On the road for sure, zigging and zagging, this way and that, and off the grid most of the time, so who knows quite when this will be posted?
We enjoyed our time north of sixty enormously, the Northwest Territories surprising and delighting us all the way. As first time visitors, we didn’t know what to expect, but our hopes were for peace and quiet and time away from what passes for normal – wifi, headlines, dramas (confected or genuine) and shallow people. The shallow ones tend to be the ones involved in confected dramas, or so we find. Poor things…
Anyway, time away from all that – and huge distances away from any of that, or so it felt – meant we could immerse ourselves in enjoying being on the road and off the grid. The Northwest Territories (the small parts we experienced) are spectacular as advertised, but not necessarily in an immediate way. If you have it, plenty of time means the place can seep in, get under your skin…
A few facts and figures picked up along the way:
There are only eleven highways!
The population is around 45 000 people in a space larger than Spain, France and Portugal combined! Almost half the population resides in Yellowknife, so the other half has so much space to enjoy…
There is only one craft brewery in the entire NWT – fortunately, the beer is good!
Driving, if you like a road trip, is a delight!
In the four hours we took to drive from Hay River to Fort Smith, after the first hour, when we took the turn to Fort Smith, we didn’t see another vehicle for two hours. Make sure you have a full tank, a spare tire, and you know how to change that tire. There’s no cell service most of the time.
All that time and space encourages you to slow down, take it easy – there’s no rush, might as well enjoy where you are. It helps if you like boreal forest, lakes, all manner of wildlife and you don’t require external sources of entertainment.
The long daylight hours were quite something, and again encouraged us to slow down. Why rush to complete things, whatever they might be, if you’ve got all day(light)?! You’ll have all the time you need!
Being north of sixty is a state of mind as well as a geographical location (and, in our case, what we’ll both be next birthday) and it works for us.
The icing on the cake was a glimpse of the northern lights, late one evening – or early one morning. Just after mid August, when it starts to get dark enough, you just might catch them. For our sightings, the lights were little more than pale ribbons, floating silently across the sky, too high to mistake for clouds and eerie to see, I thought – probably because they move so silently, and they are so high up, shapeshifting and mysterious and quite beautiful.
We’re planning a late winter trip to Yellowknife, when we might, if lucky, see the northern lights in full colour. The wispy ribbons and curtains we saw a few days back has us excited for that.
So much northern fun, on the road and off the grid – spectacular!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
OldPlaidCamper 