Driving the great adventure on the wild Dempster highway

The Dempster Highway is the most fun you can have while sitting down. North America’s most adventurous road trip transports visitors in more ways than one. They will see jagged peaks, crowds of caribou, the Arctic Circle, tight-knit Indigenous communities and the supersized Mackenzie River. And they'll feel a sense of adventure like no other. Driving the Dempster Highway really is one heck of a ride.

Shortly after the Dempster Highway begins, fang-like peaks rear up, piercing the bright blue horizon. This is epic Tombstone Territorial Park, full of mind-bending mountains, alpine wildlife, tantalizing hiking trails and fine sites for scenic camping. 

The Dempster is Canada’s only highway to straddle the Arctic Circle. From here on north, the summer sun never sets, spinning itself dizzy in the sky. Here, adventurers cross into the true polar zone, a mythic region only a fraction of the travellers on Earth have ever entered. 

As the Dempster exits the Richardson Range, it visits two charming villages. First is the friendly old trading hub of Fort McPherson, home to the graves of the legendary Lost Patrol. Next is a tiny town with a big name – the Gwich’in settlement of Tsiigehtchic, with a scenic lookout over the Mackenzie and Arctic Red rivers.

The Dempster passes through incredible boreal forest and tundra landscapes – wild, wide-open country, teeming with frontier wildlife. Travellers keep eyes peeled for grizzlies patrolling the mountain slopes, moose plodding through swamplands, and – at certain times of year – herds of caribou so dense they block the highway and darken the far horizon. 

Learn more about the spectacular Dempster Highway.