When I finally got a ride out of Tok, I stood for a short while in this nice spot somewhere on the Tok Cutoff.

And looking the other way.

On the Glenn Highway later the same day. The lady who gave me a ride wanted to go blueberry picking so we spent an hour in the bushes by the side of the road. Wild blueberries are tiny and delicious.

On the way into Caribou Creek.

A shot of my beautiful bear-proof food container on the gravel by the river.

Lion’s Head.

And again with a bit more sunshine.

One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever spent time.

A dead cabin on Jim and Beatrice’s land.

Another walk out on the river.

With Jim and Beatrice, who made me incredibly welcome as always.

One more shot towards the glacier.

The cabin I stayed in while I was there.

♥

Back on dirt roads.

Looks strangely mirrored but it’s not, that’s just the junction.

Forty Mile River, on the way to Eagle.

The river.

The bridge.

Front Street, Eagle.

The Yukon River, for the third time this trip. (Whitehorse, Dawson City and here).

The river has flooded badly on a number of occasions, most severely in 2009, so these flood defenses are very necessary.

Fairly wobbly ladder to climb up them.

Huge cabin overlooking the river.

That phonebox is as far from home as I am.

Another cabin.

Walking across the airfield to my campsite.

The airfield.

My beautiful tent.

A very nice campground, though a little eerie as I was the only person there.

Yukon Ron’s.

And on the way out again.

Rough, slow road.

In a very dirty van.

I arrived in Dawson City just in time to see this magical sunset over the Yukon River.

The toe shot works like this: you buy a shot of something, they give you a human toe to put it in and to get the certificate the toe has to touch your lips while you drink it.

$2500 fine if you swallow the toe.

No, I don’t know why either.

But I’m now a member, which is the main thing.

And then five days later I left. I had tried to go over the Top of the World highway three times before, once from the Canadian side and twice from the Alaskan side but every time something had come up (like forest fires) and I hadn’t been able to make it. Eight years after my first attempt, I was excited I was finally going to make it!

It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful roads in North America but the weather really wasn’t playing ball.

And then it got a little worse.

And then it started taking the piss.

But then we got over the top of the range of mountains and the weather started clearing up.

And the views started.

Such views.

You could really see for miles and miles and miles.

Then we got to the border town, which is absolutely in the middle of nowhere.

When I say town…

There I am.

There’s the nice Belgian lady who gave me a ride.

And then…

…there were just…

…all the…

…views.

Woop!

Scenery got much more mountainous.

Then we came across this poor guy eating rocks. Not gonna survive the winter, unfortunately.

Then the lakes started.

A fact I was pretty pleased about.

Then we got to Watson Lake, where the visitor centre is famous for its signpost forest. There are more than 80,000 signs there.

The Robert Campbell Highway starts right from the signpost forest. It’s an isolated dirt road to some small communities in some apparently beautiful scenery…

…but after standing in about this spot for literally a day and a half, I was forced to give up and head on the main road to Whitehorse instead.

Somewhere on the way to Whitehorse.

The Yukon River in Whitehorse.

Paddleboat!

And again.

Then I left Whitehorse heading north towards Dawson City.

Past yet more lakes.

This picture is included cause I didn’t take a picture of the bridge on the way up so I was determined to on the way back. 100% not a waste of time.

It was 36 celsius when I stood at this junction. Do you have any idea how insane that is, given how far north I was? Google Yellowknife, it’s really bloody far north.

Far from everything as usual.

Fort Liard is up a side road, across a river with no bridge. The lovely family I was hitching with wanted to check it out, so we went.

On board.

Campsite that night was by this lake…

…where I tried my hand at fishing, for the second time ever. (No, I didn’t catch anything). The little kid is the child of the family.

Noice.

Then we ran into the forest fires in British Colombia and everything looked like this.

The ride.

Buffalo.

Uh-oh.

So we got in a lake…

…and paddled through that passageway.

It wasn’t such a bad day.

The plantlife welcomed us.

I tried my hand at fishing.

We stopped for lunch on a rocky island.

Then we paddled away again.

This is what you call a cabin.

❤

It’s even got electricity.

No outsiders, though.

And then along fifty feet of boardwalk…

…is Great Slave Lake, complete with floating houses.

And a pile of communal canoes.

Later, I climbed a big hill at the back of town.

Yellowknife’s most famous street.

NWT has the best licence plates.

Surprisingly, Yellowknife also has a really good Ethiopian restaurant.

Though I couldn’t escape the summer’s awful weather, even if it was only while I was eating dinner.

Boom NWT.

I’m such a badass that they inducted me into the Order of Arctic Adventurers. Despite the fact that the Arctic Circle is the 66th Parallel, not the 60th. And that the 60th parallel is only as far north as the southern tip of Norway. But otherwise, totally badass and not at all a touristy gimmick.

The first significant place in NWT is Hay River, where I couchsurfed with Alvin and Jennifer, seen here sitting in front of me in their Jeep as they drove me out to see a local waterfall.

This Jeep.

This waterfall.

Looking downriver. It’s the sort of spot that would have 3 million annual visitors if it was in Arizona, but it’s not, it’s in the North, so we almost had the place to ourselves.

Another waterfall further downriver, this one a slightly odd shape.

Later on, Jennifer took me to the land of the local First Nations, where a handgames tournament was taking place. The rules of this team game were fairly impenetrable but it was great to watch, with lots of banging drums, waving arms and arguing about refereeing decisions. The total prize fund for the day’s handgames was $50,000 so they weren’t messing around.

Then I said goodbye to my hosts and headed off towards Yellowknife.

En route, there were bison (more accurately called wood buffalo).

They’re big buggers.

Somewhere in northern Quebec, there was this tower…

…which you climb to look at this lake.

In Ville Marie, a guy who gave me a ride recommended a poutine place. Poutine is not healthy!

Near Ville Marie is a forest…

…with art.

In Toronto I stayed with my cousin Zoë and this was the view of downtown from her balcony.

North of Sudbury, Ontario, I was taken to this lovely spot.

It was also lovely from the other angle.

Then a while later I was in Saskatchewan and there was farm machinery everywhere…

…and grain bins on the move. Or were they missiles?

Endless fields.

In northern Alberta, hitching at 6 o’clock on a misty morning was beautiful.

Later on the same day, not far from the tar sands in northern Alberta. Not at all what I was expecting it to look like!

Heading north.

On gravel roads.

The scenery looked exactly like this for about 10 hours.

Then we went to the dump for a bit of wildlife viewing.

Happy-looking bear.

Then suddenly I was on the shore of James Bay.

Squinting in the light.

Cree people’s boats.

Interesting architecture in Chisasibi.

Then it was many hours of this going south.

Big distances in every direction.

I camped by James Bay much further south, in the Cree community of Eastmain.

…which was beautiful but there sure were a lot of bugs!