Thursday, February 01, 2007

HEADING TO THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

  
Well, here is the information on our new trip. We left Canada Tuesday morning and drove into New York Mills, Minnesota to load up with 3 boats. These boats are headed to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. If you are not familar with this town, or area, let me give you some information.

It is situated at the edge of the Arctic, in the heart of the wilderness. Yellowknife is the Captial of the Northwest Territories, and home to about 20,000 people. Located on the shores of the Great Slave Lake, only 318 miles south of the Arctic Circle, it is the most northern city in the Northwest Territories.

Built on gold, and growing with diamonds, Yellowknife has three operating diamond mines since the discovery of diamonds in 1991. Yellowknife has the coldest winters, recording an average nighttime temperature during December, January and February, of -21.8 degrees. It is also the coldest city with a mean annual temperature of 22.2 degrees.

So there you have it, our next great adventure. You gotta love it! How else would we have had the opportunity to see this area of the world had it not been for driving a truck and being sent there? But the question I have is why do they need these fishing boats in the winter when everything is frozen over? Speaking of which, we will have to drive over a frozen river to even get to the town. I hope to survive that little adventure and write about it on my next entry.

  
We are lucky enough to be traveling with another marine division driver from our Company on this trip. He has made this journey once before, about 3 years ago. Since it is such a remote area, it sure is nice to have company in case there might be any problems.

  
Speaking of mining, we observed several rigs like this mining the fields just south of Regina, Saskatewan. The picture doesn't even come close to showing just how massive it is.

  
One last comment on our trip so far. It has been cold, and I do mean cold! I know, nothing like it will be in Yellowknife, but the good news is, as far as any weather reports go, no mention of any snow. We did experience high winds today which had the snow blowing across the highway. We will keep our thoughts positive that this clear weather will last at least until we get back into civilization.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

With a cousin who was a former speaker in Parliament I would think the Canadian goverment should roll the red carpet out and play Oh Canada when you cross the border. It seems only fitting.

Pat said...

yellowknife? across an iced over river. Does that make you Ice Road Truckers?

I'm glad you were with another truck. Can't wait to read the next post.

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