N.W.T. Trip – 2005 Fort Providence

Next morning we were back on the Mackenzie highway, headed for Fort Providence…

We had left the Liard River behind when we turned off at Checkpoint – the Liard joins the Mackenzie River at Fort Simpson – so are now following the mighty Mackenzie river and you can see how  very flat this country is….

this is another series of those ‘panned’ shots, to give an idea of the size and scope of the country…

This is typical of the many large pull outs and rest areas encountered.  Always spotlessly clean.  If there are washrooms, and most have them, they are always spotless and well stocked…it made us wonder just how far the attendants had to drive to maintain them and how often they must do it because you could drive for an hour or more and never see another vehicle or any sign of civilization….

here I’m standing in the middle of the highway, the pull out is on the left hand side….

this was typical of the many little roadside lakes…many of these had dirt roads leading off to them where, if you weren’t towing something, you could no doubt pull in and set up camp….one of the reasons for our trading in of the trailer this past spring…next time, with the truck camper….we plan to do just that.

a view of the other end of the lake – a perfect spot for tossing in a canoe or kayak….

these survival cabins are found periodically along the highway….stocked with a stove and wood, which you are asked to replace so there is always a supply if needed…

more muskeg as we were nearing our destination…

and here we area at Great Slave Lake…there was a picnic site at this location, called ‘Dory Point’,..

there were Common Merganser here and also black headed gulls, can’t remember if they were Bonaparte or Franklin…I think Bonaparte…

Great Slave Lake is a massive lake…this is just the southernmost tip of it, which is the headwaters of the Mackenzie river…..I wish I’d seen all these places back when I was in school….it would have made geography a little easier to learn….there is nothing like actually being there and seeing for yourself!

to cross the Mackenzie River to get to Fort Providence you have to take this free ferry…..now in the Milepost edition I have, it mentioned that there is supposed to actually be a bridge constructed at this site, due to open in 2010….so I went on line to see what I could find out…and yes indeed….see below…

….this gave me a chance to use my ‘snipping tool’ that I learned about thanks to ‘Wandering Willie’!

took this shot while waiting for the ferry….this is looking westward, that being the Mackenzie river….in the foreground are the skids used to pull the ferry up on when it is out of service for the winter and between the skids and the river are piles of dirt covered snow, this was in early June….I should also note that there were occasional ‘icebergs’ seen floating down the river…

we’re now at the campsite at Fort Providence…unlike all the other campsites we’d been at so far, this one was full….we had to squeeze both units into the last available spot…it wasn’t full of tourists – no the attraction seemed to be fishing for Northern Pike in the river…

this view is looking southward, back towards the spot where we had crossed on the ferry…..

Ernie had been talking to one of the local’s, asking about the fish….and a bit later the fellow came to our trailer with several fillets of Northern Pike and some of the ‘secret recipe’ he used for batter….I have to say that it was the best tasting fish I’ve ever eaten!

and I’ll finish off this entry with a bird….another one of those Eastern Phoebe….there was a screened in gazebo in the picnic area at this campground, and a pair of these birds had a nest on the top of one of the ‘window’ sections….obviously occupied with nestlings as they were busy packing food back and forth….

N.W.T. Trip – 2005 – Sambaa Deh Falls

In my last post, I made reference to the fact that you shouldn’t disconnect your truck and trailer if you don’t need to….this mornings experience was the reason for that comment….as we prepared to head out once more, the mosquitoes were so thick you could barely breath…I made mad dashes for the truck with the dogs and anything else needed for the day…every time the door opened another cloud of them would swarm in…and out in all of this was Ernie, hooking up the trailer….they were so thick you couldn’t see, if you dared to open your mouth (to swear for instance)…in they flew!  We couldn’t get out of there fast enough! 

Back on the Liard trail all went well until we stopped in one of the many large pull outs…and discovered that Ernie’s brother, Dave, had a shredded tire on his fifth wheel…..

at least we’d left the mosquitoes behind…no bush close to hand, just wide open gravel parking

spaces…

here Willie and April check out this weird thing….

While Dianna and Meko (the Pomeranian) took pictures of me…

taking pictures of the wild roses growing along side the ‘trail’…there was no traffic…you could wander at will on the ‘highway’ and it was flat enough you could see something coming from way off….

a bit further along this Northern Hedysparum (or something like that!) was growing….this is the same plant that was so spectacular along the sides of the highways in the Yukon…

the tire incident happened not too far from the junction of the Liard Trail and the Mackenzie highway.  You now have the choice of turning left to head to Fort Simpson and then, if you are really adventurous, carrying on to Wrigley.  We did neither this particular trip as we were fortunate, that right at the junction was a combination service station, tire store, restaurant and just about anything else, called ‘Checkpoint’

According to the Milepost, Checkpoint closed in 2007 and it’s current status is unknown….this is really too bad because it certainly was an ‘oasis in the wilderness’…for one thing, we were very leery of going too far with Dave now not having a spare tire for his fifth wheel….fortunately, ‘Checkpoint’ had one in stock, and the tools to mount it on the rim.  You have to remember too, that coming from the direction we had, with the exception of a very small store /gas station at Fort Liard, been absolutely nothing in the way of services.  I suppose it isn’t surprising that the place closed as I don’t recall the exact figure, but I know the owner did tell us what it cost him in diesel to run the generators to supply the electricity to run the place and it was astronomical…..

so with a new tire and a full stomach (we’d had hamburgers, complete with fresh lettuce and tomato and had asked where and how they got their supplies…apparently they emailed in their order by mid afternoon on Monday’s and Wednesday mornings their supplies would arrive, via truck – it is all ‘Truck’ up here – all the way from Edmonton, Alberta, a distance of about 1,200 kilometres (I looked it up and it is 636 miles from Edmonton to Fort Simpson), irregardless that is a lot of driving in that short a length of time….)

The next ‘civilization’ we would encounter would be at Fort Providence…but we planned to stop before that at Sambaa Deh Territorial Park

part of the area we now drove through was muskeg before climbing a bit to the drier countryside at

 Sambaa Deh Falls.  The campground is on the left of the highway if you are heading east as we were…

on the edge of the Trout River.  There was a hiking trail from the campground…

to these falls….known as ‘Fossil Fall’s’

the trail sort of petered out high on the cliff side over the falls….not to my liking at all!

heading back to the campsite, we dropped down to the shore….this shoreline is absolutely littered with ‘fossils’, hence the name of the falls.  It took only moments to find a hand full of ‘fossils’ – which you were allowed to keep provided you didn’t start digging them out of the rock…if they were just laying around, that was OK.

this was just one of the interesting rock formations along the side of the river.  There were some of these

wild Blue Columbines growing along side the trail as we headed back to the campsite.

speaking of the campsite, here it is…large ‘pull through’ spots and notice something missing?  no bush, just nice big tall trees….and that meant ‘NO BUGS’

threw this in to give you an idea of the facilities here – pretty nice huh?

OK, but where are the falls?  Well here they are…Sambaa Deh Falls…I’m standing on the highway to take this picture – notice the rainbow…

you could walk down either side of the falls….this is the east side, looking at the river after the falls as the falls are actually very close to the highway.

here is a cleft in the rocks that you had to leap over…that is the churning aftermath of the falls visible through the crack…

here you are looking back at the falls…you can make out the highway bridge through the spray..

now I’m on the other side looking back at where I’d been standing….I’m afraid there aren’t any really close pictures of the falls….suicidal I’m not!

That evening we took advantage of the nice ‘bug free’ weather and sat outside playing dominoes until….

Midnight!   (taken without a flash)

N. W. T. trip – 2005 – Blackstone Territorial Park

Morning finally came and we ventured out from under the covers to find the mosquitoes had headed to all the dark corners they could find, to spend the day light hours.  This is the thing about northern mosquitoes…as long as it is bright and sunny, you don’t really notice them….come night time or a dull cloudy day and it is a different story entirely.  We won’t venture back up into that country again without proper mosquito hats and jackets – or we’ll wait until late August when the first frosts have killed the little blighters off.  They aren’t ‘vicious’ like the ones we are used to…but they sure are ‘in your face’!

You’ll note in this picture taken along the campsite roadway, that it is sort of ‘bushy’ – that is another thing ‘bush’ equates to ‘bugs’ (of course that is the same anywhere)….and they particularly like willows.  There are some more of those Tall Bluebells….

after a trip into Fort Liard to the combination gas station/store we were back on the Liard Trail….up here you buy gas when you can find it….we also carried spare with us, just in case!  Those are the Liard Mountains in the distance…

It was a pretty short trip of just over 100 km to our next destination which was Blackstone Territorial Park.

This park, situated on the shores of the Liard River has some of the prettiest scenery and is as close as you can get to the Nahanni.  That ‘bump’ in the distance is Nahanni Butte…apparently in winter there is an ice road but the rest of the time the only access is by either boat or airplane.

This is as close a view as I could get of Nahanni Butte, I then started turning, taking photos as a turned….this will show you the scope of this massive river….

 

Now we’re back to the original point, this is the viewing platform situated at the back of the visitor’s center…

and a final scenic look….

I’ve mentioned the mosquitoes, but I haven’t mentioned the other bugs that are so plentiful….Butterflies…they were everywhere….the grills of our trucks became butterfly graveyards….these Swallowtails were in the boat launch at the campground…probably getting minerals of some sort….

and here is a view of part of the campground itself…see that?  BUSH and what do you get with bush….BUGS!  Now it wasn’t bad this sunny afternoon…but lesson to be learned….don’t unhook your truck and trailer if you don’t have to!

in all that bush were lots of Wild Roses….I’ve mentioned before, but it bears repeating, that the further north you go, the more intense the colors of the flowers…

spotted this Red-eyed Vireo in the tangle…there was water under laying all of this vegetation…so water = bugs….we have since heard that this park has the reputation of being the ‘buggiest’…..

Here is another of those Eastern Phoebe’s that I first spotted back at Taylor, B.C.  The shower buildings were located in this area and there were at least one pair of Phoebe with nests built on the buildings.  I mentioned in my report on this years trip that all the campgrounds in the territories offer hot showers, despite being ‘off the grid’….they simply have set hours when they fire up the generators to heat the water and supply electricity to the buildings.

Not to be out down by the birds….there were also Snowshoe Hare running about in the campground.