CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Dempster Highway: Eagle Plains to Inuvik
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 367 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 9 h 09
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Dempster Highway
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 37 km this is Dempster Highway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 37 km
- Named road
- Dempster Highway
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Eagle Plains
Eagle Plains is a small dot of civilisation on the Dempster Highway, a gravel road that runs from near Dawson City, in the Yukon, all the way to Inuvik, in the Northwest Territories, over seven hundred kilometres. The road crosses the Arctic Circle about thirty-five kilometres north of here, and at Eagle Plains you stand on a high plateau of tundra and stunted spruce, with the Richardson Mountains on the horizon to the northeast.
Read the complete Eagle Plains write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Eagle Plains is where the day begins. Next is Arctic Circle.
2. Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is a line that doesn't exist, and yet people stop for it. On the Dempster Highway there is a rest area at the point where the road crosses 66 degrees 33 minutes north, with a sign, a board of information, and a gravel parking pad. It is not a dramatic place, apart from the landscape: a wide valley of tundra, scrubby spruce and low hills, with the Richardson Mountains on the far horizon. Above this line, in midsummer, the sun does not set.
Read the complete Arctic Circle write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Arctic Circle comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Inuvik.
3. Inuvik
Inuvik is the end of the road, quite literally. The Dempster Highway, a gravel road that runs for about 740 kilometres from near Dawson City through some of the wildest country in North America, finishes here, in the Mackenzie River delta, at the edge of the Arctic. The town was built in the 1950s to replace Aklavik, which was prone to flooding, and it was planned from scratch as an administrative centre, with a distinctive layout and utilidors, insulated pipes above ground that carry water and sewage, because the permafrost makes burying them impossible.
Read the complete Inuvik write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 367 km.
Leg by leg
Eagle Plains to Arctic Circle
Eagle Plains → Arctic Circle is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Arctic Circle to Inuvik
Arctic Circle → Inuvik is 330 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Dempster Highway · part 4 · 1448 km
- Dempster Highway: Eagle Plains to Tuktoyaktuk · 519 km
- Dempster Highway · 929 km
- Dempster Highway starting at Dawson City · 1858 km