The Demster

So we spent a good 5 days in Dawson City before hitting the Demster. It was a blast with the music festival in town. All the locals spend there time at a bar called the Pit, which is where I ended up spending a lot of my time. I didn't think there was a place where people drank more then the Bruce County folk, but i think these people have us beat. It was really wierd looking out on the street at 11 at night, with the sun up, and people just bombed everywhere. I fit right in. A group of local Indians approched me, knowing I wasen't from around here, and proceeded to tell me that us southerners can't handle our liquor. I was a bit takin back never being called a southerner before, but tough to deny here. Anyways they quickly warmed up to me when I gave them a run for there money drinking their whiskey striaght. The festival was also a riot, tickets were expensive so Vern and I volenteered, and got free passes. They were not impressed with my security skills, being as I spent most of my time in the beer gardens. None the less it was a good time.

Ahhh the Demster, what a highway, over 700km of pure hell for anyone with a nice ride. You see a lot of people with flat tires on this road and smashed windshields. The windshields is because the truckers don't slow down for no one. Once i learned this niether did I. 100km per hour the whole way, leaveing a giant rooster tail of dust behind us. I couldn't get enought of it. The highway goes through many differnt kinds of mountians, and the scenery is breathtaking. For all my friends back home the 15th ain't got shit on this road. Once we got to Inuvik, we found a few people and all chipped in to taking a little 6 seater airplane to Tuktoyaktuk. There a little Inuit lady who was halarious took us around the village, showing us the communal freezer caves they dig into the permafrost, and the history of the little town. But the reason I went there was to swim in the Arctic Ocean. You'd think that it'd be freezing and it was, but i don't think it was as cold as lake superior. So now all I have to do is swim in the Pacific, and I've swam the 3 oceans of Canada. And by swim I mean run and jump in, and then run out.

On the way back on the demster we stopped at Tombstone territorial park and did a couple nights of outback camping. It was a 10km hike in to Grizzly Lake, where the mountains swallow you up. The hike was probably the toughest we've done yet. You kind of feel like a mountain goat climbing over mountains, and following ridges to avoid the thick bushes, and bogs below. This hike will kick the shit out of you and step on your neck when you're down, but it's worth the pain. Once at grizzly lake, I set out one a mission after supper to climb to the top of a mountain I thought was called mount monolith, which I later found out was the mountain behind the one I climbed. It took me a little over 3 hour to get to the top, but i made it, and felt like was on top of the world. Shortly after I was up there enjoying the view, a rough looking german fellow had climbed up. We were both a bit dissapointed that we were not the only ones to reach the top, but we ended up having a good chat, and were able to take pictures of each other. The only thing i couldn't figure out about him was that he carried a big axe with him. I could see a pick axe, cause there's gold in dem der mountians, but a big axe in a country side where there's no trees anywhere to cut down. The only thing I could think was bear protection. But he had a GPS with him and informed me that we were 7000ft up. On my decent i decided to take a differnt route, called glacia gliding, where you basicly start a landslide of rocks, and ride them down. It was fairly intence, but I made it down in an hour. There was a group of expierenced mountian climbers at the base who were quite impressed with my feat. On the way back to the demster it hailed on us and got quite cold, and I've learned with my time in the mountians that the weather is very unpredictable. It can be sunny one minuite, and the next there's a storm that just rolls right over top of you. Anyways I am back in dawson city and tommoro we head up the Top of the World Highway into Alaska the final frontier.