Arctic North America Arctic Alaska
America’s Arctic shore: Utqiaġvik, the northernmost town in the United States, and the long gravel Dalton Highway over the Brooks Range to Prudhoe Bay.
Arctic Canada: things to see
Seven very different places, thousands of kilometres apart — choose one or two for any single trip.
1. Tuktoyaktuk and the Arctic Ocean
An Inuvialuit community of about 1,000 people on a gravel spit in the Beaufort Sea. At the end of the road a sign marks the Arctic Ocean, and most visitors wade in. Around the hamlet rise pingos — ice-cored hills pushed up from the permafrost — including Ibyuk, about 49 metres high and among the tallest on Earth. Local families offer community tours and traditional food.
2. The Dempster Highway and Inuvik
The Dempster runs 740 km of gravel from near Dawson City in the Yukon to Inuvik, crossing the Arctic Circle, two mountain ranges and two rivers by free ferry. Inuvik, a town of about 3,300, has an igloo-shaped church and a community greenhouse in a former ice rink. From there the newer highway continues 138 km to Tuktoyaktuk.
3. The Northwest Passage and Beechey Island
The sea route through the Arctic islands is navigable for a few weeks in late summer. Expedition ships call at Inuit communities, look for polar bears, musk oxen and whales, and land at Beechey Island, where three graves from Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition of 1845 stand on a bare shingle beach. Ice decides the exact route every year.
4. Pond Inlet and Sirmilik National Park
Pond Inlet, at the north end of Baffin Island, faces the glaciers and peaks of Bylot Island. In May and June outfitters take visitors by snowmobile-drawn sled to camps at the floe edge, where the sea ice meets open water and narwhals, belugas, bowhead whales, seals and polar bears gather.
5. Iqaluit
Nunavut’s capital, a town of about 8,000 on Frobisher Bay, is the easiest Arctic community to reach, with flights from Ottawa in about three hours. See the legislative assembly and its art, the museum, the igloo-shaped cathedral and Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park on the edge of town; huge tides lay the bay bare twice a day.
6. Auyuittuq National Park
A park of granite peaks and ice cap on the Arctic Circle, entered by boat from Pangnirtung or Qikiqtarjuaq. Mount Thor has the greatest sheer vertical drop of any cliff in the world, about 1,250 metres; nearby Mount Asgard is a pair of flat-topped towers. Hiking the Akshayuk Pass is a serious wilderness trek requiring registration and experience.
7. Churchill, Hudson Bay
A town of about 900 people on the west shore of Hudson Bay, reachable only by air or rail. In October and November polar bears gather on the coast waiting for the sea to freeze, and visitors watch them from tundra vehicles. In July and August thousands of beluga whales enter the river estuary; in winter the aurora is strong.
Destinations
Combine it with
Arctic North America 
Iceland & Greenland West Greenland
Ilulissat and Disko Bay: a fjord choked with icebergs the size of city blocks, whales among the ice, sled dogs and the midnight sun — with Nuuk as the gateway.
The Pole & Russia North Pole
90° north: a point on drifting sea ice above four kilometres of ocean, reached only by icebreaker or by ski-plane and helicopter — the most exclusive journey in the Arctic.
Plan your trip
Book tours in Yellowknife, gateway to the western Arctic
Compare real-time prices and availability on GetYourGuide. Most tours can be cancelled free of charge up to 24 hours ahead.