We left Inuvik and started back down the Dempster Highway at the end of the first week of September, 2006. As we drove away from Inuvik, we realized that fall is really brief in the North. The fall colors were at their zenith and the mountains had more snow at their tops. 
There are two ferry rides along the Dempster Highway. A short time out of Inuvik, a ferry crossing lies at the Makenzie River. No formalities are used to board these ferries. A sign at the top of a hill informs cars to stop and wait for the attendant of the ferry to wave one down to board. It's mud road in the rain and a dirt road on other days that leads to the ferry. Very informal and cost effective. 
When we got to the ferry, a young Inuit man waved us onto the boat and as we eased onto the ferry, nothing seemed amiss.
We had been underway for only a few minutes when a young man knocked on my window and informed me that my "Goodyear puncture resistant" tire was punctured and flat as the proverbial pancake! I was not happy - especially since the tire was new and I had stopped to have it checked before I left OKC and once in Colorado because it was losing air on a daily basis. But I was repeatedly assured that, "m'am, there's nothing wrong with that tire" each time I stopped to have it checked. In fact, I had begun thinking that I was the problem - and that the 5 pounds of missing air daily was merely a figment of my imagination. It was all in my head. But here I was: 4800 miles away from OKC, miles north of the Arctic Circle with no service stations within two hundred miles of us. And that tire was flat! So much for Goodyear's puncture resistant tires! (And I might add: So much for the Goodyear warranty which wasn't honored either!) 
The ferry attendant was a kind young Inuit who was quick to realize that he was going to have a Yukon XL on his ferry for the rest of the day and night (and perhaps, life)- or he was going to need to find some time to change a flat. Plus, he had three women on his hands who obviously had no idea how to handle this situation. As a result, we managed to get the tire changed as the ferry continued its route. Thus we crossed the Makenzie River three or four times that morning with the attendant working on our flat between ferry landings. But when we left, we were driving on all four tires and the nice young Inuit man was a bit richer from a well deserved tip.
Any frustration disappeared as we continued down the Dempster.
