Epic Arctic Adventure of Epicness Part 2 - The Big Ugly Beast and driving on the Dempster Highway

 My car is a 2015 Nissan Leaf.  It's great for running around town, but I can only drive about 100 km before I need to charge it for 2 h.  So there was no practical chance of me driving a few thousand km to Yukon. And that's before I even consider the issues about driving on the Dempster Highway!  So the first thing I needed to figure out for the EAAE was what vehicle to obtain.

I reached out to the Terrace office of a car rental company in March, at the start of planning for the trip.  We had a back and forth about what vehicle would be best for driving on the Dempster Highway.  The recommendation was for a 1/2 ton 4WD pickup, such as a Ford F150 or GMC Sierra 1500.  I made the reservation on March 19th.  The rental company turned down my offer to make a deposit to secure the booking.  I asked that the truck be provided with a canopy; the request was acknowledged but the half-hearted response made it clear it wasn't a priority for the company.

I reached out again at the beginning of July to confirm the booking, only to be informed that the company didn't have any 1/2 ton trucks and were replacing it with a 1 ton at the same rental rate.  If I new then what I know now, I would have cancelled the reservation.  The F350 Super Duty that the rental company provided turned out to be a poor choice of vehicle for our trip.  

From northern BC and on through Yukon Territory, all the roads up to the start of the Dempster Highway are paved, good quality, all-weather roads, with the exception of a few areas where the road is under construction.  Caveat for all my comments is that we travelled in July during peak tourist season and with the best weather conditions.  I can't comment on how things might change later or earlier in the season!

The Dempster Highway is an unpaved gravel highway, approximately 740 km from just outside Dawson, Yukon to Inuvik, NWT, plus another 150 km from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk on the Inuvik-Tuk highway, which was only completed in 2017.  Road quality varies from decent gravel road to extremely poor gravel road.  There are sections with washboarding, deep potholes, soft shoulders and more.  When driving, use the whole road!  I would traverse around potholes, and pay no attention to the centreline except when there was oncoming traffic.

Yukon tourist information centres were extremely helpful throughout our trip.  Here is a scan of an information sheet they provided for the Dempster Highway, with a mileage/km itinerary so we could track the distance to the next significant point of interest!

Based on actually driving on the Dempster, it's my opinion that the best vehicle for us would have been a 4WD SUV with decent ground clearance and a minimum range of 550 km on a full tank - basically a car like Tim's Jeep Wagoneer.  The 550 km range is important - that's the distance from the start of the Dempster Highway to Fort McPherson.  The gas station at Eagle Plains is 370 km, but there's a chance that they will not have fuel for sale.  Fill up if you can, but be prepared to cover the full distance to McPherson if necessary.  Carry a jerrycan with extra fuel, and also carry a full-sized spare (or two!) in case of puncture.  A smaller sized donut or space-saver spare isn't going to cut it - make certain your spare is full size as you may need to drive a long way on it on a rough road before you find someone who can repair it!.

Here is the truck.

The issues with the F350 included:

- Fuel economy in the 15-18+ L/100 km range is far inferior to the fuel economy of an F150 or equivalent (closer to 10-12 L/100km).  By the time we reached the NWT, fuel costs were up to $2.23/litre.

- I needed to obtain extra weight to stow in the bed of the truck in order to get weight over the rear axle.  Even so, the truck often felt like it was floating on the road, especially when we were on gravel roads.

- Access to the right rear tie-down location was obstructed by the fire extinguisher bracket, which made securing a load in the truck bed more difficult.

- The height of the truck windscreen made cleaning it difficult!

- Lack of a canopy meant that anything stowed in the truck bed was not secure, so all items of value needed to be secured within the cab.  This included items such as food as we were camping in bear country.

Here are the two vehicles at Meziadin Junction, near the start of the trip.

And here they are at Tombstone Territorial Park near the end of the drive on the Dempster.

And the final frustration - when I dropped the F350 back to the rental company, they had a GMC 1500 sitting in the lot!  Look at the size difference.