This is the third of three posts we posted today. The internet service at the Yellowknife library is really fast.
We left High Level on a beautiful bright sunny warm morning. You really have to concentrate on staying alert when driving up here. The road is flat and just goes on straight for km after km. A lot of people must fall asleep at the wheel up here. There are very few cars on the road and even fewer tourists. The most traffic you meet up with is transport trucks.
We arrived at the Alberta/NWT border at the 60th parallel with some large black clouds forming and a threat of rain. The NWT has a great visitors center, still under construction along with satellite wireless internet. We ate our lunch just as the rain and thunder started. The cloud cover must have done something to the satellite reception as I was just able to check for e-mail before it started performing slower than dial-up.
We carried on as far as the Territorial Park of Louise Falls. It is a lovely park with electric service, modern washrooms with exceptional fiberglass showers, and clean pit toilets scattered throughout the campground. The rain had stopped long enough for us to get set up. We had thundershowers off and on for the rest of the afternoon but managed to walk down a trail to Louise Falls. They are beautiful and impressive. They are one of a set of three falls in this area on the Hay River. The Alexandra Falls were only about a 1.5 km walk up river but the rain started up again and the walking along the gorge was slippery and dangerous. We decided that we would see them on the way back.
After dinner we went for a walk around the park. We ran into a lady originally from Halifax, who trained as a nurse there, came north to Fort Vermillon, met her husband there and now lives in High Level. Small world! 15 minutes later we struck up a conversation with a guy from Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. He called out his wife, who was French Canadian and an artist. Take a look at Lucie’s web site www.luciegagnonartist.ca. She works with graphite pencils only. Her husband, Bob, is a machinist and a mechanical genius, especially around diesel engines. We quickly became friends and they came over to out trailer later to talk. The conversations must have been interesting as they stayed until 12:30 am. We got to bed at 1:00 am and were up at 6:30 to get ready for a long drive to Yellowknife.
6:30 am came awful early for this old guy. However, it was up and at them. We got underway at about 8:30. Again, it was another bright sunny start to the day. We have noticed though, that both the days and nights are starting to get cooler. We had a fifteen minute wait for the ferry that took us across the Mackenzie River. Boy, this river is wide at this point and runs with quite a current. From the Mackenzie up to Yellowknife all you see are warnings to watch out for wood bison on the road. We saw two lone bulls only. These animals are massive. The bulls weigh up to 2200 lbs. and the cows are about half that weight. As we drove along, we noticed the trees getting shorter and shorter. Again, not much else to say about the drive until we got to within 100 km of Yellowknife. The road is essentially flat and straight, with a few slight curves thrown in. For the last 100 km, the driving was a nightmare! Aside from being a bit tired after several hours of being on the road, the highway turned into a massive roller coaster ride. It was rough, full of heaves and dips. I had to cut our speed back to between 50 and 70 kph in order to keep 13000 pounds of 5th wheel trailer on the road. I swear that it was airborne at least twice. We finally arrived at Yellowknife by mid afternoon and got set up in the only RV park in town. We have electricity and a nice site. One slight drawback! We are opposite the airport and do get some aircraft noise. There is one blessing though, we are not on any of the approach paths for landing or take offs. Just after we got set up, the thunder storms and rains started. We were in bed and sound asleep by 9:30. I must be getting old. This kind of day never bothered me before.
We woke up late on Monday morning had a good breakfast and left for downtown Yellowknife to become tourists. Our first stop was at the visitor’s center. This is a great place. There is lots of information on the history of Yellowknife and on the diamond mining and processing that takes place here. The chap who looked after us was originally from Truro, NS. We bought our fishing licenses. Mine was free, because I’m a senior. N had to pay $20.00 for an annual license because she is not! They gave us a free parking pass for the city which means you don’t have to feed the meters. We found out where the grocery stores were, where different shops were and felt as if we had been treated like royalty!
We drove downtown and did some looking around. We went to an internet café and checked our e-mail but will go to the library tomorrow to post what you are reading now.
We had a great lunch at the Wildcat Café in old town Yellowknife, P. had beer battered white fish and chips and N. had a buffalo burger, absolutely huge, with chips. The chips were deep fried long wedge cut potatoes and were delicious. We enjoyed the meal as the rain and hail came down. This café was built the same year as P. was born. When we finally post the picture of the café, you will think P. is over 100 years old! We were told to stop in at the oldest northern supply store in Yellowknife called Weaver & Devore. They have everything from food to clothing and still ship out supplies to trappers and prospectors by bush plane. They are the dealer for Canadian Goose parkas. Their prices for top quality clothing was so much cheaper than what we would pay at any clothing store in the south. We both bought lovely warm fleece lined mocassin slippers. N’s even have beadwork on them.
We left Weaver & Devore’s and proceeded to Bluefish Charters located next to Air Tindi in the old town. We are booked to leave with one of his guides tomorrow at 5pm for a five hour fishing trip and shore fish dinner on Great Slave Lake. We’ll be fishing for pike and N is probably going to catch the biggest fish ever! That’s all for now. I hope I can post this tomorrow morning at the library and that the internet is fast enough that I can upload some photos. If not, you will have to settle for text only and pictures at a later date.
Quote for the day:
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Sir Winston Churchill
Cheers
P & N
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