The Northwest Territories

-Fireweed over looking the Great Slave Lake.-

Here is a summary of the whirlwind excursion:

• Drove 34 hours round trip (17 of these hours in one stretch... with 3 breaks of 15 min. each)
• Replaced an alternator in one of the most isolated cities in Canada.
• Repaired a flat.
• Paid $1.30 for a litre of gas and $12.00 for a plain burger that had been sitting under a heating lamp for no less than a week.
• Saw two wild bears, a lone wolf, three friendly foxes, and herds of wild Wood Bison.
• Camped 400 kilometres south of the arctic circle and saw our breath in August.
• Ate peanut butter sandwiches for almost every meal.
• Spent a very COLD night on a hilltop watching the Aurora Borealis dance.
  
• And, learned not to flinch with more than 500 misquotes buzzing around your head at any given time.
  

-Lady Evelyn falls.-

-Typical Canadian shield topography surrounding the city of Yellowknife.-

We never thought that our spur of the moment getaway would leave us so tired, so broke or so cold. Don't get us wrong, the trip was educational in and of itself. We both ventured farther north than we'd previously been. As Trev grew up in the north his 'territory gained' was substantially less than mine.

We were awed by the wildlife (although there are no pictures to prove our sightings of bears, fox, elk or wolves), astounded by the natural beauty of the Canadian shield, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Great Slave Lake (the deepest lake in North America and the ninth largest lake in the world) and blown away by the dancing northern lights.

-A day of fishing... beautiful cold clear waters, amazingly deserted surroundings, unforgiving rocky landscape, hours of haunting loon calls but no fish.-

-Lophocampa Maculata or common caterpillar. Much more cooperative than the bears, fox, elk, wolf or wild buffalo that we encountered.-