Farewell far north
Day: 88
Km travelled: 15,269
After our drive up the Dempster and dipping in the Arctic Ocean, Tom and I enjoyed a week with two of our favourite people who were visiting from Squamish. We dined in Dawson City, hiked in Tombstone Territorial Park, and reveled in a couple of quiet nights camping on the South Canol Rd. Though our time together passed in the blink of an eye, it was just what we needed.
The South Canol Road (Highway 6) is a several hundred kilometre stretch of gravel track from Ross River to Johnson's Crossing. This south section is more accessible than the North Canol Road, which crosses the Pelly River and takes you into the Northwest Territories, eventually ending in the middle of the wilderness. Without wanting to take our friends anywhere too remote, or too rough, for fear their rental van might not make it, we figured the South Canol Rd was a suitable in-between.
The start of the road was pretty slow going, with many potholes, but as we ascended above the Lapie River, the road smoothed out and offered incredible views of the glacier-grey river winding below.
Further on, the river widened and small lakes began to form on either side of the road, hugged closely by steep mountains on either side. We stopped at Quiet Lake, the halfway point, and enjoyed a campsite all to ourselves. Not as popular as the Dempster, the South Canol is a hidden gem. It’s a beautiful road and worth the drive if it fits with your roundabout route of the territory.
We ended the trip with a night in Whitehorse, treating ourselves to an Airbnb where Tom and I proceeded to wash every article of clothing we'd brought and refreshed ourselves in the luxury of a hot shower. We cherished the little time left with our friends with an evening stroll, ice creams in hand.
I didn't expect saying goodbye to our two friends to be so tangled up with saying goodbye to everything else up here. Letting go of them at the end of that week meant letting go of the north itself, too. Our journey to the top of the world was ending.
I knew this was coming, of course, but it wasn't until our night at Quiet Lake that it fully landed. I sat at the water's edge as the sun went down, watching her golden shimmer spread across the surface, the mountains behind fading into endless shades of blue, and cried. Tears filled with both sadness and joy, captured in the sudden, physical weight of knowing: this is over. The warmth of a never-setting sun, glaciers that left us in awe, precious moose encounters, unrelenting Alaskan rain, steep and spicy off-road trails, vibrant green hills covered in cloud, two months of a place that felt alive unlike anywhere I've ever been… it was all behind us now.
We're officially heading south again. As I write this, we're basking in the early morning sun at Good Hope Lake, off the Cassiar Highway. The road stretches out ahead, long and full of whatever comes next.
I feel grateful we have more ahead of us, but I hope to carry the north with me a while, holding on to the feeling of her before she becomes just another memory.
