Mile 115 on the Dalton Highway is the Arctic Circle, and there is a wooden sign beside the road to prove it, with a small campground and picnic area run by the Bureau of Land Management. The line sits at about sixty-six and a half degrees north, and on the summer solstice the sun does not fully set for those who stand a little further north. It is a remote, windy, mosquito-ridden spot, and it is hugely satisfying to reach on a motorcycle.
The Dalton was built in 1974 to service the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which runs beside it for much of its length, and it carries trucks to the oilfields at Prudhoe Bay. It is about 414 miles of gravel, mud and washboard that starts north of Fairbanks and ends at the Arctic Ocean. The first sections are paved, but beyond the Yukon River Bridge the surface is mostly loose gravel, treated with calcium chloride to keep the dust down, which turns into slick paste when it rains. Trucks are the kings here, and they will not give way, so you pull over and let them pass.
The landscape is magnificent in the way that only very empty places can be. Black spruce forest gives way to tundra, and the Brooks Range rises ahead in rows of jagged peaks, with Sukakpak Mountain and the Atigun Pass on the road beyond. In June the light is endless, the rivers run milky with glacial silt and caribou, moose and the odd wolf cross the road. Mosquitoes are ferocious, so bring repellent and a head net.
Practicalities matter more than usual. The Yukon River Camp, about sixty miles from the start, and Coldfoot, about sixty miles beyond the circle, are the places where you can buy petrol, a meal and a bed. Carry spare fuel, a puncture repair kit and plenty of water, and tell someone your plans. Cellular coverage is absent for hundreds of miles, so the only help you will get is from passing drivers. Do not underestimate the weather, which can turn from sun to snow in an hour, even in summer.