Advertisement
Published: October 6th 2010
When: 24th -27th September
Where: from Calgary, AB to Yellowknife, NWT
Highlight: A roadtrip, the longest so far with the little one.
Total Mileage: 1700 km one way
Yellowknife is the capital of NorthWest Territories. It is the farthest North one can drive in North West Territories on paved road.
I am splitting the entire trip to 2 blogs so I can blog in detail to help someone else make a similar trip.
About North West Territories The whole idea of driving up to Yellowknife came as a passing thought. Why don't we do it? Just take the car & drive North. By the way, North fascinates me. Cold intrigues me. I may not be brave or capable enough to survive a -40C, but it sure gives me the chill. Figuratively & literally.
This was the first long trip we wanted to make as soon as we settled in Calgary. The trip involves crossing
Mackenzie river on a ferry. The car goes on the ferry. But there is a catch. The river freezes over in Winter and they make an ice bridge on which you can drive. But there is some time like November-December & March-April when there is not enough ice
for the bridge(but too much ice for the ferry to operate). So, those times, Yellowknife is cut off from the rest of the world via road, that is. The airport is operational all year, weather-permitting.
Why, Yellowknife? The most obvious answer:
Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. Yellowknife is right below the Oval belt & claims to be one of the best places to view the lights. The city claims 240 days out of 365 days. In winter, all the lakes freeze over. But my idea of fun is not to view the lights in deep winter when the temperature is close to -40C. Though the lights are at their best those times.
24th September We left home by 8am. Not a good time to leave when you have a 9 hour drive ahead of you. But.
We made it to Edmonton in 2.5 hrs. We were shocked to see temperature in 2 digits in Edmonton at 11.00 am. It had been a long while Calgary had that kind of warm weather.
The roads were pretty good & we took turns driving the long stretches. S slept for a good 3-4 hours. Once we reached Valley View, we witnessed peak fall color.
The trees were glowing yellow & orange. Mixed in with the evergreen, it was a sight to behold.
The friendly lady at the visitor center talked as if the Northern Lights were a regular phenomenon. It felt hurtful to drive for 3 days to see it. 😊
We reached
Peace River, AB at around 6pm. A little cold. But a little cloudy too. We checked the sky often just in case the lights showed up. 😊
The moon looked beautiful. It was full moon 2 nights ago.
Peace River is mmm peaceful. 😊
We were so tired. We just crashed.
25th September We heard so much about the view from Judah hill. So, instead of postponing this to our return trip, we drove the short distance up the hill. The view was breath-taking. I still cannot feel normal about it. It was magical. Plus, it was the right time.
FALL. All the leaves turned yellow. And the whole view of the town with the Peace River flowing right through.
We had a long drive. But we stopped at the entrance to NWT.
The 60th Parallel. And a couple of waterfalls along the Hay River. Alexandra Falls & Louise Falls.
The water was murky. Assumed it should've rained. The waterfalls freeze in winter.😱
The drive was almost like we were the only people on the road but for some vehicles rarely passing by.
But it was gorgeous. We certainly did not feel unsafe or worried.
Our halt for the night:
Enterprise, NWT. 83 km into NWT.
Enterprise is a weird town, in a good way. The total population is 90 residents. It has 1 gas station cum hotel & 1 restaurant. No grocery store. Nearest town is Hay River, 38 km away. Most of the residents work at mines off of Hay River. They get paid well & work 2 weeks in & 2 weeks off. The mines are far away & require the workers be flown in.
We seemed like the only visitors for that night. I witnessed a glorious sunset & an absolutely stunning moon rise. The moon was huge from this high up.
Every night, we have the dream. The same dream. The Aurora. 😊
Ganesh followed up the Aurora on Twitter & seemed like Yellowknife had a brilliant viewing at night. Well!
26th September I woke up to an even gorgeous sunrise.
It was a clear day. But in just a matter of minutes, the whole town was engulfed in fog. I could not see the highway right in front. Magic, yet again. But all gone in a matter of minutes, again. Wow! Life is so dynamic here.
We had a ferry to catch. To cross the Mackenzie river. We reached in about an hour. Fortunately, we did not have to wait an extra second. We boarded the ferry with the car. It was a short less-than-5-minutes ride to the other side. We saw the new bridge that was being built. That would ease things so much. The Mackenzie river flows right off of Greater Slave Lake and resembled a lake than a river. Mackenzie river flows into the Arctic ocean. It is supposed to be one of the prettiest & colorful delta where it joins the Ocean.
Once we crossed over, we saw a board, "Bison on road next 315 km" greeting us. True to the greeting, we had our first sighting at Fort Providence 5km into the drive. The next 300km, we saw more bisons than we saw cars. It is supposedly the wildest route & there is no
service for all the 300 km. But we made it fine.
The last 60km were bumpy. But we made it to Yellowknife by afternoon. As we were entering this "big little city", we saw a red fox cross the highway right in front of us. We did not have much difficulty in finding
Bayside B&B. Being so far up North, everything is understandably expensive. But hotels are ridiculously expensive. The reason I chose Bayside compared to others is because, they were exactly on the lake. And you can see the Aurora aka Northern Lights right from their deck. Watching the Northern Lights is one of the premier reasons why people visit Yellowknife. But being so early in the season, we were hopeful, but we knew our chances were minimal.
First night in, we were so tired, we managed to actually sleep through the lights.😞 The lights had happened at 1.00 am right in front of our beds. All we had to do was just wake up & they'd have been there. That close. But there, we are not going to torture ourselves over it.
More about
Yellowknife.
27th September The fact that the lights
were up last night was even evident when we went up for breakfast. Ganesh almost beat himself to it.
I really didn't know why. Witnessing the lights was always my obsession.
We took the much recommended road to Cameron falls. On the way, we stopped by Prelude lake, Prosperous lake, Hidden lake & many more lakes. The landscape was filled with innumerable lakes. I had almost forgotten how much fresh water Canada receives. The hike to Cameron falls was more impressive than the falls itself. Ours was the only car at the parking lot & we did not see anyone during or after the hike. It can happen only in Canada. I have no doubts.
We came back early to relax at home. At the end of the day, we went up to the Rock(a bush pilot monument) from where we got the best views of the lake & the town.
Ganesh decided to stay awake to make up for last night. I had no energy to even stop him. But I think the lights were not visible. It was cloudy. We may soon end up beating ourselves for not having stayed awake last night.
SIGH.
Observations: -Fall is a wonderful time to visit the North. It is darn beautiful.
-People are so helpful & nice outside a big city. That is no surprise.
-Diamond mines are large employers, but surprisingly, the Government is the largest recruiter in Yellowknife.
-NWT is rich in diamonds & minerals.
-Yellowknife's population is close to 21000.
-People go about doing their business. There is 1 walmart & 1 Superstore. Anything is available here. And the prices are not that expensive as well.
-Gas prices in Yellowknife: $1.16 per litre. Expensive, but at least it is available.
-You get to see many many trucks on this route.
-Lodging is expensive. But I really did not mind giving them. They needed it more than us. At least it looked that way.
-Contrary to what I had imagined, Yellowknife is not a tourist town. They have touristy stuff, but not as much as we expected.
Next part of the trip follows. 😊
~travelbuffs
Advertisement
Tot: 0.294s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 26; qc: 137; dbt: 0.1506s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
geetha mahadevan
non-member comment
Wow !
Dear Meera and ganesh, Iam waiting for part two ! Its my drean to see the northern lights ! Good going guys and have a blast! Fall must be a great time in canada ! I always thought fall is best around east coast of US. Geetha geetha