Just some quick pix of the Northern Store in Tuktoyaktuk. It’s similar to the one in Cambridge Bay, smaller but nicer though. Chips were 2 dollars more than Inuvik and licorice was double the Inuvik price – perhaps a message there on social engineering? Strangely enough gas was $1.75 per litre which is cheaper than the Esso here at $1.77 – clearly the result of a fuel subsidy, or a gas war, ha ha. Funny to think as $1.75 as cheap gas.

Oh, and yes we did indeed end up going up the highest hydrolaccolith in Canada and the second highest in the world, Ibyuk Pingo, http://wikimapia.org/4380798/Ibyuk-Pingo in the Pingo National landmark. http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/docs/v-g/pingo/sec3/natcul1.aspx Research suggests that it is between 1000 and 1300 years old and is still growing at a rate of 2 cms per annum but only from the top half and up, the bottom being static. It’s 49m high and 300 metres across, officially. I was getting heights around 160 to 209 feet from the GPS which is using air pressure, and probably needs calibrating since its records Inuvik at a negative elevation.

And some video from the weekend

Skiing over to the Pingo and driving around Tuk

Back Climbing south of Inuvik by Campbell Lake

On Saturday, we headed down to the crags out by Campbell Lake, to do some proper first ascents of some of my routes there. I haven’t been down this way since December and the snow accumulation in this area is much more pronounced – I figured knee depth while in actuality it was mid-thigh to full thigh in places. We plowed a trench to the cliff, which we only did due to the short approach ( we could have put skis on if we really needed to).

I dug out a platform at the base of the routes as the sloughing from above has been persistent in my absence. Easy work as the snow is basically all metamorphosed into depth hoar with a surface layer of new accumulation. Cliff itself was covered in frost. The one route that traverses to the right of the large roof is hard to do as a solo so this was the first time I have been able to get on it. Good fun in being able to climb north of the Arctic Circle Feb 1st. Temps around -14!

Afterwards we went down the Dempster a bit to try and ski a riverbank cut by the territorial campsite. Steep enough but the depth hoar and wind packed surface layers made for challenging skiing even with AT gear. Basically on a turn you went right down to the dirt and whilst initiating the next turn the wind pack would try and grab the ski tips and submarine them. Speed is your friend on these sorts of conditions but then you increase the chances of grinding dirt into the ski base on the turns; not the worst but certainly not the best sking. As usual the best snow conditions were on the creek – which isn’t all that useful for doing turns.

Took some shots on the way back near the Campbell Lake viewpoint as everything was covered in frost feathers. Snow was over Kathy’s waist in places – good time to leave your gloves in the truck

Tuktoyaktuk and Pingos for a sunday Drive

Did the drive up to Tuktoyaktuk yesterday in very good conditions. The ice road is being prepped for heavy haul – equipment that is being moved for the north end Tuk highway construction project mainly – and was very smooth with only a few rough spots. Even the section on the Beaufort Sea was good with little cracking and only a few dips and rollers right near the shoreline at Tuk. Skies were mainly overcast but at -15 and no wind the whole way no one was complaining. In town recent windstorms were in evidence with some houses still wrapped in drifts right up to the rooflines.

My original intention was to go Pingo skiing, or at least go over to a Pingo, actually one in particular that has a name, Aklisuktuk, and a few others that start to appear about 95 kms up the ice road. We spotted Aklisuktuk (Growing Fast) Pingo on the way up, which was interesting as the following article (http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/view/2530 ) provides a good history to this particular feature. Actually it was original intention to stop at this one and ski over to it but the unseasonably mild weather conditions changed that plan to go right to Tuk.

Pingos, are a hydro / geological feature that exhibits itself only in regions of permafrost with plenty of either ground or open water (seasonal) to build from. Good old Wikipedia has a nice working definition

A pingo, also called a hydrolaccolith, is a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and subarctic that can reach up to 70 metres (230 ft) in height and up to 600 m (2,000 ft) in diameter. The term originated as the Inuvialuktun word for a small hill. A pingo is a periglacial landform, which is defined as a nonglacial landform or process linked to colder climates.


By fortunate happenstance we ran into the trekker from Japan that had left Inuvik about 9 days ago about 4 kms from Tuktoyaktuk. We stopped and said hello and congratulated him on getting to town. So I saw him just as he left Inuvik, about one third of the way along and just as he was reaching his goal. More than likely I’ll catch up to him sometime on his walk back to Inuvik.

We drove around the town site for a while as It has been about 10 years since I have been to Tuk. Things haven’t changed too much but, of course, economic downturns have shuttered a few more buildings, sad to say that the Tuk Inn is no more. We then went over to the start of the north end of the Tuk / Inuvik highway, which is also the roads to the sewage lagoon and picked a spot to ski over to the Pingos nearest to town.

Well…part of that ski was on Sewer Lake but hey it was frozen and the manager of the Northern Store had no qualms snowmobiling over it, enough said, lol. A quick 2 km ski got us to the base of the Pingo – actually the one that shows up in photographs the most (getting to it in the summer would be problematic at best as its almost entirely surrounded by open water) . While larger than most in the area is it not the largest but is often mistakenly referenced as such, especially in images. Though it was my intention to ski the Pingo, a paucity of snow did not make that at all feasible, so we booted up it, in variable snow. Even though the lighting was a bit flat the view as panoramic and good.

Whilst standing on the top of the pingo, having made a perilous ascent of the steeper north face, we noticed a vehicle stopping by the truck and people getting out. This was a bit odd but I wasn’t too worried as – its’ Tuk and it’s not like anyone is going to break in. after a fashion we spotted a person ski –joring with two dogs along our track. By this point we were headed down and back to the where we had left the skis.

We got the gear on and were sking back along the lake when the person came over a small rise and down towards us. It turned out to be a couple of peopole doing pretty much was we were – drving to Tuk and looking at pingos. Christian was his name and he was going to be guiding some tourist trips up the Dempster and ice road to Tuk and he was checking things out in advance of the tours he was going to be working. Frederique stayed behind in the vehicle as he was sans skis and dogs. Both of them were “adventuring” and were great fun to talk with; we met for lunch the following day back in Inuvik. Strange the way that things work as the only day that we decide to take skis all the way up to Tuk to go over and up Pingos is the only day that some-one else shows up to do exactly the same thing – synchronicity – 3 sets of back country skis al in the same place, ha ha. Actually they saw us on top of the Pingo and followed the road over to where we were parked then followed the ski track.
We took a few more shots around Tuk then slowly headed back onto the ice road and back into the Delta towards Inuvik.

The mild weather and the large still air mass slowing mixing with colder air produced some vibrant mirages that were extremely well delineated and slow enough moving to be able to watch the distortion roll across the horizon in a sinusoidal fashion that lifted and rolled the hills into a wave front feature that travelled from our right to left. We saw this happen 3 times punctuated by more standard mirages that simply elongated the features on the horizon. I don’t think that sort of mirage is typical and requires large calm air layers mixing slowly to form . Either cold air was being trapped near the road surface or warm air was being over laden with cold are moving in from the Delta, temp was about -19 at road level. In any event a really interesting thing to see. When we spoke to our new French friends who were on the road about 10 minutes ahead of us they said that they saw the same effect. It was however expressed much more succinctly as “whoa – I saw that but I hadn’t even been drinking.”

Anyway Kathy had the opportunity to drive the ice road to Tuk, which is something that has a limited future availability to be done. Once the overland highway is completed to Tuk, the ice road, in its entirety, will cease to exist, so it’s a bit of a unique experience. And…180 kms above a moving river and on the Beaufort Sea is not a bad feat for someone who has issues with being on ice over water. I think the signs expressing 40,000 kg load limits helped.

First, some pix from around town, flat lighting that day combined with everything covered in hoar frost made for some challenging shooting...

...and out on the tundra and pingo

This will be the end of the road to Tuk in 4 years