Road Trip - Yellowknife Arrival

On Day 11 of our road trip, it was somewhat of a relief to hear the dulcet tones of the lovely British voice (we haven't changed the voice since we last used it in Europe) on our SatNav announce "You have arrived at your destination". Yes! After more than 5,000 kilometres, four provinces and one territory we met our deadline for our Cambridge Bay flight tomorrow. We even had a couple of days to spare to enjoy the local sights, clean the squashed bugs off the van and provision for Gjoa.

Welcome, yes!

A generous, free, checked baggage allowance of two x 70lb. bags each meant we could buy up to 280 lbs. of groceries and around $800 later we think we've maxed out our allowance. After feeling a little deprived during our Arctic winter, we went absolutely wild in the grocery store which was an excellent one, lots of lovely cheeses, President's Choice products and even Ace Bakery artisan bread. Lots of  great junk food choices as well. We got a lot of basics at what seemed like, compared to Cambridge Bay, very reasonable prices. Tomorrow will be a bit of a logistics headache getting everything to the airport and the van to its secure storage yard. We'll pick the van up again in September sometime (hopefully) to continue the second phase of our road trip. We're anxious to get back to Gjoa now and the weather is looking very promising for tomorrow, about +10C for Cambridge Bay. It will still feel like a big change as we're leaving +24C here in Yellowknife, but, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was a little too fast, too much driving and now a bit of a blur, but, what a great two week trip. We took a more northern route than we have done before, seeing more of northern Manitoba and Alberta in the process. There were a few surprises along the way.

Starting from Ontario, it took the usual three days to drive out of the province. We could have taken the shortcut through the States, but, didn't want to miss the Sault Ste. Marie through Thunder Bay stretch which has spectacular scenery of the north shore of Lake Superior. It never disappoints. After leaving southern Ontario in full summer, the north shore took us back to late spring. In some areas the leaves were barely out and lilac bushes were in their prime.

Manitoba was a bit of a revelation. It's so flat around Winnipeg, but, if you head north a little, the landscape changes and is quite pretty. We stayed at Riding Mountain National Park and it also was a nice surprise. This is where Grey Owl, whose British origins (he was actually Archibald Belaney from Hastings) were only exposed after his death, to the detriment of his reputation, spent some time. There is a hike to the cabin where he lived during his tenure there. We also passed through Neepawa, Manitoba which has the Margaret Laurence home. We didn't stop, wish we had, but it was interesting to see the town where she came from nonetheless.

The visitor centre at Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba

Bison at Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba

Alberta had lovely parks and we especially enjoyed our stay at Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park. Northern Alberta was actually a very boring drive, hundreds and hundreds of kilometres with no sign of human habitation except the road under your wheels. The only settlements were transient camps for the oil and gas workers. Maybe if we'd taken the Peace River valley route, an established farming area, it would have been more interesting.

The view from our campsite at Lesser Slave Provincial Park, Alberta.

We had this beautiful beach all to ourselves at Lesser Slave Provincial Park, Alberta.

Alberta is Wild Rose Country

Vegreville, Alberta

Once we arrived in the NWT, the landscape changed again. There was a lot more evidence of recent forest fires. The road into Yellowknife is very long and seemed to go on forever. The number of bugs also became impressive! Yellowknife is geographically isolated with a year-round road link only becoming available in 2012 with the opening of the Deh Cho bridge over the Mackenzie at Fort Providence. Prior to that, it was ferry, or, ice road access only. We were impressed with the force of the downstream current on the Mackenzie, practically white water. We're not sure how long it's been since the ice went out. Interestingly, the bridge piers are constructed especially to allow ice to pass without damage.

Deh Cho bridge, opened 2012, Fort Providence NWT.

River gorge near Hay River, NWT

One of the things we enjoy most about the north is seeing wildlife. This trip was no exception. We saw at least four black bears, but, frankly, after seeing polar bears in the wild, black bears seem like rather scruffy lapdogs by comparison. We also saw a lot of white-tailed deer and bison. Unfortunately, the only moose we saw were two dead ones on the side of the road. We also spotted three families of sandhill cranes, a first for us, they have beautiful colouration and stand a metre tall.

Our next post will be from Cambridge Bay and this blog will turn back into a sailing blog again, for a while anyway. I'll leave you with this waterfall collage, there were so many incredible falls along the way it was hard to choose just three.

Left: Kakabeka Falls, Ontario.     Middle: Louise Falls, NWT.      Right: Alexandra Falls, NWT.