Are the Northwest Territories ready for RV’s?	Back to the Current Issue Back to Features
Go find out and enjoy a new adventure! by Tony Robinson

Are you filled with the pioneering spirit? Do you want to see wide-open spaces, cross mighty rivers, experience native culture, and come to grips with an important part of Canada’s history? Then think about adventuring to Great Slave Lake and the valley of the MacKenzie River in the Northwest Territories. Forewarned is forearmed, someone once said. Having been there, we would like to pass on to you the benefit of our wisdom.

So what, in general terms, is this part of the Northwest Territories like? It is relatively flat, mostly below 200 meters in elevation, and covered with a mixed forest of poplars and evergreens. The summer weather is usually warm and dry, and wild fires are common. The north-eastern part is in the Canadian Shield, a glacier-scoured, rugged region of scrubby trees, bald outcrops of pink granite rock, and innumerable small lakes and ponds.

Communities are small and scattered – only four have populations in excess of 1,000. The inhabitants are mostly Dene Indians, and many of the villages they live in are now named after posts established by the fur traders in the early 19th century. Fort Liard, Fort Simpson, Fort Providence, Fort Smith and Fort Resolution are examples. Yellowknife has a population of 16,000, and besides being the Territorial capital and the centre of government, its economy depends on mining, transportation and tourism.

If you have already decided to organize a big rally, we must tell you that the Territories are hardly prepared for a massive influx of recreational vehicles. Private campgrounds are almost non-existent. The public ones are almost all small and primitive, and none have hookups. Showers and indoor plumbing are the exception rather than the rule. Few even have sanitary dumps or an RV-friendly water supply. So pack a shovel, pail, and funnel in case you can’t find these essential services when you need them. On the positive side, the fee for most campgrounds in 1997 was only $12.00, and some of them were free. Many were located near some interesting natural feature. Several had excellent interpretive centres, with knowledgeable people on staff to answer your questions about the displays of arts and crafts.

What is the highway system like? Some of the roads in the Territories are paved, but most are not. The gravel surfaces are usually well maintained and sprayed with a solution of calcium chloride to keep the dust down. But if you happen to get behind a tanker truck spreading the mixture of water and salt, or if it rains, you won’t believe how dirty your rig will get. The bigger towns have truck washes where you can get cleaned up, and in a pinch, you can scrape the mud off your windows, after it dries, with a stiff brush. It is wise to carry two spares and a tire repair kit, because garages are few and far between. For the same reason, always travel on the top half of your tank, and is prudent to carry extra fuel in a jerry can. You can get gas in most communities, even Wrigley, just three degrees south of the Artic circle, and about as far as you can go on summer roads. But you first have to find the native lady who has the keys to the pumps for the storage tanks.

You will be crossing some of the rivers on free ferries that can carry, at most, only 10 cars or four big trucks. The landings are simply made of the sandy silt on the banks, and maintained by front-end loaders run by the deck hands. It is difficult to pack this kind of material hard enough to bear the weight of a heavy vehicle without rutting. As a result, boarding and disembarking can sometimes be stressful events. Just pretend you are a truck driver, and don’t hesitate once you get your rig moving.

In the what-else-do-you-need-to-know department, expect flies in the summertime, lots of flies, swarms of flies – mosquitoes, black flies and horse flies – (the dragon flies are all right – they eat the others). At one point on our trip, we swear, the mosquitoes were so thick that 25 got in our rig every time we opened a door. Bring along lots of repellent, for what that is worth. If these pests are a problem for you, you can purchase a hat with netting attached that covers your face and neck – hot and stuffy, but effective.

You have probably already guessed that almost everything you buy will cost more than at home. Gas, for example, was over 70 cents a litre in 1997 at most stations in the Territories. If you are into photography, buy your films before you leave home and have them processed when you get back. Buy the outstanding native arts and crafts – from Inuit soapstone carvings to coloured pictures made by the Dene from tufted moose hair – in the smaller communities, rather than the bigger. You will get a better price and no less in quality. If you are like us, you may want to book into a motel now and then to get cleaned up. We can tell you that the more remote the community, the more expensive the rooms are, and the poorer the housekeeping. Reservations are recommended.

Whatever the hardships of traveling in the Territories, the rewards far outweigh them. Just to see Great Slave Lake, larger than Ontario or Erie, and the big rivers – the MacKenzie, the third largest in the world and over a kilometre wide in spots – are reasons enough to go. There are also impressive waterfalls, some of them easily accessible from the highway system. If they don’t satisfy you, you can charter an aircraft that will fly you to 91-metre-high Virginia Falls in Nahanni National Park, perhaps the wildest and most spectacular sight to be seen in the Territories. More elaborate tours to the park are also available, including canoe and hiking expeditions. You can take charters to remote villages and fishing lodges, and others just to get a bird’s-eye view of the north, if that is your interest. There is a wide variation in price for these flights, so check around. If your budget is limited, the wild flowers along the highways are free, varied and beautiful, and you can purchase a book along the way to help identify them.

You should see some unusual wildlife, and we certainly did, in Wood Buffalo National Park, one of the best areas for game viewing. Some 34 kilometres before we got to Fort Smith, we detoured off the highway onto a narrow track that took us to the Salt Plains overlook. It was perched on the edge of a steep escarpment, and below, the plains stretched off to the Slave River in the distance. The panel displays there informed us that salt oozes out of the ground at the bottom of the escarpment in such quantities that at one time, it was commercially exploited by the Hudson’s Bay Company. We hiked down the steep trail to the plains, 100 meters below the overlook, and at the bottom we were rewarded with the sight and sound of two Whooping cranes. They were about 100 metres away, and they were strutting through the long grass with heads down, foraging, looking more like small deer than birds. Occasionally, one would raise its head and long neck and bugle, a brittle, exciting territorial call that can be heard three kilometers away.

The next day, we drove south into Alberta, through Wood Buffalo Park to Peace Point. It was sunny and hot and the flies were ferocious, and they swarmed around the lone Wood buffalo we saw. It rolled in the dust on the side of the road for a few minutes to discourage the flies, then rose to its feet and sauntered down the road, looking very much like the largest North American land mammal it was supposed to be. We also saw a family of Sandhill cranes in a swamp, the chick already half the size of its parents, and an Artic loon having an afternoon nap in a beaver pond.

If you are a golfer, you are sure to enjoy the novelty of playing courses with sand or artificial greens. And then there is the golf course at Yellowknife, an extraordinary nine-hole layout that we played for about $25.00 each, including a power cart. The sign at the entrance and the scorecards featured the image of a raven with a golf ball in its beak, and a local rule provided that no penalty is incurred if one of these birds steals your ball. There was no grass on the fairways, other than a narrow collar around the greens, and the tee-heads and greens were covered with artificial turf. How to play such a course? From the pro shop, we rented a piece of artificial turf, on which we placed and played any ball that landed on the fairways (no closer the hole, of course). It was necessary to sneak up on the greens because any ordinary pitch shot would simply carom off them, and downhill putts were lightning fast.

Yellowknife, because it has several tall buildings, looks like a much larger city than it is. It has most services you might want, even a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop. While there, we took a dinner cruise on Great Slave Lake (tickets available at the first-class visitor centre). It had been cloudy all day, but as often happens in Yellowknife, we were told, it cleared up in the late afternoon. We made our way down to the docks over a paved road made so uneven by frost heaving that it just about threw us into orbit. Our ship, the 30-metre long “MV Norweta,” was berthed next to a busy marina crowded with sailboats and power craft, and we got the last available parking space. We climbed the gangway to the upper deck, and enjoyed the view of the city as the skipper took us slowly out to the islands at the head of Yellowknife Bay. From there, strain our eyes though we did, we could not see the far shore of the lake. As for the dinner, 30 of us sat down in the saloon on the upper deck, not quite knowing what to expect. We were not disappointed. The galley crew first plied us with drinks (not included in the price of the dinner), then served both cold and hot buffets followed by dessert and coffee. The food was excellent, the crew were fun (we thought maybe they’d been matching us, drink for drink), and the service was excellent.

We took a guided tour of the legislative buildings in Yellowknife, built in the round and cleverly furnished to reflect the various cultures of the northern people. There we saw large Inuit carvings, wall hangings, paintings and photographs, and a rug made of a polar bear skin gracing the floor of the legislative chamber. The wall behind the speaker's chair was made of zinc, the principal metal mined in the Territories, and the chairs were covered in seal skin. We also visited the Prince of Wales Northern Cultural Centre, large enough to contain sections devoted to wildlife, transportation, native arts and crafts. A.Y. Jackson, one of the Group of Seven, painted extensively in the Territories, and many examples of his work were hung on the walls.

We should not end this article without telling you that there are two ways to get there. The Liard Trail branches off the Alaska Highway 30 kilometres north-west of Fort Nelson, B.C., while the MacKenzie Highway begins at Grimshaw, Alberta. We made a circle trip of it, taking the first alternative on the way north and returning via the second. We drove about 3,500 kilometres in the Territories over a period of four weeks, about the right pace, we suggest, considering the state of the roads, and all there is to see and do.

We should also tell you that the government and the people of the Northwest Territories are getting ready for more visitors. Every year, highways are being improved and the pavement is being extended. As for campgrounds, we were approached by an enterprising native in Fort Simpson who questioned us closely about the camping needs of RV’ers. He had a piece of property near town and the resources, he said, to put in a first-class RV park, including full hookups. Perhaps it will be ready for you.

To help with your advance planning, write away for information packages to the

Department of Tourism, Box 1320, Yellowknife, NWT, X1A 2L9 (or phone toll free 1-800-661-0788),

and to the headquarters for

Wood Buffalo National Park, Box 750, Fort Smith, NWT, X0E 0P0.

And always take along a copy of The Milepost, the bible of travel in the north.

Oh, and by the way. You can’t get to Inuvik this way, except on ice roads in the wintertime. That is another story.