R+V at the Jamboree (plus a hike)
The end of March brings the Long John Jamboree to Yellowknife Bay. This is a big event for the city - the town literally shuts down on Friday at noon to start the celebrations. It’s an all-weekend family festival with music, games, and winter activities.
After a half day of work, we decided to go check out the opening day festivities. We arrived just in time to see the Championship Dog Derby start. The race course was lined with people (and dogs) and the barking was non-stop until the flag dropped and they were off!
Coming out of the starting chutes.
Happy to be running.
There is no doubt these dogs love to run.
We then headed over to the Jamboree area to explore the activity and food tents. We saw the start of the ice sculpting competition. The blocks of ice are harvested from Great Slave Lake!
Starting from blank cubes of ice, it's amazing to see the final products.
Chainsaws are used to get the rough shape...
But all sorts of other chisels and tools are used to give it the details.
Cabane a sucre...pour the syrup...
...and roll.
Next, we signed up for a Twin Otter City Tour offered by Air Tindi (such a great deal!). They picked us up at the Jamboree site and drove us over to their base on Yellowknife Bay, where we were offered treats before boarding the plane. The 20-minute ride took off from their runway on the lake, around the city, across the bay, and north out of town, past the old Giant Mine and into the land of thousands of lakes! We did a little touch-and-go on a small lake with our skied plane and then headed back into town. It was an awesome experience (and for such a great price)!
Tickets booked!
Twin otter on skis.
Our actual twin otter (on wheeled skis)
View into the cockpit.
Turning around on the runway and getting ready for take off.
Views of downtown (twin otter windows aren't exactly crisp and clean, so sorry for the poor quality pictures).
The dog race happening below
Yellowknife Bay.
Giant Mine headframe.
Giant pit.
Hey, look! It's our house!
Coming in for landing over the ice castle.
We ended the night with a movie. This is not big news, unless you know me and my hatred for everything sci-fi. But, I did it. I watched Star Wars (episode 3) from start to finish!!! Oh, and I ate olives… And didn’t gag. Big day for me!
On Saturday we planned on continuing our LJJ (Long John Jamboree) fun in the evening, but with beautiful sunny skies and a temperature above zero, we could not pass up the opportunity for a nice hike to a place we had heard was gorgeous - Cameron Falls. About 45 minutes outside of town, down the Ingraham Trail, there is hiking trail leading to a waterfall. It was a beautiful, slippery hike (with great company!), but the falls were somewhat of a bust. We had pictured a beautiful frozen waterfall, but instead we saw a blanket of snow that looked like a tobogganing hill! It was still a great afternoon and we definitely look forward to heading back when it is all melted.
What a nice day for a hike.
The falls...
Parts of the river were exposed.
Blue skies!
Looking down river.
Upstream.
Riven on the bridge.
Yellowknife!
Back at the LJJ that evening, we arrived just in time for the bonfire. Every year, they build a wooden structure on the bay and light it on fire. This year featured an arch, that was apparently a snake eating it’s own tail… Within minutes it had collapsed and the fire raged on. We also headed back over to check out the finished ice sculptures and immediately saw our favourite. Can you guess which one?
It was pretty smokey when they first lit the fire...
But eventually it really got going.
There was even fire in the ice columns.
So warm.
Look at that detail!
We ended our LJJ experience with the fireworks show. There’s still another day of the LJJ, but we have had our fill for this year.
