I taught Aquafit yesterday morning and got home about 1:00. At 2 a few friends called to see if I wanted to drive to the Yukon border to try to find the migrating caribou. Of course I did you fools! They arrived in about 20 minutes and we were off.
I’d been as far as Tsiigehtchic twice, but never further. You can drive the distance to the border in about 3 ½ hours, but we took our time and stopped to see any wildlife we could find.
We did stop to help change someone’s flat tire. Well, my help involved taking photos.
Richard and Marc Andre changing tire.
Past Tsiigehtchic the scenery almost immediately gets more interesting. Small mountains come into view and you get into some tundra (easier to spot animals).
On Tsiigehtchic ferry.
No telephone poles!
Mountain scenery.
Marc Andre 'helping' the road workers.
Jen at Yukon border.
Anytime you see vehicles pulled over on the Dempster you perk up and assume they see something. It’s usually true. We did see a truck pulled over and saw a small herd of caribou. The people pulled over had walked down the rocky hillside to get a closer look. We were wondering if they realized the caribou kept moving away making them harder for them and us to see…ultra maroons, we thought! Luckily, Richard had binoculars.
Caribou.
More caribou.
Caribou.
BANG!! Oh…oh okay, so they actually wanted to get closer for better aim (not with their camera). They did get one.
Snow still around on these small mountains.
Moving on. We saw some people along the road picking berries, which we looked for on the way home but just found some cranberries not ripe yet for picking. We did see one lone caribou with his big antlers closer than the others had been.
Mr.Caribou.
Monsieur Caribou.
Herr Caribou.
BANG!! Not again. No, this time it was our tire that needed changing. So, don’t forget a spare tire or two for the Dempster. We saw a few more caribou while this was happening.
Returning to NWT.
We didn’t go too much further before turning around. Not far along there was a bear fairly close to the road. Being scared of humans, he headed off the other way in an awesome run.
Bear along Dempster Highway.
Another bear was spotted on a hillside. He had caught or was digging for something.
We saw a fox running up a hillside, a rabbit run across the road, lots of ptarmigan (birds), and ground squirrels. All in all, a good tally of wildlife for this trip.
We arrived home, after some interesting conversation, at midnight. Graham had gone out with some friends to watch UFC, but was already home when I came in. We both had fun.
Caribou Forever!
Jen
