Day 7-14: One Week Part II

We'll pick up the story on the north side of the Mackenzie River, some of us rather... damp, all of us smiling. We spent that night at the Snowshoe Inn in Fort Providence, a small town near the ferry crossing, and then drove the final 310km along the Frontier Highway to Yellowknife the next morning. For the first 80km of the drive, the highway is the boundary of the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary, so we saw a great many bison at the side of the road.

This was the drive we were expecting to be quite treacherous. Za Google, we assume taking in to account the typical state of the roadway, suggests that the 310km should take 7 hours to drive. We were told leaving Fort Providence, though, that where the road is "usually a rollercoaster", there has recently been a lot of work done on it and it is in pretty good shape. We found that pot holes, big bumps, dips, and spots of gravel had been marked with orange cones and that, aside from a stop to let a bison cross in front of us and some roller-coaster-esque ups-and-downs, the road was quite driveable; even in an overloaded station wagon. We left Fort Providence at around 9:30 and arrived in Yellowknife at around 1:30.

Upon arriving we found excellent phở at the Vietnamese Noodle House,

...found our way to our first temporary home, a locum apartment next to the Stanton Territorial Hospital,

...and then visited the lovely folks whose home we will be staying in for the bulk of our time in YK, kindred spirits who made us feel very welcome, made great coffee, told us about their lives, and said goodbye-for-now with an offering of a piece of arctic reindeer, which we grilled for dinner:

So we're here! And we're having a great time! We have a great deal more to catch you up on, but we're getting closer. Stay tuned...

Oh! For those of you keeping track:

      Days of travel: 10

      Total kilometres driven thus far: 5235

      Cost of gas thus far: $704.84

...and we'll start counting again in a month-or-so when we hit the road again.