Anyway, I left you near Jasper, Alberta. We traveled to Hinton, then Grand Cache, Grand Prairie and then, just north. A long way north. There is not a lot of great scenery up north but there are a lot of rivers. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of bridges so ferry crossings are common.
There is about 6 weeks in the fall and 2 weeks in the spring when it is impossible to drive to Yellowknife. The ferry across the Mackenzie River cannot run while the river is freezing in the fall and thawing in the spring. After the ice gets thick enough, they build an ice road on the river and traffic resumes. It takes about 2 weeks in the spring for the ice to break up and the ferry can run once again.
One good thing about having a lot of rivers is that you have a lot of waterfalls ( one of my favorite things).
I told Pat she needed to take one more step back, just one more step back. These falls are just across the Northwest Territories border.
We stopped in Hay River on the shore of Great Slave Lake for a week of R and R and some sightseeing. We left the motorhome at the park and drove to Fort Resolution and Wood Buffalo National Park. There was not much great scenery but, out in the middle of nowhere, there was something interesting to see.
Please, don't ask me. I don't know.
I guess there is just not much entertainment that far north. We traveled on to Yellowknife, an interesting city of about 40,000 people when they are all there. Most of the work is in the gold and diamond mines some as far as 300 miles north of town. They are at the mines for 2 weeks and are then off for two weeks. The only roads to the mines are the ice roads which are built in January and last for about 3 months. The town sits on the shore of the lake and there are some interesting floating houses there.
These houses are easy to walk to when it is 50 below.
Unfortunately, the only other road out of the Yellowknife area is gravel and having no desire to drive the motorhome over 300 miles of gravel road ( it is still too new, perhaps if a few years I may try it) we retraced our way back to Peace River and then drove over to Dawson Creek, B C. By the time we got there we decided that there was just too much to see in British Columbia and we would save it for another trip. We decided to just ease our way back to the Northwest US. On the way, we spent the night at several scenic pullouts along the road.
This is a great view, but if you looked out our windows or were to stand by the concrete barrier you would see
It almost wants to make a person move to B.C.
I have cluttered up your computer enough.
Later
John
