We only have about an hours drive to finish the Dempster highway. We were going to head back to Dawson City to check on the status of the wildfires blocking our route south, but that would have meant an 80 km detour. So we asked Matt again to check the status of the road. That Garmin has come in handy when out of range.

The road has been closed off for weeks with pilot cars ferrying people through when safe. People I’ve spoken to, said it’s about an hours drive through thick wildfire smoke. Last I’d heard, the road was completely closed and they were evacuating people. I’m not looking forward to it, that is if the road is even open by the time we get there.

I was very surprised when Matt got back to us, to say the road was open. At the end of the Dempster was an unattended fuel station and thankfully we were able to fill up and be on our way.

Heading south towards the fires were no cars for ages. Then a jeep over took us. Not long after he pulled over and turned around. Did he just get word the road had closed again? I asked Matt for another update, and thankfully the road was still showing as open.

It was weird travelling on tarseal again after 9 days on dirt. When we finally made it to where the fires were, there was a sign saying wildfire smoke for about 100 kms. We expected there to be a pilot car but nothing. The road was completely open, just a bit of smouldering here and there. The rain must have helped heaps.

It was a long day as we kept on driving until we got to Whitehorse. We parked at the Canadian superstore carpark with a few other vans for the night and stocked up on supplies.