It’s the 20th of June, 2023 and finally all of the photos have been uploaded to Flickr, all of the videos have also been uploaded there and a detailed blog written for each day of this fantastic journey.

And what a journey it has been! The scenery was quite varied, and in many places, simply stunning. I encountered many different animals, which, while I had seen most of them before, I had not done so in the numbers that I saw or in their native habitats. But I also met people who were kind, helpful and courteous too. In fact, I don’t recall encountering a single grumpy for the whole journey – even the cops who told me off for speeding through the Klondike Junction were smiling as they did so.

You can see a list of the blogs for each day here. They are in ascending chronological order, so Preparations are at the top of the list and the blog for the last day, May 10, is at the bottom.

All of the photographs and videos shot on the journey and details of the equipment used to shoot them can be found here.

Some interesting statistics about the journey are listed here.

As with many journeys, the route actually taken didn’t match the route that was planned. You can see the planned route here, and the actual route here. All of the reasons for the change in planned route are given in the blogs.

And finally….. if you’d like an insight into what insane adventure I might be planning for 2024, you can find details here.

Thank you for joining me on this journey….. and I look forward to your company on the next one.

Ian Nanaimo, BC, Canada 20th June 2023

Welcome

My name is Ian Robertson and I live on one of the most beautiful islands on the planet – Vancouver Island off the West coast of Canada. I have enjoyed a long career that took me quite literally all over the world, or should that be “nearly” all over the world? Despite that insane amount of travelling there remained three areas of the world I have never been to, namely the Artic, the Antarctic and Sub-Sahara Africa. So it’s no surprise that they feature on my Bucket List, and pretty much at the top of it too.

So I decided it was time to tick off the Artic and initially thought of getting the train from Vancouver on the mainland to Winnipeg in Manitoba, and from there to Churchill, also in Manitoba, which is in the Artic Circle. Churchill is also the polar bear capital of the world so I’d see some of them too. But the journey takes 5 days and it occurred to me that I could probably drive to the Artic Circle in that time, go at my own pace, and see some amazing country and wildlife in the process.

As a child I had read about the Yukon and now I was going there. Then I looked at some maps…. yes I could indeed go to the Yukon – just keep heading North in British Columbia and you’ll get there. Except that there really wasn’t much there by the time you got to the Artic. The best place to head for was a town called Tuktoyaktuk on the shores of the Beaufort Sea and well inside the Artic Circle.

And therein lay the problem….. Tuktoyaktuk is not in the Yukon, it’s in the Northwest Territories so I would have to go “Beyond the Yukon” to get there. Well after that no other name could make sense for this blog…. so off we go beyond the Yukon and I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I think I’m going to.

Ian Robertson Nanaimo, B.C. Canada 20th March 2023

General Update – 6th May 2023

Well I should have pointed out that you don’t need to go “beyond” the Yukon in order to go inside the Artic Circle, and thus be “in the Artic”. You need only go 35 km beyond the Eagle Plains Lodge on the Dempster Highway then you are there and still in the Yukon! The border with the Northwest Territories is a further65 km North on the highway so well inside the Artic Circle.

Did I get to the Artic? Did I get to the Northwest Territories? Did I reach Tuktoyatuk? Did I swim in the Artic Ocean as I intended?

Look in the daily blogs to get the answers….. I am adding the daily blogs as fast as I can but of course I have limited access to the internet, or other forms of communication, during this trip so there will be delays.

This applies especially to uploading the videos, as it’s proving almost impossible to do this on the road. But there will be a link to the photos from each day in that day’s blog and I will add the videos as soon as I can. I have videoed a lot of the trip, including some interesting incidents and stunniong scenery so the videos are worth waiting for. Thank you for your patience.