Day 5: High Level to YELLOWKNIFE

We have arrived at our final destination!

Day 5 started out, again, in the dark. We left a bit later than our usual 5AM because we knew we had a shorter day of driving ahead. After an eventful night in our hotel room, this late start was welcomed because it allowed us to sleep in a bit more. We were awoken around 11PM to random beeps on the smoke alarm. They kept at it, every few minutes, for awhile. After the manager came to our room to try to fix it, we ended up switching rooms at 1AM.

Anyway, enough about that. We were on the road by 6:30AM and drove the remaining boring and straight section of highway (with very few towns) to the Northwest Territories border. We were both very excited to reach this milestone. It is an awesome border sign and we had plans to take photos with it - except we arrived in the dark… With only the shine of our headlights, we took these photos.

From there, we drove to Enterprise (about an hour past the border) and filled up with gas. The roads in the NWT were snow covered at this point. We then made our way to Fort Providence for another top up of the ol’ gas tank before the FINAL leg of this 5 day journey. Before getting into Fort Providence, we had to cross the Mackenzie River. Rashaad was very much looking forward to this. Yellowknife had remained secluded from the rest of Canada with the exception of a ferry in the summer or ice road in the winter up until 2012. There were always a few months in the fall and again in the spring when neither of the two former options worked and Yellowknife and the other communities on the far side of the river were unreachable by car/road. In 2012, they finished the big Deh Cho Bridge. Rashaad had seen a show about it’s construction on the Discovery Channel way back when and was eager to set sights on it. I will admit, it’s a nice looking bridge. I will also note that the road before the bridge was quite icy.

After filling up with gas, we hit the uneventful road for the last ~300km of the trek (mostly snow covered again). We pulled over at a roadside turnout to eat salad for lunch and not a single car passed us. That being said, we actually met more traffic on this last day than we had both anticipated. We started counting but decided to quit when we were already at 30+ vehicles before the Mackenzie River! We were, however, one of the few CARS on the road.

We were highly anticipating seeing wild bison! We even heard that a herd of 20 or so had been hanging out at a particular stretch of the highway over the last few days. I had the camera ready, but they must have moved on as they were nowhere to be seen. BOO! We saw plenty of bison warning signs though!

We pulled into Yellowknife around 2:30PM and we had some time to kill before our friend Gustavo was done work for the day (and we could subsequently get in to the place we will be crashing at for a bit). We hit up the local Walmart, Independent Grocer, and BMO to run errands. Then, we parked at Gustavo’s and went for a short walk (hoping to find a coffee shop - we found 2, but they were both closed on Mondays). We went into Yellowknife’s first ever general store, at Gustavo’s suggestion, and wandered around their selection of convenience items and winter gear. We noticed across the street there was a ‘bistro’ and thought we could grab a cup of coffee there. Turns out it is more of an overpriced tourist trap bar and grill… We left and went back to the car to wait for Gustavo, who arrived shortly after.

We have unloaded everything from our car and realized how much we brought! Gustavo’s place is cozy and welcoming and we are settling in nicely. We are exhausted tonight though, so we are heading to bed early. Rashaad has a big first day of work tomorrow, while I settle in and take care of things I have overlooked for the last 5 days.

Even though our travels are over, we will still be updating this blog periodically with tidbits about life in Yellowknife and what the north is really all about, so stay tuned!

Wildlife sightings: Grouse, ravens, a set of mysterious little eyes (short, small animal), half-eaten fox…

Milestones: NWT border, Deh Cho Bridge, and arriving in Yellowknife!