On My Way

By now we are veritably sick of seeing free roaming bison on the road. They are hard to see in poor lighting, they block the road, and they startle fairly easy. Plus, the bulls weigh almost a ton! So hitting one or being charged by one in rut would be catastrophic. When we arrived in Fort Smith, we went to visit the Rapids of the Drowned and several other large rapids on the Slave River. There were class six rapids and the river at its widest is almost two miles! Along with the amazing rapids, it is home to a large amount of pelicans which can be seen nesting and eating from the shore. That night we camped at Pelican Rapids. The views from that campsite were absolutely astounding! We camped out on a small, sandy beach that was surrounded by rocks that would have otherwise been covered if the water was higher. We were surrounded on three sides by rapids and channels of water. To get there we had to backpack our camping gear in. To save time, or so we thought, we drove the Jeep down an ATV trail for about 20 minutes. In doing so we ended up in some tight spots, one of which cost us the passenger side mirror! When we came to an impassible part of the trail we parked it and walked the rest of the way. In actuality, we only drove half of a mile, which could of been hiked much faster! It was fun though, until we got out of the car and were immediately SWARMED by a host of no-see-um flies and mosquitos. Now in case you do not know, Lauren is the clumsy one in this relationship. She is always tripping over something, falling down stairs, hitting a body part against an immobile object (but to her these objects seem to be lunging at her all the time), and has a great deal of scars and bruises to prove it. This day however she was not able to claim this title. As Chris was getting our backpacks out of the Yakima he missed the tire to step down on and fell backwards onto the ground. He had turned his ankle and had nearly taken a stump to the back. Luckily, his ankle was not seriously injured and after walking for a couple of minutes he felt fine. Once we had reached the river, Chris spotted the area he wanted to set up camp. This required us to walk down a steeply sloped rock. Now if you're Lauren you would scoot down the rock or walk slowly to ensure you wouldn't fall. Chris, not typically being the clumsy one, has not learned these lessons. Without caution he walked across a log that was precariously propped up against the top the rock. After taking a few steps the log rolled and Chris quickly fell stomach first onto the log and face first into a puddle of water. Ouch! Fortunately, he was not injured again. Although it isn't fun to see Chris get hurt, it is a nice change of pace to not be the one face planting on any and all surfaces!  That night we had a fire on the beach and the beauty of the place soon erased any thoughts of the broken mirror, the new mosquito bites we had acquired, and any soreness Chris felt. It was a kind of place that makes you want to stay there for a week.

The next morning we hiked and drove back out with no other accidents. When we arrived at the start of the trail, Chris insisted we fix the mirror real quick. After an hour of trying to reattach the mirror he was more upset than he has been in a long time. Tools were flying and a lot of grumbling sounds were being made whenever he didn't have a mouthful of insects. Finally, Lauren Turpaud, formerly known as Lauren Hendrickson, suggested we use zip ties. In a few minutes the mirror was reattached as best as we could manage. Those Hendricksons' know a thing or two about zip ties! From there we headed into Wood Buffalo National Park. The park was not awe inspiring, nothing like the parks we have visited, but it was beautiful in its own way. We hiked to a salt lake. This lake has 10x the amount of salt an ocean has. The rocks in and around the lake were deposited from retreating glaciers, making the landscape look somewhat like a moonscape. The saltiness of the water was so strong that it was literally eating away the rock and changing the once round boulders into bizarrely misshapen sculptures. Lauren was curious for a closer look at some of the plants growing in the water. As we were picking a path through the rocks, Chris stopped to examine a questionable stretch of ground in front of us, his suspicions proved correct. It was a nasty bog of thick deep mud. How do we know, because Lauren obliviously took three big steps into the bog and sank above her ankles instantly. We told you she was clumsy! She tried to back peddle out and nearly lost her shoes, all the while she was laughing! She smelled really gross though! Undeterred she set out once again to capture those small red plants growing in the salt marsh! This time she used some rocks to aid her crossing and made it safely to the other side. On the return she lost her balance and would have face planted in the bog, if her life had not been saved by a small rock she was able to grasp! Whew! After finishing the hike and taking many pictures of small mushrooms in the wet forest we drove to a lake for Lauren to wash up. No more smell, thank goodness! 

This does not do it justice, the trees on either side were less than a foot away from the vehicle. 

The little red plants that Lauren worked so hard to get a picture of! 

We made dinner in the town park as it drizzled, and then drove towards Fort Providence in the dark. That was a very scary experience, since we would come upon the buffalo in the dark with absolutely no warning. Chris drove well under the speed limit. There is no such thing as 24 hour convenience gas stations in this area of the country so we drove to a small town and slept in our seats until the morning. We found out that the gas station did not even open until 10! So we went on a hike to see the Lady Evelyn Falls. The falls were beautiful! We drove back, got gas, and headed to Yellowknife. We made it to Yellowknife around 3:00. After we stopped in the visitor center, we drove to Cameron Falls. We hiked in to view those falls and slept in the parking lot. The next day we hiked to Prelude Lake and then went into town. We spent several hours reading in a coffee shop and went to find a place to park and sleep. It happened to be next the gold mine. We only realized this at 3 am when an employee of the mine informed us that the air around us was acoustic (we are not really sure what that means, we just know its bad to breathe). He kindly escorted us to a parking lot where we could sleep the rest of the night. Chris parked right next to a row of old mining equipment, which he had assumed we were in a junk yard. The next morning we were awakened by groups of people walking next to our car talking about the mining equipment and the history of the town. As we laid quietly waiting for a chance to hop out of our car without being noticed we found out all kinds of things! For instance, Peter Robinson's fancy would be tickled by seeing the mining equipment and about a beer barge barbecue they have annually in Yellowknife. Apparently, every spring after the ice on the Great Slave Lake breaks up large shipments of goods come into town. When they unload the beer off the barges it signals the beginning of a big party! Everyone is drinking beer and barbecuing meat to welcome back the warm(er) weather! Although interesting, we felt extremely awkward having groups of people surrounding the Jeep and flew out at the first chance! It turns out that we were parked right in the middle of a mining museum! We immediately packed up and left the area. We did laundry, rotated the tires, changed the oil, and headed out of town. 

A brand new bridge crossing the Mackenzie River near Fort Providence, NWT

People in Old Town Yellowknife are pretty creative about where they put there houses!
Space is limited in this part of town, but you wouldn't know by this picture that Yellowknife
has 20,000 people and a skyscraper skyline!