Globe & Mail asks: Can you drive a Honda Accord to the NWT?

Don’t try to drive a Honda Accord up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik and Tuk – take an RV instead, a Globe and Mail columnist advises.

The national newspaper’s weekend Drive section carries an article devoted to examining whether one reader’s 2018 Honda Accord would survive the journey from Dawson City to the Arctic coast.

The headline asks: “Can my Accord handle a trip to the Northwest Territories?”

One of the article’s two authors, automative reporter Petrina Gentile, dismisses the idea out of hand.

“Are you kidding, Mark?” She tells fellow contributor Mark Richardson. “I wouldn’t even take my 2001 Honda Accord on that gravel road.”

Richardson, by contrast, tells readers: “You can drive anything on a gravel road if you take it easy and do some preparation beforehand.”

Gentile, unswayed, says the reader should “really consider renting a recreational vehicle” for the drive instead – though Richardson noted not all rental firms will allow their RVs to be taken on the Dempster.

“Skip the Accord and go for an RV,” concludes Gentile. “Less stress and more fun.”

In its first year of operation, the Inuvik-Tuk Highway did experience some conditions which might have taxed both an RV and an Accord.

In June 2018, officials said the road was missing around $700,000 in gravel which was not laid in time for its opening in November 2017. That led to some soft areas of the road last spring, and temporary closures.

There have been fewer reports of similar concerns with the road so far this year, though the territorial government’s highway information page does warn travellers of soft, slippery, and rough sections between Inuvik and Tuk.

The Yukon side of the Dempster Highway currently reports rough sections throughout.

The article marks the Northwest Territories’ first appearance in a Globe and Mail headline since March 13.

Should the reader make it to the North in their vehicle, it would become the territory’s second-most-famous Honda Accord.

Top spot currently goes to the black 1999 Honda Accord alleged by police to have formed an illegal, mobile downtown liquor store in Yellowknife last year.