THE EPIC CANADIAN NORTHERN ADVENTURE – EPILOGUE

It was one of our longest adventures but what an incredible journey it was. We were gone for a total of 40 days. The focus was to be the Northwest Territories, which it was. What we didn’t realize totally was the distances from one place to another were greater than we initially thought. As a result, it broke down as follows…

9 DAYS in ALBERTA

I think this was our 6^th visit to Alberta and we have spent lots of time in the mountains in the past. With that in mind we avoided them on this trip with the exception of a drive through Jasper desperately looking for gas. Here’s a helpful hint, don’t let that Fuel Until Empty reading get below 10 kilometres. Our time in the province was primarily in the prairie lands, a large area that many people don’t realize exists in Alberta.

One of the pressing issues in today’s world is the referendum and whether Alberta will choose to separate from Canada. Our friends indicated there are some things that need to be fixed but felt separation was not going to happen. I certainly hope not. On a very selfish note, Alberta is such an incredible segue to the grandeur of British Columbia we don't need it to get complicated.

Jasper National Park...on a full tank of gas

Hard Luck Canyon - Peace River

12 DAYS in BRITISH COLUMBIA

I’ve always known that BC was huge, nearly 40% larger than Texas, but you have to drive it to really appreciate that statistic. Vanderhoof (just a little west of Prince George) is the geographic centre of the province. It’s also, with the exception of towns and cities, where the internet disappears; no wifi and no cell service. That meant the GPS (Carplay) did not function. While that sounds like it might be problematic, remember this. In the northern half of BC there is only one road between any point A and point B. Still, it would have been nice to know how far away our destination was and how long it would take to get there.

Words like stunning, spectacular, gorgeous and amazing will always describe British Columbia.

Dease Lake

Helmcken Falls

3 DAYS in the YUKON

This was our third trip to the Yukon and it is one of my favourite places in Canada. I think the reason is it featured so dominantly in the last vacation we had with our sons in 2003 – our final frontier. Karen and I returned in 2018 and after a trip up and down the Dempster Highway in its entirety we left our mark in the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. We were thrilled on this trip to find our sign, more weathered but still proud.

Watson Lake - we saw a lot of bears on this 40 day trip

Sign Post Forest - Watson Lake

12 DAYS in the NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

We were in the NWT in 2018 on the Dempster trip and Karen was in Yellowknife in 1972 but this was my chance to see more of this Canadian wilderness. I was not disappointed. The welcome sign said so much – always does when some effort and expense is put into it and it shows.

This is why we wanted to visit the Northwest Territories…a small plane flight over Nahanni National Park, accessible only this way at this time of year, was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You have to wonder why we would pay to do such a thing given I don’t like to fly and Karen gets sick on small planes. Well, there’s something about being this close to the scenery that overrides how we got there. It was indeed magnificent and the highlight of this adventure.

Nahanni National Park from 6,000 feet

Liard Highway (west) entrance

3 DAYS in NUNAVUT

We were in Iqaluit last spring, our first visit to Nunavut and we wanted to see another area, an area that was not as accessible. Cambridge Bay on the southern coast of Victoria Island is certainly not a commonly visited part of Nunavut. We learned so much more about the Inuit here because we stayed in an indigenous lodge and spent time with the operators and owners. That allowed us the opportunity to learn about the Inuit culture from both the Indigenous people and those who were living there as visitors.

I dislike the heat and humidity of our summers so mid-May in Nunavut was refreshing. Yeah right. Minus 17 with the wind surrounded by ice and snow as far as the eye could see. You could not tell what was ocean and what was land. We were on the ice road in heavy pickups twice and upon asking how long the road was operable learned that last year they were driving on it on July 24. It truly is a short summer of about 3 weeks.

active DEW Line complex - Cambridge Bay

from our lodge in Cambridge Bay

Once again, thank you all for joining us on this amazing adventure. Until next time...

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Day 38 and 39 ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST...BUT IT SURE FEELS LIKE IT A LOT OF TIMES

I'll start with the sunset on our last night in Calgary. This photo is taken from the top (8th) floor of the hotel looking at the Calgary skyline. The interior hall light is reflected on the inside of the glass in a very intriguing way. Where's the National Enquirer when you need them?  😅

DAY 38

It's only about a 3 hour drive from Calgary to Edmonton on Highway 2, their equivalent to our Highway 400, ridiculous number of trucks included. Therefore, we stopped at the Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail, about a third of the way along. 

I usually love places like this. They rescue animals that are injured, abandoned and cannot be released back in the wild for any number of reasons. I had to question just how much better off they were in these enclosures with nowhere to go. It's not even a good environment to take photographs due to the double layers of tight chain link fencing. I would not recommend stopping there.

"Mommy, there are emus in my pool!"

This grizzly did not look happy to be here.

The traffic thinned out as we got to Red Deer but built up significantly as Edmonton came into view.

DAY 39

This sounds like a joke but it isn't. A Baptist, a Jew, 3 Mennonites and a Muslim step into an elevator. They all smile cordially at one another with a pleasant morning greeting on the short 4 floor ride to the lobby. There are no harsh words, inappropriate comments, violence or any negativity at all. Canada is a fabulous country; we can all get along - everyone wants the same enjoyment out of life. All we have to do is try...and leave religion and politics out of any and all conversations. I wish I had a photo to go with this.

We decided to return the car early, just after 8AM, to avoid interrupting our wasting the entire day. To offset that a little we walked back to the hotel, a distance of 4 kilometres, on a road through an entirely industrial area designed for vehicular traffic only. Even the stop lights gave no recognition to pedestrians and of course there were no sidewalks. We saw no one walking. It was hot for this early in the day, about 25 degrees, a little too hot for my 3 to 17 degree liking.

pedestrians were not even in mind when this route was designed

The Epic Canadian Northern Adventure has been one of the best yet. We drove a total of 7,355 kilometres in 39 days. If you add our flight over Nahanni and our trip to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut we travelled a little over 10,000 kilometres. 

Steve and Mary came to see us off. They welcomed us to Alberta and now, as Steve put it, had to make sure we left. A nice pizza dinner in the Whitehead vacation finale tradition made our adventure complete.

And so the adventure comes to a close. We leave tomorrow morning. It has been an absolutely amazing time for us. Thank you all so much for tagging along. I will post a final wrap up in a few days when I have had time to take it all in. I'll let you know when it is up.

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Day 36 and 37 - May 26 and 27 WINDING DOWN

Day 36

We're down to 4 days and things are definitely changing. Gone are the lack of crowds (the lack of people in general) and that totally contented feeling with the whole world. We are now in Calgary, though infinitely more relaxing than Toronto, compared to the territories it's a madhouse. Look at this photo as we left Whitecourt VERY carefully. Enlarge and look in the distance - the traffic is building.  😂

We were on it for a few days in 2024 so it was nice to return. The Cowboy Trail, Highway 22, runs 584 kilometres through the foothills and ranch country along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta. It's not always the most scenic drive (the mountains are a long way away) but the whole atmosphere makes for a pleasant trip. 

It was about 3:30PM when we arrived in Calgary...just in time for rush hour. Though slow it is typically a few hours of slow down. Nothing like Toronto's ongoing, never ending rush day. I do like that slogan. Maybe not specifically for Calgary but it certainly describes most of our days on this trip.

Day 37

Over the last couple of days we have achieved a level of just about zero when it comes to activity and exercise so we had a remedy for that this morning. We were up, had breakfast and were out by 8:30AM because it was cooler and we knew there would be less people around. As we were waiting for the elevator in the hotel I stopped to admire the view of Calgary. It is a very nice looking city and despite the cultural shock of traffic yesterday, this area was laughable for the morning rush hour.

The Bow River Pathway is a 48 kilometre multi-use (primarily walking and cycling) paved trail system spanning both sides of the Bow River in Calgary. It offers pretty parkland, quiet wooded areas, serene river scenes and dramatic views of the city. The trail is well-used which is wonderful but it was reasonable at this time of morning. We managed about 7 kilometres.

Looks like my photography has gone to the birds because that was all we saw on the hike. Still more wildlife than we saw on the drive in from Whitecourt yesterday. 

The view of the city is pretty sweet from the trail but if you look you can see the mountains in the distance. This photo is taken with a camera not a phone so the telephoto lense compresses it atrociously. Those mountains look like they're 100 kilometres away in reality.

John and Marie, we thought of you when we took this. You are probably driving on roads where you are that are not much wider than this path.

On our return we stopped in at Carburn Park. The very impressive Eric Harvie Bridge is a stunningly beautiful piece of engineering. Both Karen and I commented that it seemed massive overkill for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the river. It does, however, suit the beautiful surroundings.

One of the reasons we came to Calgary was to catch up with our friends Ron and Wendy. It's been two years since we've seen them and it was over a decade before that visit. Always a pleasure to be with them to reminisce and compare travel adventure stories. It was a wonderful visit and I'm so happy we were able to make it happen. Thank you Ron and Wendy.

Tomorrow we leave Calgary for a two day wrap up in Edmonton. There will be one blog for the two days posted Friday night. Hang in. Sadly we are almost finished.

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Day 35 - May 25 5 DAYS IN MAY...THAT'S WHAT'S LEFT OF OUR ADVENTURE

Come and listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed. We're in the prairies as we head out of Peace River and the donkeys, iron horses or whatever you want to call them are all we see.

Seeing bears has not exactly been unusual on this journey but we had yet to see any cubs so today's sighting was special. Still not close enough or sharp enough but it sure was fun. Mom came running out of the woods followed by two of what turned out to be three cubs. Once she saw the highway she thought better of her plans and turned, hightailed and ran back to the woods. One of the babies (that's an awful big baby) stood up and jumped on mom's back as she ran by.

We arrived at our chosen hotel (chosen when we saw it) in Whitecourt, AB at about 2PM so we headed out to nearby (20 kilometres) Hard Luck Canyon. It nearly was just that as all the road signs indicated "Site Closed". The parking area was barricaded but someone had knocked them down so who are we to argue. As we walked along the trail the bridge to the top of the canyon was blocked off due to restoration. We backtracked to a side trail that indicated alternate access so we took it. A short hike took us to the top of the canyon. 

From there a couple hundred stairs led to the canyon floor. It was pretty locked in at that point but certainly worth the effort to get there.

Carved by Hard Luck Creek through the sandstone layers of the Paskapoo Formation, Hard Luck Canyon is a unique geological feature within Woodlands County. I'm certainly glad we were not there much later in the season because as we arrived back at the SUV we were swarmed by small fuzzy flies. Plenty evidence of them on the windshield as well.

Even after 5 weeks this is still a lot of fun. It's hard not to have fun in Canada...any time of year. Tomorrow we head to Calgary for 2 nights so I'll combine the next 2 days in the next blog. I'll email you all a reminder. Stay with us!

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Day 34 - May 24 FAREWELL TO A TERRITORIAL FRIEND

Today we said a very fond farewell to the Northwest Territories. It was the reason we undertook this adventure and we're so happy we did. The weather was pretty well the story of the day - and it wasn't a good story at all. It was a long drive of over 600 kilometres and it rained steadily for the first six and a half hours. After 29 days of perfect weather in the 34 so far that was a little depressing.

We'd seen quite a few Sandy Cranes up here but were never able to photograph one. This guy was a little more co-operative with his time but turned to takeoff as I arrived.

As I have mentioned before, one of the things I love most about wilderness road trips is the isolation. It was time to change drivers about 80 kilometres north of the border so all we did was stop and do it. No need to go to the side of the road...it was about 7:30AM and there was no one to be seen in any direction.

It truly was like saying goodbye to a friend. To add to the sadness we have only six days left before we fly home. NWT we leave with fond memories and adventures. I guess more people enter from this end of the highway (from Dawson Creek, BC) than where we entered on the west corner near Watson Lake, YT because the sign has the added 60th Parallel bonus.

Another exiting bear.

About half an hour before entering Peace River, Alberta the rains stopped and the sun came out bringing that gorgeous blue sky with it. A welcome sight indeed. We are here overnight only then headed south, exactly where we do not know. We'd like to land about half way between here and Calgary. Hang in there, we'll let you know.

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Day 33 - May 23 OUR NWT LAST HURRAH

Today is our final day in the Northwest Territories. It has been a glorious adventure and today is extraordinary for us because for once the weather is not clear blue sky perfect. As a matter of fact, it rained on and off through most of the day. The Car Play GPS was miserably wrong in locating the falls we were looking for, missed it by about 30 kilometres. We backtracked and located it pretty easily. A short hike in took us to a stunning view indeed.

Alexandra Falls is a 32 metre waterfall on the Hay River about 60 kilometres south of the town of Hay River. Two whitewater kayakers have successfully gone over the falls in kayaks though today would have added an extra challenge as the falls is excessively poopy from the silty winter melt.

Downstream the canyon is pretty remarkable too!

We were talking to a guy who had been a CBC cameraman for forty years. I thought that was very cool until I handed him my phone and asked him to take our photo. He confirmed with me that what he saw in the square viewfinder was what would be in the picture.  😅

The canyon opened up as we headed back to Hay River. Oddly we saw a few views we had missed yesterday on the way in, along this same road.

The original site of the town lies a few kilometres north. It is not officially acknowledged as Old Town but certain very interesting aspects lead me to believe it should be. In particular a couple of transportation relics remain in informal graveyards. Boats and planes lie in varying stages of ruin in their proper locations of shipyard and airport.

Finally, a mural, almost a bas relief on the outside facing of the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre was a fitting conclusion to our visit. Tomorrow is exactly one week away from our return to reality, just 6 more days of travel and adventure. Stay with us...it's not over yet.

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