Welcome to the Northwest Territories

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The Northwest Territories are what remains of the entire north of Canada after Yukon and Nunavut were split off in the late 19th and late 20th centuries. We did not visit on our last trip to Alaska, but made it a point to plan a portion of our trip here this time.

First, we had to make it down a large portion of the Alaska Highway, back the way we came. We were fortunate this time to have basically no snow on the ground, beautiful blue skies, and animals galore. I was going to call this page "Bison, Bears and Bees," but it became so much more than that! Yes, we saw bison, including babies and one rolling around in what appeared to be his favorite sandyspot. Yes, we saw bears. There were plenty of bees. We also saw a lot of birds, hares, another moose and two sets of Stone sheep. Woo-hoo!

By afternoon, we headed north on the Liard Highway, which didn't even open until 1985. (There was a winter ice road prior to that.) In British Columbia, it was a very nice paved road. We actually saw an RCMP officer pull someone over, the first time this trip. We didn't see more than a dozen other vehicles total. We stopped at the Welcome to Northwestern Territories sign, which had a geocache. We then continued on the gravel road north past Fort Liard, the first town along the way. Our plan for tomorrow was to drive what is called the Waterfalls Highway. We decided to stop to make sandwiches at a pullout before driving another hour or so north to get close to that junction. Unfortunately, the motorhome chose that particular place, on possibly the most remote road Jeff and I have ever been on, to fail. I wrote about the first issue more than a week ago. It has occasionally done this, but pressing a few buttons fixed it. This time, not so much.

If I was with many people on this trip, we might have been a little in trouble. (We had a Jeep, we weren't in that much trouble.) We had no cell service, a dead motorhome, two children in bear country, and not a single vehicle drove by the entire time we were parked there. Oh, it was also around midnight in the middle of nowhere. I had Jeff, though. He crossed some wires, got a spark, created a circuit to bypass the dysfunctional solenoid and we were on our way . . . back to civilization.

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