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TRAVEL- CANADA
LEIGH WILKINS
NEVER TURN YOUR BACK TO THEM
There’ s a bear on the cover of almost every guidebook to the Yukon. Stoic, shaggy, and probably named something like“ Blizzard” or“ Mauler.” Campgrounds come with bear warnings. Campers carry bells, whistles, sprays, and sometimes even guns. Stories swirl about grizzlies tearing into coolers, tents, and the occasional lone hiker who forgot the cardinal rule: never keep trail mix in your sleeping bag.
And yet, after around 900 kilometres on the Dempster Highway, one of the most remote, rugged, and revelatory roads in North America, I can confirm that bears are not the apex predators people should worry about.
No, the true menace in this Arctic wilderness is small. It hums. It has wings. And it will make you question your entire relationship with sanity, nature, and exposed skin.
I’ m talking, of course, about the mosquitoes. We’ ll get to these little bastards shortly.
The Dempster Highway begins just outside Dawson City, Yukon, a town that feels like it was built on a handshake and a gamble. From there, the road winds north, across the Arctic Circle, through the surreal expanse of the Mackenzie River Delta, and finally to the end of the continent: Tuktoyaktuk, a tiny Inuvialuit community on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.
It’ s a route that lures the bold. For motorcyclists, it’ s legend. A pilgrimage of loose gravel, unpredictable weather, zero cell service, and gas stations spaced far enough apart to make fuel stops a full-blown act of strategy.
My bike for the journey? An almost brand-new Yamaha Ténéré 700, with just a few digits on the odometer it was truly almost direct from the showroom. The paniers were soft, something from Mosko
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