Journal Notes - the Dempster Highway
Departure Info
Latitude
66° 22' 25" N
Longitude
136° 43' 06" W
Altitude
736m/2385ft
Time
09:08
Temperature
03°C/37°F
Odometer
22957 miles

June 20, 2003

Eagle Plains Campground
Eagle Plains consists of a fuel & repair station, a lodge and campground which resides on a plateau. When you enter the Eagle Plains, the stated population is 9 which is about the number of people I saw running the service station and lodge. Since its essentially an oasis in the wilderness, prices for fuel were the highest we saw on this trip, even higher than Inuvik further to the north. I gladly paid $0.99 a liter for diesel as a safety precaution for the trip further north.
View from Eagle Plains north to the Dempster and the Eagle River valley. The morning was gray, cold and windy.
The Arctic Circle display states that the circle is at 66° 33'N. This is not technically accurate as the elliptic obliquity is 23° 27' 8.26" making the Arctic Circle 66° 32' 51.74"N. This is conveniently rounded to 66° 33'N.
However, the GPS unit indicates that the display is not even at the rounded latitude of 66°33'N. Rather it is almost 55" further north than the rounded Arctic Circle latitude and over 1'02" N of the real circle. So was the GPS in error? At other marked latitude points the GPS unit was very accurate, so we decided that the reason for the offset was that the landscape behind the display was more "scenic" then the more nondescript view at 66°33'N. Since virtually everyone who comes by for the first time takes a picture here, there might as well be a nice background.
Looking south (best view) at 66°33' 00"N
copyright 2003 - Dennis Chapman