The Gold Range Hotel Yellowknife

Spent two days exploring Yellowknife from our campground refuge on the hill overlooking the airport and only three kilometres from downtown. This city of twenty thousand supports most of the communities and prospectors in the far north, including our newly named territory of Nunavut. In general, everything is more expensive up here, except for fish and game which everyone seems to get on their own. Of course, water is everywhere and it includes Great Slave ...

... meals and was not disappointed. I read a copy of Up North and recalled how much I really liked that magazine. Coming into Yellowknife you could see the changing landscape and I got a great view of Great Slave Lake. I've always wanted to see Great Slave Lake and was thrilled with the sight from the air. There was a stiff breeze blowing when we landed in Yellowknife and I was glad I had taken my jacket with me on the ...

... It's all simple microeconomics you see. We stayed there for a while and sang Leaving on a Jetplane for a couple of underage girls who later got kicked out, and then we conversed with some sort of "contractor" sitting behind me for a while. Soon it was midnight, and time to go. It had started raining so we grabbed a cab back and listened/watched the craziest thunder and lightning storm I'd EVER seen. My tent leaked a bit, but it wasn't too bad.

... out of the tent, he must have that happen a lot. Then we had about 9-10 hours of driving including stops for the ferry some waterfalls and some buffalo. Arrival in Yellowknife. We arrived And Mary's local friend had hooked up a big party hosted by the owner of a local coffee shop, 3 kegs a pig roast a crazy lightening storm and the power being knocked out for most of the night, lets just say we were lucky we were in ...

... anticipation in town. The Games open on Sunday and tickets are hard to find for the Opening Ceremonies,but we have tickets!!! We went to the accreditation area on Friday and got the accredited and picked up our Games Parkas. Thought there would be a rush, but quite painless. Parkas are a 3 in 1type with fleece liner. Looks like they will be warm enough to wear outside doing the announcing.Bonus!! Will get a photo of the two of us in full Games apparel. We're ...

... concerts last Wed. and Thurs. They consisting of John Rutter's version of Magnificat in the first half and R. Murray Schaefer's Chants (new music) for the second half and a Christmas song at the end. Some people were disappointed there wasn't more traditional Christmas music, but our musical ...

... and forward. On the other hand, the drive had been beautiful so far, and I had no reason to believe that it would not end on the same note. Shortly after crossing the Ogilvie River, I came upon a unique experience - a landing strip on the Dempster Highway. Good thing I had a sun roof to give me an extra vantage point. On the other hand, this was not O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and my passage through "the airport" was without incident. I was ...

... Just outside the camp entrance, on the edge of the Mackenzie River, is the location of a large grassy park known as the Papal Flats. This name is in recognition of the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987. In 1984, I remember reading that the Pope was unable to fly to Fort Simpson due to fog. At that time he promised to return at some future date and did so in 1987. At that time and until my visit, I had no idea where Fort Simpson was located ...

... amp;tick=FSY i left Yellowknife in my car on the 3rd of February. it was -36 C and road conditions were very poor so i drove at a safe pace. i really enjoyed driving across canada ,luckily there were no horror stories to report. the old car ran great ,i'm going to miss it. i have arranged a buyer for the car when i arrive in Toronto.when i finally get back to ...

... perpendicular to the beach, but by the time he got there, the left float had beached itself and the prop wouldn't pull the plane off the sand. All of us tried to pull the 5000 lb plane to straighten it, but that was a futile effort too. I didn't fully realize the implications of the turned plane at this stage - I learned later that a beaver is a one-engine plane, and it turns on water by means of rear rudders - both of these were up on the beach, meaning the only ...