Day 4 Hillards Bay Alberta to Fred Henne Territorial Park, Yellow Knife

Sun gets up really early, I off from the camp ground by 6:30, the drive up hwy 35 is deadly boring straight flat road north.  You can take your hands off the wheel for several minutes if your balance/alignment is good, which I do almost daily to see if things have changed.

Oil Hoppers, still pumping.  

I will say that the ones responsible for knocking down the Boreal Forest are likely the farmers and not so much the oil sands, oil really seems to be in a pocket here and there.  I just drove 300km where every farm was clearing some more land. Often it would seem with the help of a forest companies clear cutting skills (Norbord MDF)  .

I visit the Mackenzie crossroads Museum at  High Level. Limited display of local flyers, some info about first trading post in the area.  Seems to be more of a chamber of Commerce than tourist operation, there is picnic area with a totem pole out front.

If you are in Alberta and are offered an official map for $2, pass on it, they give away the same map in the provincial parks map, I noticed it later.

 At the 60^th parallel, I crossed into NWT, visited the Info check point and was given the paper certificate indicating I have arrived in the North. I did two small hikes, leading two very large waterfalls, big rivers fast water.  Very nice display of local stuffed animals.


 Fox with winter coat.

All the Scenic or river pull offs in the NW Territories require some sort of daily pass or fee.  They do not have pay box in the parking lot, so I think this discourages many people from stopping.  At some sights they direct you to a camp ground or the next town to pay, I can't see that working too well.  I skip payment, later talking to a park ranger he said that if I stayed for a picnic I'd have to pay the fee, but just hiking of looking that free. First scenic point after the turn off to Hay River is Twin Falls and Gorge the first river is very big are the Louise falls and the smaller one located after about 500 metre walk along the escapement is Alexandra Falls, neat thing, the river flows north here.

Second road side view McNallie Creek.

Third road side view Chan Lake Territorial Park , this one require a 5km drive on gravel and 1km hike down a long staircase and along an escarpment, there is camping here.

Camping looks good at Chan lake, lots of room, showers maybe another hiking trail, I feel its just too early to pull off and decide to push onto Yellow Knife.  5:30 on Sunday so stopping to see small towns along the way is a no go and Yellow knife is just 450km away about I should get there by 10pm.

With no bison in sight, and a slow winding river on the west side of the road I stop to take pic of the tundra plants.

When you pass the Mackenzie Bridge, you get a sign warning of Bison; about 20kms you get another this one in lights and flashing Bison on the road. 200km later and 1 more waterfall hike still no Bison. I had seen however, some ducks, took pictures of fauna, good a really good shot of a beaver swimming and a shot of two stork like brown birds, they seen to resist flying away but liked to run away.

There it was in the distance, a saw a large dark mass at the side of the road, a Bison munching away at the on a brush. 

30km’s later a much better show, this one also a bull with small horns and full size 1400 pounded munching just the same. Stops look at me starts to walk towards the road than changes direction into a sand pit, starts to rub its neck, kick up some sand, rolls over one side than the other. Stands up and walked into the bush.  I got about 100 pics in rapid speed.

This is big sky country and the sun never ends, the amazing thing is that you can see a whole rain cell, lightning and all the while from where you its sunny both front back and side.  As the cell passes over the highway is like a cloud burst rain storm, very good to clear off the bugs off the wind screen and see rainbows.

The last 100 kms into Yellow Knife is best described as a road obstacle course, lots of pot holes, many filled but sometime they trick you, all the little holes are filled leaving a big one to sucker you in. Also the road has suffered from major frost upheavals, which also means sudden dips, the road gets a bit curvy here and oh yes don’t forget the Bison on road warnings.

Missing stickers seem to be common here, I like the plate, Ontario plates seem to be very boring now.

All in all a great nature day with water falls, hiking and lots of animals, I got into Yellow Knife at 11:30pm got a site at Fred Henne Territorial Park $23.63 and the sun was still up,  drove 1144km for the day.