We stayed in Dawson City a couple of extra days waiting for the rain to subside before heading to our next destination, Tombstone Territorial Park in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The road to the park, the Dempster Highway, is a gravel road with a terrible reputation. So ideally we wanted to drive there when the road was dry. But ultimately we decided to move on even though it had rained the previous night and the road was sure to still be wet.

Fortunately, it was only 44 miles on the Dempster Highway to our campground. The road was not as bad as we expected. In fact many times we asked others about it, their answer was “it’s not that bad”. That is because the overall perception is that “the Dempster” is horrible from beginning to end. And that is not true. There are bad sections, very bad sections and the “not that bad” sections with maybe a couple of “hey, pretty good” sections thrown in.

Alaska Day driving day 12 recap:

Road Name: Klondike Highway from Dawson City

Road Type: 2-lane

Road Conditions: Pretty good

Road Name: The Dempster Highway

Road Type: 2-lane

Road Conditions: Well-graded gravel road with minimal washboard, but plenty of potholes, very muddy after a rain

Miles Today: 83 (includes a drive back to town from our campground for gas)

Driving Time: 2 hours

Total Miles in Canada: 2217

Total Miles since entering Canada: 4405

After arriving at our campground, we had to clean up our car, the Coquí, which was covered in mud and rocks. Fortunately, we had covered the windshield with a tarp, which helped just a little bit. Our collection of mud-covered rags keeps growing.

We were excited to have made it and eager to explore but since we left kind of late in the day and drove very slowly, it was pretty late. But we had just enough time to take a short walk on one of the campground’s trails, get settled, have dinner, and get some rest.

Early the next morning we set out to explore further. Our initial exploration was a drive to the area just north of the campground.

We had thought that it might be tough to find scenery that rivaled Denali. But this place changed our mind. The colors in the tundra were dramatic, and they were not even at their peak!

We were awestruck by the spectacular scenery. Once again we found ourselves in a wild place with valleys and rivers and lakes and ponds and mountains galore.

The vegetation mix at different elevations was all pretty low to the ground but very varied and all beautiful. Hector once again was crawling around.

We watched some resident caribou running across the road, they were going pretty fast so Hector just caught a couple of photos. We do love to watch them run.

There is a specific caribou herd, the Porcupine Herd, that passes through this area during their migration north in the spring and also during their migration south in the late fall. I had hoped that our timing would coincide with the migration but unfortunately, we were way too early. It must be an amazing sight.

Back at the campground, we checked out the Visitor Center and saw lots of birds flying around including some raptors. This area is known for birds in particular but they disappeared as quickly as they appeared.

When we headed back out, we did get a close-up view of some willow ptarmigan, still wearing their summer colors.

As we walked on the tundra by Two Moose Lake, we realized that we were surrounded by the ptarmigan, who were perfectly camouflaged against the tundra when they stood still. If we concentrated, we could make them out all around us.

Tombstone Park is a place of dramatic vistas.  A new one after every bend it seemed.

There were miles and miles of tundra in all directions, all beginning to turn bright colors.

Hector got to use his wide angle a lot 🙂

Ponds of various sizes dot the landscape.

One evening we were treated to a cloudy and mysterious sunset. That night the rains returned, so we took a rest day before our big day outing to the Arctic Circle.

~ Brenda