The Ed of the Road

The End of the Road: An Ethnographic Account of Tourism Along the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway Mathieu Lamontagne-Cumiford A Thesis In The Department of Sociology and Anthropology Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Social and Cultural Anthropology) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada May 2020 © Mathieu Lamontagne-Cumiford, 2020 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Mathieu Lamontagne-Cumiford Entitled: The End of the Road: An Ethnographic Account of Tourism Along the Inuvik- Tuktoyaktuk Highway and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art (Social and Cultural Anthropology) Complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final Examining Committee: _____________________________ Examiner Mark K. Watson _____________________________ Examiner Kregg Hetherington _____________________________ Supervisor Vered Amit Approved by ________________________________________ Chair of Department Amy Swiffen ________________________________________ Dean of Faculty André G. Roy iii ABSTRACT The End of the Road: An Ethnographic Account of Tourism Along the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway Mathieu Lamontagne-Cumiford Based on fieldwork conducted over three months in the Mackenzie Delta communities of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, this thesis explores tourism in the Western Arctic as a product of a newly completed all season highway. The new Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH) connects the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, a community of 900 people on the Beaufort Sea, to the North American public highway system and has led to a steady rush of road trippers, overlanders, motorcyclists, cycle- trekkers, and RVers into the region. Ostensibly an extension of the already famous Dempster Highway, the ITH has captured the imaginations of travellers and set online forums and blogs abuzz with accounts of a new Arctic destination. Narratives of adventure, of unspoilt wilderness and rugged frontier towns abound in the accounts of travellers, paired with an acute awareness of the explosive potential for change in communities seeing several times their residential numbers in visitors during the short summer months. Taking an approach centered on the stories told and the interactive intersections of infrastructure, material goods, and people, this project hopes to use a specific moment of touristic activity to speak to larger notions of leisure travel, engagement with nature, and the fetishization of particular places. iv AKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a great number of people without whose help I would have never finished (or potentially even started) this thesis. While I like to think that anyone to whom I am grateful is already aware of such, there are a handful of names that I think deserve to be written down. If you do not find yourself on this list, know that I still have found your help to me immensely impactful, and thank you. I would like to thank my colleagues, professors, and other sources of academic support. Also to thank are my friends and family, new and old, who have helped me in this pursuit and kept the academic life from consuming my personal one. Your constant encouragement and support has been invaluable. By name I would like to offer gratitude to Vered, my ever patient and incredibly supportive supervisor, who found a million little ways to ensure I stayed on the right track. I would like to thank my parents of course, for their encouragement and support in all manner of things. I would like to thank colleagues (and friends) who have inspired me particularly: Vanessa, Jessica, Myrah, Leila, Leah, Irmak, and a whole host of others. Raven and the other kind folks at the ARI, I am also in your debt for your generosity and patience in helping a novice researcher. I would like to thank Bay, Dustin, Jason, Pedro, and the other fellow researchers who I met in the North, whose support during the difficult periods of fieldwork made all the difference. And finally, I need to thank all the wonderful people I met during my time in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, whether as interlocutors, friends, or simply more kindhearted people I met somewhere along the road. PS; Thanks for lending us the truck, sorry about the tires. They needed to be changed soon anyways. v Table of Contents List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………vi Chapter 1: The Dust Gets Everywhere ....................................................................................... 1 To Set the Stage ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 2: Methods, Maps, Bears, and a Camera ..................................................................... 9 Talking to People (thanks to cameras and dogs) ..................................................................................... 10 Other Hoops to Jump Through ............................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 3: On Roads, Signposts, Dust, and Flat Tires ........................................................... 16 Roads (on the getting there of it all) ....................................................................................................... 17 Signposts and Dust (and what does a road taste like) ............................................................................. 26 Flat Tires (and somewhere to patch them) .............................................................................................. 33 Chapter 4: A ‘Somewhere’ Worth the Drive ........................................................................... 34 What Makes a Destination? (or; who?) ................................................................................................... 35 Caribou, Belugas, Boat Tours (and other things to do)........................................................................... 39 More Than a Gas-Station and Grocery Store .......................................................................................... 46 Chapter 5: And the Friends We Made Along the Way ........................................................... 48 How to Make Friends (and say goodbye) ............................................................................................... 49 On Gazing (or, you drove that here?) ..................................................................................................... 55 Word Gets Around (and around, and around) ......................................................................................... 60 See You Again (somewhere down the road) .......................................................................................... 64 Chapter 6: The End of the Road ............................................................................................... 66 Stories Told Around Campfires (and beside coin-op dryers) ................................................................. 68 Parks and Paddlers (and what to wear when confronted by a bear) ........................................................ 73 Chapter 7: Every End is a Beginning, or; The Way Back ...................................................... 86 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................. 90 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Downtown Inuvik, including the Northmart, and shuttered Eskimo Hotel..................... 6 Figure 2: Tuktoyaktuk, with views of the colourful houses and my tiny grey tent. ....................... 7 Figure 3: The two maps used for the space-interaction exercise. ................................................. 12 Figure 4: The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway as it winds through the tundra. .............................. 23 Figure 5: Xena, Jannet, and her trusty Toyota pick-up truck with hand-written thank you notes.25 Figure 6: The Trans-Canadian Trail Marker sits near the Arctic Ocean sign at The Point in Tuktoyaktuk. These symbols demonstrate the Canadian state’s assertions of access granted by the road.......................................................................................................................................... 27 Figure 7: Dusty campers in Inuvik displaying. “Tuk or Bust” is a sort of sloganised expression of the concerns many travellers had about the rugged roads. ........................................................... 30 Figure 8: The welcome sign at the entrance to Inuvik and some bulletin boards updated daily. 38 Figure 9: The Igloo Church and Inuvik Community Greenhouse, two popular tours in town. .... 42 Figure 10: Some pieces from a giftshop in Inuvik made by local artisans. .................................. 45 Figure 11: The school-bus kitchen at Alestine’s. The restaurant is perhaps known as much for the sense of humour of its proprietor as the food it offers. ................................................................. 46 Figure 12: Impromptu gatherings at Happy Valley and a gravel pit on the Dempster Highway. 54 Figure 13: Rob and Jill at a campground in Tuktoyaktuk. ........................................................... 63 Figure 14: Tourism brochures on display at the Wester Arctic Visitor Center ............................ 74 Figure 15: The dramatic landscape of Tombstone Territorial Park .............................................. 78 1 Chapter

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