Meanwhile on Maui.....: And so ends another fabulous RV summer!

September 18

We’re just ended our second week at the ranch after our epic journey to the Northwest Territories; enjoyed the old ranch house with its built-in peace and quiet. The weather was sunny and cold – last night it hit 11ºF and yesterday’s high was 52ºF. Winter is definitely on its way. In fact, we’ve already seen snow twice and driven through a mini-blizzard. But I’m ahead of myself, aren’t I?

Our trip to the Far North was truly amazing, an unscheduled event that will forever be a highlight of our RVing life. Once we reached the Northwest Territories it was adventure all the way. We camped at Hay River one night, on the shore of Great Slave Lake, and at Ft. Providence on the mighty Mackenzie River. We crossed the river twice on the ferry and drove miles of arrow-straight road through the Mackenzie Bison Management area, saw a black bear, a wolf and three groups of enormous wood buffalo (much larger than their plains buffalo cousins farther south).

Cousin Brian and Hazel welcomed us to their Yellowknife home and provided guided tours of the town, the old gold mines, and surrounding area. They took us to the end of the road – literally – where a huge stop sign indicates that further travel involves a canoe in the summer or wait till dead winter when the ice road is open. And all around is tundra: stunted trees, outcroppings of granite, lakes, muskeg and, in winter, ice roads to the far-off diamond mines. We parked in their driveway, plugged in and planned to stay four nights. We stayed a whole week because Hazel arranged for us to fly to Inuvik, well above the Arctic Circle, and spend a night there in the land of the midnight sun.

Brian wasn’t able to go with us, so it was just the three of us flying out of Yellowknife on Canadian North one morning. An odd fact of flights to the northern communities: no security checks, no x-rays or baggage searches. Families saw each other off right at the tarmac, just like the old days. Our flight took us to Norman Wells, an oilfield town built on the banks of the Mackenzie not long ago. From there we flew northwest over thousands of square miles of tundra, which appeared to be mostly lakes and rock. A few tiny communities exist out there, connected by air in the summer and ice routes in the winter. But they’re hundreds of miles apart and only a few dozen people make their homes in each place.

Inuvik is on the Mackenzie Delta where Canada’s largest river begins its final descent to the Arctic Ocean. The town is built on permafrost, permanently frozen ground just six inches below the surface. A few scraggly trees grow in sheltered spots but there is no landscaping, and all utilities (gas, water, sewage and electricity) are above-ground in meandering wooden tunnels connecting all the buildings in town. We stayed in a clean and comfortable hotel ($204 for the night), ate in the hotel restaurant ($60 for three hamburgers with fries), rented a car for 24 hours ($100 plus $60 for the shuttle from and to the airport). We walked through the local supermarket and kept our hands in our pockets – milk was $10 a gallon; fresh produce was outta sight. Gas was $1.80/liter = $6.84/gallon US. It turned out we really didn’t need the car and could have walked everywhere, but who knew?

We made a point to join a tour of Our Lady of Victory church, aka the “Igloo Church” which was built in the 50s using a unique “raft” foundation of concrete and gravel to prevent the permafrost from melting beneath the building, the perpetual problem for buildings in the rest of the town. For more than 60 years this lovely little church has survived the long harsh winters without sagging or tilting.

Another tour was of the community garden housed in an old hockey rink. The plots are all in raised beds, of course, and the lengthy summer days provide enormous crops of everything: cabbages, beans, tomatoes, beets, squash, onions, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, and 10-foot tall sunflowers. Planting begins in May, the first harvest of some crops in July, a second harvest in late August. By mid-October the place is frozen solid; heating oil is too expensive to keep the garden going year-round. I did a mini-workshop on vermicomposting when I discovered a bucket of red wigglers in the tool area, and offered to hold more workshops if they wanted to fly me up there in, say, June after the snow melts!

We arrived back in Yellowknife Friday afternoon and packed up the RV for an early start the next morning, heading south to Alberta. Have you ever visited a place that was really hard to leave? NWT was such a place for us. Almost every night we were treated to fabulous displays of the Northern Lights (Yellowknife records more aurora displays than anywhere else on earth!); we bicycled everywhere we could in town and in the campgrounds; our fish dinners were fresh, right out of Great Slave Lake; and the feeling of vast open spaces was powerful.

Our trip back to Southern Alberta took a week with camping in High Level, Twin Lakes, Whitecourt, Breton and Carstairs before we landed in Claresholm for a couple of days visiting with Mom and Dad.

And then we were back at the ranch with Peter and Shane for the weekend. I fished and did well, thank you. We needed one more little camping trip so Jim and I spent three nights at Interlakes in the Kananaskis. And that’s where we decided: After eight summers of RVing, thousands of miles of travelling, hundreds of campgrounds and hours of reminiscing – the Kananaskis is the loveliest, finest camping area we’ve found. Rimmed by Rocky Mountains, deep fresh lakes, hiking trails that go on for miles, grizzlies, elk, moose, wolves, eagles and ravens everywhere. And it’s only two hours from the ranch…

We sure hope you’ve enjoyed our travel blog this summer. This week we celebrate my moms 90^th birthday and Mom and Dad’s 68^th anniversary – a big party is planned at the ranch. We’ll be spending five days in High River at Peter and Shane’s house before flying off to another paradise: our Maui home. I’ll add one more short essay to this blog, an explanation of our RVing method if you’re interested.

See you again next summer. Aloha.