caribou country. Except that in the summer months
they congregate along the Beaufort coastline. Which we certainly saw at Prudhoe Bay. Not
gathered in thousands for migration, but in small groups grazing and lounging around the
green spaces in Deadhorse. Apparently they hang around there till September then gather in-
to a mass for the migration south through this area. I'd like to see that, but we've got places
to go too so they'll have to migrate once again without my supervision.