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 6th 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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