Yellowknife in Winter

The Northwest Territories. I honestly never thought I’d go there one day. And If I did, I would’ve imagined I would have been the first one in my family to go up there. It turned out I went there, and I was not the first one to go! A work assignment brought me there in early April. I was excited and when I shared the news with my parents, my aunt sent me a picture of her father standing next to an airplane in Yellowknife decades ago.

My grandfather was an airplane mechanic from Montreal and he spent a few months in the NWT at some point in his career. I was told he came back as a totally different person. I never had the chance to know him as he passed away a few months before I was born. As per my family’s sayings, I am just like him, a curious explorer. With him in mind, I left for Yellowknife to experience what he saw and try to understand what could have made him love Northern Canada.

Traveling above Alberta from Calgary to Yellowknife was an incredible experience. The 2-hour flight in a propeller plane offered some exquisite views of northern Alberta. I realized then how big Canada is. The snow made the snaking rivers easy to spot and my face never left the window for the entire duration of the flight. I knew I was almost there when I saw the massive Great Slave Lake.

The first thing I did upon landing was trying to get the exact same picture my grand-father took of himself in front of the plane but the Air Canada crew wouldn’t allow me to. My bags didn’t make it in time from my flight to Calgary so I was stuck with only a down jacket and my hard shell until the next flight came in at night. I took the rental car and off I was for a few days of exploration.

The prettiest license plates in the country.

I went straight for the ice road in the Yellowknife Bay that links the city of Yellowknife to the First Nation community of Dettah. The 6.5KM road makes it easier for this community to reach the city instead of using the alternate 27KM land road. For a city guy, driving on thick ice was strange at first. On a clear day, I could see through the cracked ice and it was impressive!

At the end of the city there’s a place called Bush Pilot’s Monument, honoring the bush pilots of the past and the present who helped connecting Yellowknife to the rest of the country and the northern regions. Yet again, I thought of my grandfather. While he was not a pilot, I could imagine his work was primordial in making the airplanes able to operate in such cold conditions. After climbing all the stairs, the monument rewarded me with a nice view above the city of Yellowknife and its Bay.

At the bottom of the hill is a Yellowknife institution: the Bullock’s Bistro. I treated myself with Arctic Char and a Bison steak grilled right in front of my eyes while having a chat with a local guy from the community, George, who told me -46°C was nothing for them compared to the -70°C they used to get in the winter a few years back. He was leaving for a hunting trip 12 hours north of the city. When I told him I would love to see how they build a winter camp and manage to live outside in such extreme weather, the first thing he said was “if you’re willing to put in the work, you’re welcomed and we leave tomorrow at 6am”. To me, that’s what I will remember from the people I’ve met up there. They will treat you like one of their own after 5 minutes of conversation. I couldn’t stop thinking about how, us Canadians, treated the First Nation communities poorly over the last decades and it made me feel angry. I could think of David Thompson and how books keep saying how great his relationship with the indigenous people of Canada was in the late 1700s. Why did it turned for the worst? George told me how his people felt like “other” (he never used the word “white”) people always decided what was better for them instead of letting them take their own decisions. Yellowknife is no exception. Mining companies have been coming here for years, taking all the resources from the land and leaving contaminated open pits behind when they were done. Most of the lakes around the city are full of arsenic. It’s a sad reality, but I am glad I was able to talk about this with him. It’s a delicate subject but I guess he could feel the respect I had for History. It made me understand a little better what the reality is (and was) in Northern Canada.

After a quick stop at the airport to finally get my bags, I was now chasing the early winter sunset around my hotel. I found a spot with a nice hill overlooking a lake and braved the cold to snap some pictures while looking at two wolfs walking on the frozen lake below. The snow was waist deep at some places and I should’ve put my snowshoes on!

The clouds were moving in, so I had no clue if the Northern Lights would be dancing in the sky that night. But the only way to tell was to go check. Even though you can see them from the city, driving further away from it gave me better chances. At 2am, my alarm woke me up and I dressed up like a snowman and jumped into my (frozen) car. The thermometer was showing -39°C and that was without the wind-chill. I drove along the Ingraham Trail to find a spot on the side of the road with a clear sky view. Suddenly, here they were, dancing in front of me. I was ecstatic. It was a relatively calm night for the Auroras, but even a small glimpse of them was enough for me. It was phenomenal and magical.

That’s the only decent picture I took. It was extremely difficult to photograph them with the cold and the lack of night photography experience. It was pitch black outside and my camera batteries were draining in minutes because of the cold. My hands were frozen and I almost suffered from frostbites on my finger tips while messing with my camera buttons barehanded.

I woke up the next day under a stormy sky. After spending an educational morning at the interesting Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, which exhibits a lot of traditional items from the multiple communities of the NWT, I once again took the car to drive around and soak in the beauty of this rugged landscape and also drove through Dettah.

The bad weather prevented me from going snowshoeing that day. So I spent my evening at the NWT Brewing Company to eat a monster burger and you guessed it… taste the local beers!

A cloudy sky meant I could stay in bed all night, as the chances of seeing the Auroras were quite small. I was pleased with how much I’ve seen the night before, April being quite late in the season to observe them. At this time, they were more visible in Northern Quebec and Nunavut. I woke up to another bluebird sky. I drove outside of the city along the Ingraham Trail and parked my car along the road. I put on my snowshoes and walked in the backcountry for a while. It was hard because of the deep fluffy snow. Even with my snowshoes, I was sinking almost to my waist! I was sweating a lot and with the cold weather, it could’ve became dangerous. I skipped the lunch break in the backcountry and made myself a tea back at the car.

I spent the afternoon driving around yet again on the ice road and around town. My schedule for the rest of the week was dedicated to work (at the new Stanton Territorial Hospital under construction). I made the daily trip to the top of the hill to watch the sunset, braving the cold wind and never got tired of it.

I left Yellowknife for Calgary on a a sunny afternoon with a stunning sunset above Great Slave Lake just like if this place wanted to make sure I wouldn’t want to leave. It’s hard to explain with words but this place really is special and I wished I could have stayed longer. It sounds cliché, but you really need to experience it at least once to understand I guess. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I came back transformed like my grandfather did, but this trip definitely left its mark and I know I will be back above the 60th parallel sooner than lather.

Ha Ling Peak

Highland Backpacking Trail

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