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offer tours of pingos and historic sod houses. Residents share stories of traditional beluga whale hunts, ice fishing, and the enduring importance of community ties in a place where the landscape can be both beautiful and brutal.
Climate change is altering life here, quickly. Permafrost melt is threatening buildings, ice forms later each year, and coastal erosion advances with every storm. Yet the people of Tuktoyaktuk remain deeply rooted in their land, welcoming, resilient, and fiercely proud. Limited accommodation is available for the weary traveller, bring a tent and you’ ll be rewarded with a camp right on the Arctic Ocean. A hearty meal can be found at Grandma’ s Kitchen, along with a number of other home kitchens.
The Journey Back
The return journey retraces the route south, but no rider experiences it the same way twice. The weather may shift dramatically. Roads that were hardpacked may now be rutted and muddy. And the rider, tested by hundreds of kilometres of gravel, solitude, and elemental exposure, is no longer the same.
What remains is a kind of clarity. The Dempster strips everything down. It
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