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Like I mentioned in a previous post it's been awhile since I went out on one of these extended self-supported motorcycle rides - especially one as challenging as this.  Since getting back home and now having spent the last 3 or 4 days cleaning the Dempster out and off of everything that made it back (bike, bags, body, etc…), I have thoughts.  

First off every Canadian that has the opportunity should make every effort to stand on the shore of the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk by whatever means possible.  The harder you make it on yourself the better; but that's just me; I won't hold anything against you for taking an easier route.  And while I have no intention of returning on my own on a motorcycle I would certainly entertain keeping others company if they were headed up that way.

Secondly don’t be in any hurry.  I had allowed 6-weeks for this trip with an itinerary (Plan A), that had me in Tuktoyaktuk within 2-weeks of setting off leaving the following 3-weeks to explore the Yukon and Alaska before heading back home.  As it turns out when circumstances allowed me to finally reach Tuk there wasnt enough time remaining in that window to explore much of anything outside of an extra day in Whitehorse.  But in the meantime I had made it to Atlin, Haines, Juneau and Keno City - all worthwhile diversions.  I have now pencilled in a return through Alaska for late summer 2028.  

And lastly a note to myself - next time put the appropriate new tires on the motorcycle, dumbass.  I had a whole post ready to go about just how the tires that I set off on the trip were good for at most a trip to Starbucks but on reconsideration there was more to it than just the tires.  Over the last few years the setup of the bike had increasingly biased itself more to the street than the dirt as that was how it had been used. While some of the street bias had been rung out of it in trip prep, not all.  In the end we're only talking about a handful of moments over the course of 5-weeks were the proper setup would have rendered those moments inconsequential.  Although in some ways the that-doesn't-feel-right, on the pegs, counterweighted all the way, do everything to keep the shiny side up wiggly bits just make the whole thing that much more of an accomplishment.  So that's a thing, right?