A crowd of 200 people turned out in Dawson City for the official opening of the Dempster Highway on Discovery Day weekend, Aug. 18, 1979. In addition to the official ceremony, a potlatch was also held in Dawson for the late Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker, who died shortly before the scheduled opening. The Dempster opening would have been the fulfillment of Diefenbaker’s ‘vision of the North’. He was to have officiated at the ceremony. Instead, a chair was left empty next to the podium, where he would have sat. Then-public works minister and former Yukon MP Erik Nielsen represented the federal government. He was joined by then-Indian affairs minister Jake Epp. The two politicians unveiled a brass plaque that read: "DEMPSTER HIGHWAY. The First Canadian Highway to Cross the Arctic Circle Linking Southern Canada and Arctic Canada." Cpl. Dempster’s children were there too. His son, Dr. J.R. Hugh Dempster, and daughter Sheila (Mrs. W.E. Calvert of Vancouver), unveiled a plaque in honour of their father, for whom the highway was named. (This happened after a group of Yukoners petitioned the government to have the highway named after Dempster).

No story about the Dempster Highway would be complete without acknowledging Harry Waldron, the eccentric, self-proclaimed ‘Keeper of the Arctic Circle’. He was an ex-highway worker in his late 60s when he took to sitting in a rocking chair at the side of the Dempster. His sidekick was a battered roadside cairn that informed tourists they were crossing the Arctic Circle. Waldron wore a tuxedo, sipped champagne, posed for pictures and entertained tourists with stories about the Yukon and a few verses of Robert Service. He and his roadside rocker became so popular that, for a while he was paid a modest wage by the Yukon government to do his thing.

The Dempster Today…