Dempster Highway

Canada's iconic all-gravel road north from the Klondike toward the Arctic Circle.

The Dempster Highway strikes north from the Klondike Highway near Dawson City as a lonely all-weather gravel road, climbing through the Tombstone ranges and out onto open tundra on the long northern run that eventually crosses the Arctic Circle and reaches the Mackenzie Delta. This stretch covers the southern leg toward the lone outpost of Eagle Plains. It is an expedition rather than a back-road blast, prized for raw remoteness, big-sky tundra and the sense of driving off the edge of the map. Sharp shale shreds tyres and there are vast gaps between fuel. Mind frequent flat tyres on sharp gravel, hundreds of kilometres with no services, and weather that can turn the surface to slick mud.