How it works in the NORTH

How it works in the north is .... connections.  The entire province of Northwest Territories, which is substantially larger than Texas, operates on a who-do-you-know and how-are-they-related basis.  Here's a for instance.

On Wednesday, 7/21, I drove from Fort Providence (which was NOT providential) to Fort Simpson, a full tank of gas away.  In fact, gas-wise, it was a squeaker.

The route to Ft. Simpson encompasses the Samma Deh waterfalls.

It also requires one to cross the Liard  river on the Lafferty, a ferry built in riverless Edmonton.

One of the Lafferty's deckhands was this lass:

When I reached Ft. Simpson, I met and chatted with Bert Tsetso, local cop, retired Mounty.

I asked Bert where to eat and meet people, and he suggested the SubArctic.  I enjoyed the evening meeting folks, and got along so well that one of then said, hey, when you get to Fort Liard, look up John Gonet, buy some fuel for his jet boat, and he'll show you the river.

So I did locate John Gonet, and I interviewed him for a couple of hours, and he suggested he knew the place to go.  All we had to do was ferry an extra ATV across the river on his jet boat, then off we would go.

So this man

Handed me an ATV (which I'd never ridden in all my ancient years), and said:  the throttle's under yer thumb, and the right brake don't work, but the left one does.  The tranny's automatic, so have fun! I'll lead the way.

And off we went via 9 miles of mud, roots, gravel slopes, rocks, and muck and 2000 feet of climb to this place:

Where I met this man, who turns out to be an artist to rival early Whistler (when he was doing engineering drawings!)

and saw this view:

I forgot to mention, Ginger sulked back at John's house, while his dog Candy RAN the whole way up, and the whole way down, and managed a 25 mph sprint for the last mile of it.  All under gesture command, not a word spoken between John and Candy.  Ginger is officially a second-class dog after that performance!

So this morning I was having breakfast with John, when I showed him the picture of the lass on the Lafferty.  "Oh," he said, "That's Grayson.  She's the ex-girlfriend of my nephew."

Fort Simpson and Fort Liard are several hundred miles apart.  But everybody knows everybody, and that's the way it works in the North

On to the Northwest Territories of Canada

Overdue Update – too much too fast to cover.

Highlights –Have driven 4,000 miles in 9 days and still had time to live (barely).

The great plains are great – but they are plain!

Safflower (canola) plants help.  In Britain, they’re “rapeseed”.  Brilliant yellow.

Flax, it turns out, is bright blue.  Stopped to shoot a field of it and the farmer showed up to check me out and answer questions.

Canadians are friendly, polite, and have marvelous bullshit detectors.  If you’re authentic, you’re in – phony, you’re out. Period.  You don’t have to be a special something,  just yourself.  I’ve seen this before in Canada and some other parts of the world, but it’s especially true in the less-settled areas.

Mosquitoes don’t rule.  They take second place to “bulldogs” which are 3/4” long flies of the “horse fly” type.  Those  bastards will swarm into an open car window  at the rate  of 2 to 3 per second.  And they bite, when they get organized enough to do so.  Then they don’t just bite, they excavate.

After the bulldogs, mosquitoes rule.  DEET stinks, tastes awful, leaves a nasty texture to your skin and hair, and is vital.  No DEET, no civilization, period.  My goal in coming to Ft. Nelson instead of pushing on, was to update the blog and have ONE, just one, DEET-free day.  So far so good.

Since I’ve updated the blog, I’ve traveled  from Whitecourt to High Level,  including an interesting overnight at Twin Lakes campground. Spend the evening schmoozing with and photographing the locals who were all First Nation members of the Dene band. Lovely hospitable folks.

Thence to Enterprise, hook a right to Hay River.  Superb photo op at Alexandra and  Louise falls.  Good Samaritan turn to a woman whose 13 year old had managed to lock all 7 of ‘em out of their vehicle;   fate rolled round and gave me  a path to better photography of the falls.

Dirt roading off the asphalt isn’t safe, but can be rewarding.  This is a lousy shot, but look at the size of this monster beaver, doing it’s thing! 

Hay River is a thriving community at least 12 times bigger than its actual 3,500 souls.  This is a place that is literally frozen in for 8 months of the year.  Yet it has a thriving commercial fishery, at least one serious restaurant, and a score of wonderful local characters – plus one of the world’s half dozen serially-connected  ship lifts.  Not a drydock, this puppy will life major ships out of the water  using monster slings, allowing them to be repaired. Still, many ships go by the board.

On to Fort Providence, in search of a missing connector for my EasyTagger GPS locator.  I’d been told by ernest but ill informed souls in Hay River that the guy who founded SIS net had been located in Providence.  Turns out he’s split 5 years ago for the big city of Yellowknife, and who can blame him.  Ft. Providence is a tribal town with zero intrinsic energy and a minor fishing tourist base, period. Plus a club sandwich costs $10.00, and is greasy to boot.

Did meet some lovely people at the territory campsite  who were generous spirited, informed, and helpful…. In fact most Canadians know far more about their country’s history, geography, topology, zoology, and economics than US citizens do about their own  nation.  No kidding, Canadians are politely opinionated, but their opinions seem to be formed from information, not just prejudice.

From Providence, I traveled  to Ft. Simpson.  Met a local cop, 

met local folks at the local watering hole, and had a lovely evening …. Leading to an introduction to John Godet in Ft. Liard.  See next update.

New friends, new adventures,new photos

Have been traveling great long stretches of unspectacular road.  Hundreds of miles of it.  But along the way I've had some adventures, such as seeing an enormous beaver,  magnificent waterfalls, a friendly Metis (indian tribe) family at Twin Lakes Rec Area (alberta, and not near anything).

The Northwest Territory is much more interesting ... if you get off the highway!  Bulldogs (enormous horseflies) are thriving, so are mosquitos, but the people are terrific, friendly and often knowledgeable.

I'm writing this in the chamber of Commerce tourism booth of Hay River, NWT.  Hay River is located where the river empties into the Great Slave Lake.  The growing season here is 97 days long -- short by US standards, long by standards in the North.  Commercial fishing is  big here, and so are the fish!

Yesterday I helped out a woman who was vacationing with her 7 kids ... one of whom had managed to lock all of them out of the car!  I managed to contact the relevant authorities, via a campsite manager a ways up the road (at Louise Falls) in time to avoid the smash-in which was imminent.

Hay River is about 3,600 people, all of them friendly!  More later, but I'm surely enjoying my visit here.

Prices in this part of Canada (in fact in all of Canada) are outrageous, with gas pushing $4.50 a gallon.

Don't have time to write much, just to let followers know things are going well, and that NEW PICTURES ARE POSTED

New Pix and new Adventures

Alas, I haven't time to write up the adventures, but you can see pix of Banff, the Icefields Parkway (glaciers), and lakes and hikes around Jasper, Alberta.  Not to mention a critter or two.

Here's the link