Drive the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH)

Television shows about "ice roads" - the winter roads built in the Arctic on frozen rivers and lakes - have captured the imagination of many people in recent years. Few people, though, realize just how many there are. One of the best-known ice roads used to be the one from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk in Canada's Northwest Territories. On November 15, 2017, though, an all-season gravel road replaced the ice road, and in April I drove it and some ice roads.

The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH), 138 km (86 mi) long, was the first in Canada to reach the Arctic Ocean, finally connecting the country “from sea to sea to sea.” Building it was a challenge, and it took 4 years to complete. The start of the road at the Inuvik end (10 km north of Inuvik) is marked by five large billboards, each in a different language – English, French, Gwich’in, and two Inuvialuktun (western Arctic Inuit) dialects, Uummarmiutun and Sallirmiutun.

When my Inuvialuit friend Tyson and I left Inuvik with his car, it was -20°C/-4°F, snowing, and fairly windy - a perfect day to get the full experience!

While the ice road was of course mostly level, being on the frozen Mackenzie River, the new road crosses rolling plain and low hills a few hundred feet above and to the east of the river. Most of the route is above treeline, so wind-blown snowdrifts are a major problem for the crews who work constantly to keep it open.

There were quite a few large trucks on the road, that seemed to be empty in both directions. That made no sense, but once we got to "Tuk" (Tuktoyaktuk) we discovered that they were carrying large boulders for critical erosion control work along the coast right at the community. The trucks were really good about slowing down, but we pulled over as far as possible to try to protect Tyson's windshield.

In the rare places where the wind had blown all the snow off the road, we could see that the surface was fairly fine gravel - it would be hard to find a better surface for great winter traction.

Among the hills the road passes are countless lakes of all sizes, and along them are many widely-scattered camps and cabins. There were a few one-lane sections of road due to the drifting snow, and Murphy’s Laws being what they are, we met a semi at most of them!

Nearing Tuktoyaktuk, we reached the Pingo Canadian Landmark, which features 8 of the 1,350 pingos found in the region. Pingos are ice-cored hills - the Ibyuk Pingo here is Canada's tallest and the world's second-tallest pingo. It reaches 49 metres (about 161 feet) in height and stretches 300 metres (about 984 feet) across its base!

My first visit to Tuk was in 1985, when I flew my Cessna 172 from Vancouver, BC, to explore a vast area of the North. Since that time I had returned many times guiding tour groups, arriving from Inuvik by air as we came in the summer when there was no road. It was wonderful to be back, and we spent much of the day exploring and visiting some of Tyson's elderly relatives. I could have spent hours listening to their stories of life there over the past 80-odd years.

During the day, the wind had kept increasing in speed, and by the time we started back toward Inuvik it was blowing at about 40 km/h (25 mph), helping the Snow King to rapidly reclaim the land we wanted to drive on. The road was effectively one lane in many places, and visibility at times was very poor.

As it started to get dark, truly in the middle of nowhere, the car died. Hmmmmm…..

Popping the hood, nothing obvious was amiss. I rationalized that the massive amount of blowing snow had choked off the air filter, and before taking that apart, leaving the hood closed for a few minutes so the warm air could melt the snow should get us going again. It worked, and we were soon on our way again.

That day had been so amazing, we decided back at home that evening to drive some ice roads the next day. Watch my page here for that story in the very near future.