When we arrived in Yellowknife in the morning of June 17th, our first thought was: well, we're definitely not going to stay here very long... It's a really small city, and after looking at some maps in the information centre, we were quite sure we'd visit everything in 2 days. And then we started talking to the lady at the counter, and she told us there were many festivals coming up. We missed the Beer Barge festival, so I thought that was it for the fun to be had, but there were still a few things coming up! We thought we'd look around during the day and get a feel for the place before deciding on a plan.
Day 1 - June 17th
First things first: we needed a picture of Rhino with the Yellowknife sign! So we drove back towards the airport and snapped a shot of it, and then we hiked up the short trail to the Bristol Monument, the first wheeled plane to touch down at the North Pole.
Our second stop was the NWT Legislative Assembly, where we took a free tour (with a surprisingly large group). The NWT is one of only two jurisdictions in Canada to have a consensus system of government, meaning there are no political parties, just independents! You can't see it clearly in the first picture, but the outside of the building was inspired by the igloos, and every aspect of it was purposefully put there to remind the members of the different people they represent, and to show everything the North has to offer. The picture with the bear pelt shows the inside of the Assembly, and the one next to it, the outside: it has glass panels so that anyone can see what's happening in there. You can also see the mace (it has a diamond on the tip!) and a beautiful painting in the caucus room. I really recommend taking a free tour if you go, there was so much to learn!
Also, on that day, we met another couple from Drummondville! We talked for a bit, and we learned they were spending the next few months exploring all of Northern Canada and Alaska. It was really surprising to meet people from our hometown here!
As the campground closest to downtown didn't have operational showers, we decided to drive to Prelude Lake Territorial Park, about 30 minutes from Yellowknife on the Ingraham trail. The road between downtown Yellowknife and there was really bumpy: better have good clearance with your car for this one! But it's really pretty, and there were a lot of nice lookouts on the way. We even found a huge beaver dam with a Canadian flag on it: definitely the secret fort of the Beaver Overlords controlling Canada.
When we got to the park, we met Bruce, the park attendant (or manager, still not sure) and a really nice dude who happened to know some French and seemed very happy to have Quebecers on the campground. He even played some Paul Piché on his guitar for us! He booked what he claimed was the best sites for three nights, and then off we went. Well, he was right: we were camped just beside a big old rock that we could just scramble over to have the greatest view of Prelude Lake. The sunsets on the following days were just absolutely crazy, too. Some of the pictures here look foggy, but that's because we were getting smoke from the High Level wildfire on the first day... By the way, those pictures of sunsets were taken at 9:58 pm (June 18th) and 10:52 pm (June 19th). Around the solstice, Yellowknife gets 20 hours of daylight, with the sun and all, and then 4 hours of twilight, meaning yeah the sun is down, but it's just below the horizon line so you can see outside really really clearly. As you can imagine, sleeping in the car required us to be crafty!
As we were eating dinner seated on the rock that evening, we were absolutely stunned when we realized we could hear a conversation from far away... on the lake below! I don't know why, but with the acoustics of the place, we could hear people very clearly even when they were in the middle of the lake with the boat engine running... Fascinating! After that first day, we knew we'd be staying in Yellowknife longer than we initially thought.
Day 2 - June 18th
The plan for day 2 was to visit the downtown area of Yellowknife and Old Town. After a good breakfast and a nice, hot shower, we took the road back to Yellowknife and stopped first at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, which is a museum that's free to visit. There were a lot of different exhibits, including the different animals of the NWT, artifacts from the First Nations who live there, even stuff from the NWT Mounted Police! On the pictures you can see a polar bear and arctic fox (I love how gory and realistic they make their exhibits), a fox and muskrat pelt, a prehistoric bison skull, a bag made from a loon, and an enormous mooseskin boat.
After our visit there, we stopped for food and beer at the NWT Brewing Company. As a side note, expect things (including food) to be just a little more expensive everywhere here, since a lot of it has to be shipped. It reminded us of Iceland, in fact, but not that expensive!
Then we were off to visit the Old Town. One thing I had been looking forward to was walking down the Ragged Ass Road, a road with a sign so often stolen that they've turned it into a whole line of merch! We also stopped at the Down to Earth Gallery and at the Gallery of the Midnight Sun, the latter being our favourite. There was even an aurora "metre" outside the gallery! There's also McAvoy Rock right in front of the gallery: it symbolizes understanding and cooperation between the different peoples of the North. We saw many different historic buildings such as Weaver and Devore Trading, a general store established in 1936. There were also many floatplanes everywhere!
We then climbed atop the Rock to see the Bush Pilots Monument and get a view of the whole city. To give you an idea, the rock is 6 storeys high... yup, except for a few hotels downtown (as you can see in the second picture), everything is small here! And you can see in the last picture that some houses just appear to be floating on the lake... well, that's because they are! These people live off the grid, and since they're not on the land, there are no taxes to pay either. It seems likes a really hardcore way of life, though!
We then drove back to the downtown area to enjoy the Farmer's Market at Somba K'e Civic Plaza, right beside the information centre. It was pretty nice, and people quickly filled the park once it got started. We got ourselves some delicious pastries for cheap and walked along the lake and through the Garden of Hope.
We then decided to head back to the campground and enjoy some quiet time watching the lake and relaxing at our usual spot on the rock.
Day 3: June 19th
First stop of the day: the NWT Diamond Centre! The staff were extremely welcoming, and we were treated to a private tour of the little exhibit about diamonds and mines in the North. We were even offered hot chocolate! We learned a lot about the process of extraction and the logistics of operating a mine in the North. We were shown the details of the Black Label cut, which is unique to the brand Forevermark. You can see in the pictures below the perfect and complex symmetry of their diamonds (surrounded by a red filter). I even got to try on a $175,000 diamond! Almost came home with it, too. 🤷
We were then told that later in the afternoon, there was a diamond polishing presentation, so we went for food at the Black Knight Pub, which we really recommend. Portions are huge, prices are good, and the decorating is awesome! We then went back to the Diamond Centre and met our friends from Drummondville again, and we were given a demonstration of the diamond cutting and polishing process. We could even try it ourselves! The specialist told us that depending on the quality and size of the diamond, it can take weeks or even months to finish a diamond. He said the longest he'd spent on a single diamond was 6 months! Needless to say, we didn't see the whole process, but it was very informative.
We also learned we could get a free parking pass at the visitor centre, which allows you to park anywhere with a parking metre for free as long as you respect the time limits, so we went there afterwards. Then we parked close to the airport and went to Fred Henne Territorial Park (when you go with your car you need to pay for a day pass, but not if you're on foot) to do the Prospector's Trail loop. Once again, we were awed by the scenery, and the views of the lake were absolutely amazing. We almost got lost at some point, but hey, side trails are fun. 😁 Joel was also very happy to find Gandalf's staff... 🧙♂️
After the trail, the Wildcat Cafe seemed like a really good idea (I took the picture of the cafe you see here on Day 2, which was quite cloudy). When we got there, we met our friends once again, around a beer this time. The picture with the four of us was taken around 9 pm, so yes, we were having a beer on a terrace out in the blazing sun at 9 in the evening! What an experience.
After that, on the way back to Prelude Lake, hubby and I could not resist a stop at Prosperous Lake for a bite and some "sunset" watching on the dock. That picture was taken just a little before 10 pm...
Day 4 - June 20th
Well, last night was our last at Prelude Park, so we decided to try the Nature Trail hike before we left. The trail was really nice and had interpretive panels on the way. We had great views of the lake, saw some weird, flaking, opalescent rocks, beautiful flowers... all that with minimal effort! After the trail was the drive back on Ingraham Trail, and this time we took a picture of the nicest section of the road to give you a feel for the place. It's so unique here!
We went for a quick lunch in Old Town at Bullock's Bistro, where we shared a plate of fried fish. The whole place has a grungy feel to it, and although the food was ok, it was in our opinion a little too expensive for what it was. It's still a cool place to check out, though.
After much deliberation the day before, we decided to pay ourselves a little luxury experience: a sightseeing tour on a floatplane with Ahmic Air! We got a private tour with a skilled pilot, and it was so amazing to see that unique landscape from the sky! Joel was also really happy to sit in the copilot seat. 👨✈️ Picture descriptions in order: Joel being a good copilot, Cameron Falls, some random pretty lake, the community of Dettah, the Yellowknife golf course, and downtown Yellowknife. And in that last picture you can see our trusty Beaver aircraft just after landing! We had a blast!
We then walked around the downtown area to shop a little for souvenirs. We checked out the Ragged Ass Road Store, Northern Images which specializes in Inuit art, and lots more random souvenir shops. We bought some little things for the family, and by the time we had finished, the Festival on Franklin was all set. All kinds of stands were set up along the street, which was now closed to cars. Whether it be food, adventure tours, tie-dye shirt making or water balloon fights, there was something for everyone! We explored a while, and then opted to give Sushi North a try (pretty good, with reasonable prices). We had booked an Airbnb in the south part of the city for two nights, so after our little dinner, we went straight there. That was an experience, too, as it was in a section of the city where water access is on a tank system, so water is limited! They fill in the tanks only once every week, so you better watch out for your water consumption, like, 5-minute showers maximum... We found solace in the blackout curtains, though, and slept through the night like logs.
Day 5 - June 21st
For the first time in (it seemed) forever, we slept in that morning and had a really late breakfast. We were now all set for the longest day of the year, the summer solstice! By the time we were ready to head out, National Indigenous Peoples Day was already well underway, but we got there just in time for the most interesting parts. The lineup for the free food was so long we decided not to go right away, but instead grabbed a seat to watch the performances. We got to witness Inuit throat singing for the first time:
... saw how close people are here to their Native roots as musicians from the Dettah community sang and played the drums:
... and thought we heard a little piece of our own culture in the Métis dancing and fiddling. We ended up spending (again) much more time here than we originally thought we would. There was a real community feeling to the event, and they were handing out freshly baked bannock, a kind of sweet bread/pancake, so we got to try some (delicious!). We also were lucky enough to get some grilled whitefish along with that!
After going back to the Airbnb to get ready for our next activity, we headed back to Old Town to meet our guide at Bluefish Services for an evening fishing trip. While we were waiting for him to finish gutting the (enormous) trouts from his previous trip in the afternoon, we met an old German guy who, we learned, came here 50-some years ago to work in the mines some time after the war. And boy did we learn stuff about the frontier life! He learned to pilot a bushplane on his own, and he didn't have a license for the longest time because "who ever's gonna stop somebody midair to ask for a piloting license anyway". 😲 The guy was really great, and when it was time to get in the boat, we were genuinely sad to have to stop the conversation.
We were two boats together, one with our guide and some friends of his, and the other with us and the guide's brother. He showed us how to cast (yeah, it had been more than 15 years since our last fishing experience...), how to remove weeds from the hook, and then we started fishing, catch-and-release. I kid you not, it didn't even take 5 minutes before the first fish caught on. And my reaction was: PIKE!! It's a pike! I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but I'd heard everyone say how you need special equipment to fish pike, how dangerous they are, etc., and here I was with a pike on the line after minimal effort. And from there, the race was on. Joel got the biggest fish (of course it got away before the picture...), but I caught the highest number, so we decided it was a tie. I never thought we would have this much fun, especially hubby! Our guide's brother was really awesome, too, as a teacher and as a person, so the whole experience was one big bubble of happiness. I even earned the title of "Master Caster"! 🎣💪
And then came the best part: our guide announced they had caught "good pike" on their end, so we'd have a fish fry dinner! We headed to a little island and set up for dinner on the shore. We were given beer, and as we chatted with the guide's friends, we realized there was a pattern in the stories we heard: people who come here for a short visit very often end up staying here. I can't imagine myself living here during the winter, but I can definitely understand how someone can fall in love with this place. Both my husband and I found ourselves transfixed by the beauty and omnipresence of nature here. And let me tell you, that evening, we ate the freshest fish you can ever have if you're not going to take a bite out of it as you reel it out of the lake. Coupled with that midnight sun, it was just magical.
We were back on the shore a little after 11 pm, and after giving everyone our heartfelt thanks, we went back to our Airbnb for a night filled with sweet dreams.
The next day was departure day, so after a quick grocery and gas stop to refill for the long road ahead, we hit the road again, this time for the Great Sandhills in the southwest of Saskatchewan. The road back was pretty uneventful except for the bison on the road, so I'll spare you the boring details. Next time I'll tell you all about the vast sand dunes of Saskatchewan! Stay tuned, folks! 💜
TL;DR: Boy, where to start... Yellowknife was a real surprise, and ended up being in our top favourites of the trip. We even met a couple from our hometown there! You should go around the summer solstice to experience the longest day of the year and celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day. Definitely take a guided tour of the NWT Legislative Assembly, and take advantage of the free admission to Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Fred Henne Territorial Park has a great hiking trail, but for camping we recommend talking to Bruce at Prelude Lake Territorial Park. Check out the famous Ragged Ass Road, get a view of the city from the Bush Pilots Monument, try your hand at diamond cutting at NWT Diamond Centre and treat yourself to a floatplane tour. But, our favourite activity of all was the fishing trip with fish fry dinner on the shore from Bluefish Services! All that was well worth the 3000+ kilometers driven to get there and back again!
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