The road into Yellowknife is not fully paved yet. Last 50 miles is loose gravel, dirt and mud.
The stretch of roadway mentioned here was indeed completely paved in August 2008 and had intermittent frost heaves, evidently there is a resurfacing project in the works.
Here are a few pictures of how the stretch of road was then, as they used recycled glass mixed in with the pavement :
Mile 160 NWT 3 highway - 49 miles from Yellowknife :
Mile 170 NWT 3 highway - 39 miles from Yellowknife :
Mile 174 NWT 3 highway - 35 miles from Yellowknife :
Mile 181 NWT 3 highway - 28 miles from Yellowknife :
Mile 190 NWT 3 highway - 19 miles from Yellowknife :
Along the Behchoko area on the way to Yellowknife, as noted upon the community of Edzo having no services of fuel, the community of Rae roughly 9 miles away from Edzo (7 miles from the highway) has a convienient store and fuel available - at least during the time I visited there....along these parts of the Northwest Territories, do not always count on these remote villages to have fuel widely available.
If enroute to Yellowknife thru Alberta and NWT 1 highway, there are a few more fuel stops along the way, compared to the BC 77, NWT 7 and NWT 1 highway routes heading to Yellowknife.
Grimshaw, Manning, High Level in Alberta along the MacKenzie Highway route AB 35 has fuel widely available (first 175 miles), to my knowledge there is little (to count on) or no fuel stops available for the next 175 miles until you reach Enterprise NWT which is a café with a couple gas pumps right at the Hay River junction of NWT 2 highway (25 miles to Hay river)...Hay river had by far the lowest fuel prices in all of the Northwest Territories upon where I travelled, as Yellowknife had the second lowest priced fuel in the NWT region.
If one were to drive direct from Hay River to Yellowknife, the distance would be 300 miles, in which the only two fuel stops in between are Enterprise and at Fort Providence Junction which appears fuel is always widely available there (195 miles from Yellowknife).
Upon my first experience touring the area, I started from topping off fuel at Fort Nelson and headed north on BC 77 Liard Hwy. route, they had a large pow wow event going on near the NWT border (as a large group of people 60 miles away earlier insisted that I must go to their pow wow, so I went), as 30 miles away from the pow wow was Fort Liard and decided to play it safe and take the side road to top off with fuel after witnessing how remote the entire area really is...
Upon pulling into the store at the gas pump, I asked if it was prepay or post pay for gas, as the clerk hesitated and looked at me like he didn't want to sell me fuel, but asked how much fuel I was looking to purchase...told him I was looking at topping off my tank with roughly between 40 to 50 litres total and I have cash on hand, he said ok and go ahead and pump gas.
Did not know the real reason of why the hesitation to sell me fuel other than guessing I was an outsider, or assumed I was going to hoard up a lot of fuel that they might be low on supply, or because of the pow wow event they wanted to make sure there was an adequate supply available for everyone else, but regardless to the reason I was sure grateful of receiving the fuel as it turned to be significant later on.
A couple days later upon arriving in Fort Simpson, which was a larger area compared to Fort Liard with two gas stations that looked like fuel was readily available, I sure found out different when the one gas station-store told me they ran out of fuel yesterday and the next delivery was scheduled to arrive in 2 days, while I rolled in to the other gas station to see a closed sign as they close early on a Saturday (day that I arrived) as there hours of operation along with a closed Sunday and Monday were posted on the doorway.
Since Fort Simpson was the farthest west in the geographical area, closest fuel stations from Fort Simpson were 180 miles and 195 miles away, Fort Liard to the south and Fort Providence Jct to the east.
If it weren't for topping off fuel at Fort Liard, I wouldn't have made it to Fort Providence Jct. on my fuel tanks supply, although I was prepared with 10 gallons of spare fuel onhand, and almost had to use it as I was less than one sixteenth of fuel supply left by the time I made it to Fort Providence Jct.
I always carry spare fuel whenever I go on long distance trips in the far north, you just never know what will happen to an established business if they run out on fuel supply, or close on short notice, or waiting for repair on a broken pump, or electronic transactions for bank or credit cards are down, (that's why you should carry some form of emergency cash) or a number of other reasons and factors that could happen in order to keep from purchasing fuel.
Especially touring in the Northwest Territories, I highly recommend carrying spare fuel for all your travels in the area....it was the only area in the far north in a long time that gave me that "I am in the middle of nowhere feeling".
