Another long update: The bugs, the bugs!

We're in Yellowknife, back in a hotel again. Quite the little metropolis, Yellowknife. We've already done laundry and we're treating Eva to a spa treatment - car wash, oil change, tire inflation, the whole deal. She's been a trooper. By the way, my cell phone doesn't work after all. And I've been able to receive but not send email. So if you're trying to reach us - send email, and we'll find a way to get back in touch.

Bugs, bison and bears. That about sums it up.

Wood Buffalo National Park straddles the Northwest Territories and Alberta, and so we left Hay River for a 170-mile drive, half of which was dirt road, destined for the town of Fort Smith, just shy of Alberta. There are just miles and miles and MILES of forest up here. We saw bison (of course), and an adorable family of black bears (a mama with two young cubs), and a lot of sandhill cranes.

The town of Fort Smith is at yet another historically significant river town, a major portage around three impressive and deadly sets of rapids: Pelican Rapids, named for the birds who nest there in huge numbers; Mountain Rapids, named for its steep portage; and Rapids of the Drowned, which is probably self-explanatory.


Despite being 170 miles down a dirt road, Fort Smith has 2500 people. It has a nice feel to it, with long riverside walkways, an historic Anglican church, and a modern Catholic cathedral. We stayed at Queen Elizabeth Territorial Park, just outside town. The NWT territorial parks, so far as we can tell, are a wonder. Spacious and open, with tidy blue buildings and showers that are clean, hot – and free! And yet we’ve had them virtually to ourselves so far.

This may be partly due to the afore-mentioned Record Year for Bugs. Enormous horse flies, small black flies, and mosquitoes abound. In Hay River I rigged up a set of screens for the van’s side doors, using my McGiver-like skills to redeploy a baby stroller mosquito net, a roll of packing tape, and two small bungies. We have mosquito netting we can hang over the picnic table, with the aid of well-placed trees and a lot of rope.

However, the first place we really needed to use our mosquito headnets was at Pine Lake, further into the Alberta portion of Wood Buffalo Park. Instantly upon leaving the car, we were covered in mosquitoes. I mean covered, like a sheet of brown on our pants and shirts and the dogs’ fur. The head net kept them mostly off my face, but the buzzing sound was overwhelming. The dogs were hell-bent on a swim in the lake, which they got:


But by then I was virtually in a panic attack from the sensation of being SWARMED. It was a darned pretty lake, but we didn't end up spending much time there.

In fact, though we’ve seen a lot of sights – beautiful waterfalls, river gorges, salt plains left behind from an inland sea trapped here tens of millions of years ago –


it’s often a quick trip in and out of the car. The campgrounds aren’t bad, but many of the sights are near water, which means bugs. Oddly enough, for the sheer volume of mosquitoes, I have relatively few bites. The dogs certainly attract the bugs, but don’t seem overly disturbed by them, although one of Nelly’s eyes has been swollen from bites. Toby likes to climb under the picnic table inside the mesh, but Nelly prefers to lounge outside and breath freely. We have some all-natural spray that we use on them, which seems to help. The weather has been hot, unseasonably hot, which is all the more uncomfortable since we then have to wear long sleeves and pants for the bugs.


Often we nap during the peak of afternoon heat and subsequent thunderstorm, which brings welcome cool.

So after a couple days in Wood Buffalo, we did the long drive to Yellowknife, with an overnight stop at Lady Evelyn Falls (again, beautiful waterfall, charming campground).

The drive to Yellowknife involved a ferry across the Mackenzie River, and one of our longest stretches of town-less road, and a lot more bison. We wondered how the dogs would respond to bison. They view deer and elk as potential prey, but are unfazed by horses after years of sharing hiking trails with them. It turns out - they are very excited at the sight of bison. Very, very excited. But I'll write more about that later. As always - a few more photos here.