My copy of the Guide to Winter Camping recommends satisfying the body's craving for fats in extreme cold weather by eating frozen sticks of butter as if they were chocolate bars. Whatever. Don't much like sucking up the stuff at room temperature, melted or refrigerated. But deep in the Arctic, with the mercury stuck at -40˚C, I looted our packs for another super-high-fat block of dairy. “Butter . . . I need butter!”

Cold temperatures stripped layers of fat from Gary, Brent, and I faster than we could cake them back on. We dumped pasty, frozen, half-pound portions of pure fat into our steamy porridge and coated our noodles and chili with a gooey oil slick. Everything tasted blubbery. The average Canadian consumes about 2,700 calories worth of food a day. We pedaled and pushed our bikes toward Tuktoyaktuk while butter helped us reach 8,000 calories.

On our second day, with nearly 1,000 kilometres to go, “Tuk” felt eternally out of reach. We stood idle and cold. Gary’s chain had unsympathetically shifted into his spokes. With a muffled sigh, Brent — our ace mechanic — reported: “We have two spare spokes, but there are six broken ones….” We grimaced collectively. “I guess we’ll have to come up with something new.” We debated riding without replacements altogether — but that might destroy the entire wheel. Ultimately Brent suggested, “Let’s use the broken spokes . . . and twist a pair together to make a single one.” He licked his lips, already chapped from the reflected sun, cold, and wind, and began prying the tire away from the wheel.

While we forgot to pack enough spare spokes, our goal was still the same: travel the Dempster Highway from Dawson City, Yukon to Inuvik, Northwest Territories in the winter. At land’s end in Inuvik, we would continue on an ice road along the McKenzie River and Arctic Ocean to Tuk.

Our ambitious plan and homemade spokes intact — for now — we climbed above the timberline into the Tombstone Valley, challenging muscles rather than mechanical might. We reached the Continental Divide for the first of three times. Tombstone Mountain stood crisp and stunning like a giant cairn at the head of the distant valley. Creek gullies supplied life to a ribbon of Lilliputian conifers, while a veil of aquamarine ice capped an alpine lake. And butter kept us warm.

“Highway's closed from here,” bawled a brawny, blonde dog-musher, bristling the beige shadow on his chin. Huskies chained to his truck devoured scraps of meat. All northbound motorists were stranded at the Eagle Plains Hotel, the only settlement since Dawson City, more than 300 kilometres to the south. With a normal population of eight, more than 50 beached travelers and truckers (including an entire youth hockey team) exploded the statistics. “Closed because of the wind,” he explained despondently. We twisted our heads, scrutinizing the next set of mountains beyond our ridge-top perch. A raw, gray chain of rounded swells represented the Richardson Range. “But if there's no wind here, how can it be so bad over there?”

“Because here is not ‘Hurricane Alley,’ which is down there, and it'll even blow us right off the highway,” bragged a stalled long-haul trucker in the bar. We reveled in the filthy smudge of smoke and newfound celebrity in the only drinking establishment between Dawson City and Inuvik. “On your bikes, you wouldn't stand a chance. You picked the wrong month. March is the windy month.”

“Wrong month!” chortled another trucker, cradling a pint between his thick, hairy fingers. “Hell, you picked the wrong season!”

A Window to a New Territory With the passing of the equinox two days ago, winter gave way to spring, and night and day shared equal time. But on this day, the Arctic Circle was as invisible as the new season. Crossing the imaginary dotted belt at the top of the globe, we entered a region where day and night can last for months. Gaining 10 minutes of extra light each day, the land would be basking in 24 hours of continuous daylight by late May. We began climbing to the Yukon/Northwest Territories border and the final crossing of the Continental Divide. Each crossing opened a window to a stunning new landscape. We entered expansive alpine valleys where distance was compressed by the clear air and rode into a region of lush trees, rivers, and fascinating natural gray obelisks. Our last window was different. As we broke into another territory, the wind that addled us on the climb stopped. Dead. We couldn't see a damn thing. Everything was white: the snow, the air, the road. There was nothing — no vegetation, no exposed rock, no yellow lines painted on the snow — just a bleak fog for us to float through. Braille biking. “I feel like something’s changing,” waxed Gary in camp that evening as a dank chill sunk in. “It’s just not getting any easier.”

Windswept Evidence Gary’s premonition bore fruit. The numbing, gray cold penetrated us like buckshot. Wind scoured the sparse brush for old, hard snow crystals to rip into our faces. At -34°C, the lenses on our ski masks froze solid. Actually, at that temperature many things changed. Our bikes were sluggish, the grease in the bearings a veritable sludge. Looking for quick energy by eating a frozen PowerBar, I chipped the edge of my incisor tooth. Gary's feet felt frostbitten, and he begged for walking “toe breaks” to maintain circulation. Brent's nose, scabbed and bleeding, was ready to fall off.

“Hey guys!” hollered a trucker through the hissing wind. He jumped out of his cab wearing short sleeves and tight blue jeans. “Stay there, I gotta take a picture.” Excited and smiling, he snapped the shutter of his disposable camera. “I can’t believe this!” he exclaimed. “They’ll never believe me without a picture!” Evidence rendered, he jumped back into the truck and rumbled off. We shuddered, having managed a group smile and pedaled on.

Near the end of that eternal day, we reached the edge of a broad valley where the wind gathered strength as it funneled along striated river bluffs. A rigid church steeple headed a low peninsula; clapboard homes were scattered like pick-up sticks in its wake. Two old and ice-crusted rivers sliced along either side of Tsiigitchic, a Gwichiin native community. A dreadful rat-tat-tat of flags snapped in the wind like New Years firecrackers.

From a dale just beyond the road, the howl of a tethered dog-team sang the same sordid tune as the wind. A Gwiichin woman, wearing mukluks and a wolverine-trimmed parka, her face etched into a deep topography, stumbled from the edge of the drop chain toward her warm cabin, where a short plume of smoke scattered southward. I stopped. She stopped. Her stiff arm rose, glazed acorn eyes piercing through the wind. Her lips, quivering, initiated a haunting chant that floated towards me: “You made it, you made it. . . .”

Congeniality Prevails “Only 180K to Tuk boys,” cried Gary, manoeuvring his load onto the Mackenzie River ice. Despite questioning the safety of riding in -40°C temperatures, we did make it to the large northern community of Inuvik. Nearly 800 kilometres from our origin in Dawson City, Yukon, we were at the roof of the Dempster Highway.

With more than 3,000 people, Inuvik is a large northern town. The staging area for the now-defunct oil operations in the Mackenzie Delta, the town’s Gwichiin, Inuvialuit, and non-native inhabitants are without a clear economic future. Their future is as confusing as the maze of channels and islands that form the delta. For five months of the year, the river’s east channel provides a base for a ploughed road over the ice extending to the Arctic Ocean and Tuktoyaktuk. Our carbide studs clacked on the six-foot cyst of ice like a mechanical typewriter. Even with spikes, we each took turns glissading across the ice. Spirits were high. We had a chance to regroup in Inuvik, thanks to the warmth of a hotel room. The final push would take us three or four days.

“You start losin' trees about halfway up,” mentioned an elder with a gaping black-toothed smile. “And it's gonna stay cold for a few days yet. Hope you got a warm stove to keep you from freezing.” The only promise of warmth we had came in the form of butter. Even at -35°C, snowmobilers pulling sleds full of family passed us. A canvas tent in the willows protected a young dog-musher and his team at rest during a supply trip. A congenial river culture emerged. Everybody waved. Most stopped and offered advice, assistance, and smiles.

Low bluffs, dotted with a sparse collection of diminutive spruce and bushy willows, lined the widening white swathe of river. Blue sky mirrored itself on the glassy road. Trucks roaring past sent shock waves of cracking ice beneath us. “So . . . where do we camp?” asked Brent, compressing his face after a respectable day on the ice. Three-foot snowbanks hemmed us in.

“I guess we have to camp right here, on the river,” responded Gary rationally. “One spot is the same as the next, and I don’t plan on pushing through that crap just to get to some land.” An uneven crust, now more than a kilometre wide, caked the rest of the river channel. It didn't take long for us to cool down once we unhitched. Working quickly to set up the tent and prepare food, we ate on the move, never standing still. After supper, we raced up and down the ice like speed skaters, trying desperately to keep warm. The 8,000 butter-assisted calories we devoured each day didn't seem outrageous anymore.

The Promise of a Tailwind “I think we can make it today, guys,” alluded Gary wishfully. “We've got a tailwind.” He was anxious to get to Tuk because just before our trip, he landed a job teaching at the hamlet's school. This was his commute to work.

But we were 120 kilometres from Tuk, double the length of any one day on this trip. The temperatures were still in the -30˚s, but the wind would help. Or not. As rivers bend, a magical headwind could turn into a nagging crosswind. Drifts swelled across the road. We wiggled through one, tacked around another, and slid into the next.

“The wind is only gonna get worse,” mused Jackie from his steamy pickup. We had met this friendly Inuvialuit from Tuk three times on our journey. “But you're getting close to the mouth of the river.” We were having trouble deciding just where the river was because everything around us was flat and white. Jackie selflessly passed us a few chocolate bars to pacify our insatiable appetite for sugar.

Reaching Tuk that day became just a wish. With the sharp and inhumane wind, we barely pedaled faster than 5K/hour toward another icy camp. “We're just here for two weeks and struggling. But the Inuit, they’ve lived out here,” Gary reflected after waking up surrounded by a frozen desert. Much like our native counterparts must have done, we each developed our own morning routine to help warm up. Gary applied every stitch of clothing in the comfort of his sleeping bag. I ran back and forth psychotically from tent to bike, ferrying gear inefficiently, more for movement than productivity. Unlike Inuit routine, I’m sure, was Brent, who trotted up and down the ice, belting out the anesthetized words to Bob Dylan songs. His mitts swung wildly from his flailing arms, toque covered his eyes like a gangster, and his feet thudded dully on the ice, half-stuffed into his frozen boots. That helped warm us all.

“Only a couple miles to go,” encouraged a slight, wrinkly Inuvialuit elder pulling a traditional komatik sledge behind his snow machine. “Welcome to Tuk.” With a final burst of buttery strength, our tires left the ocean ice and thwacked the hard-packed gravel of Tuktoyaktuk.