Faye and Maciek's Adventures in the frosty Canadian North
The river stopped yesterday. Two days ago, this was the Mackenzie at sunset (3:30pm):
Then, one day later, frozen solid. I’ve been told that people will likely start crossing it within the next few days.
These days, sunrise is at 10:30am, and sunset is at 3:45pm. Both occur very gradually, resulting in hours of pastel-coloured light shining through hoar frost-covered trees. The temperature has dropped since last week and is now hovering around -25°C.
There’s a new shop in town competing with the Northern. They’ve been selling a few items at intermittent hours since we moved here, but they recently expanded to a full shop with regular hours, aisles, a deli meat counter, and a wider selection of meat and vegetables than the Northern.
Perhaps a bit awkwardly, the new store is called BJ Services.
Here’s the cooler section when it’s fully stocked:
After watching a bit of the Ice Pilots show, I started wondering if any of Ice Road Truckers was filmed up here too. I’ve never seen it, but I assumed it was set further north. It turns out the first season is based out of Yellowknife, mostly driving northeast towards the diamond mines, but they go to Deline in episode 9, which means that they have to drive through Tulita. In later seasons, they drive the road from Inuvik to Tuk, the Dalton Highway in Alaska, the Dempster Highway, and Manitoba’s Ice Roads. Another show you can watch to learn more about our life up here!