Yellowknife, NWT trip, Day 4

Up around 8:00 and went to shower. Beautiful blue skies.

I made breakfast and bacon and eggs and decided to reorganize my car to fit more firewood. They have firewood for sale here, I plan on buying as much as I can fit into my car.

After rearranging and packing everything back up, I headed to the office and bought wood. $5 for as much as I could fit into my car. Pretty good deal, and I had made significantly more more in my trunk by rearranging.

I headed off to Fort Providence, which is less than 100km away. Very short day for me today. I crossed over the Deh Cho Bridge, a new bridge crossing over the mighty Mackenzie river. The bridge is just over 1km long and replaces a ferry crossing (in summer) and an ice crossing (in winter). It opened late last year.

Got to Fort Providence Territorial park and picked a spot. There are a handful of other campers here. When I went to register, the park guy said "I hope you have wood". I said I do. He said "Good, because I ran out." Good thing I stocked up on wood this morning at the other campground.

I unpacked my tent and got setup. I noticed one of my rear tires seemed low, so checked it and it was. All the wood in the trunk! There was an Shell service station just back on the highway about 5 km back, so went back there and they had a air and pumped it up and checked the rest of the tires for good measure. This is the last service for 300km, until Yellowknife. And there is no cell service for the whole way either, until Yellowknife. Big trip.

At the gas station is also a cafe and a store and a bar. I bought a Jones soda pop and sunflower seeds. The bar was closed, but will presumably be open in the evening, so I may go for a beer. This gas station is popular with truckers, going to/from Yellowknife. They can stop here and get coffee, a bite to eat before heading on.

I must talk about the bugs. There are these tiny flying bugs, they are incessant. They horde around you. They don't bite or anything, but they are SO ANNOYING! They fly in your eyes, in your ears, in your hair. I've swallowed a few. There's nothing you can do about them, but they seem temperature dependent. As I was cooking breakfast this morning, there were none, but as it warmed up, WHAM, all of a sudden they're all over you. At the new campsite, as I was setting up, swarming me. Later in the day, it must have got too hot for them, because all of a sudden they're all gone. I'm sure as the day cools they'll come back. The only other saving grace is wind, even the slightest breeze will keep them away.

Back at the campsite, I walked down to the Mackenzie river and sat on the shore, skipped rocks and searched for fossils.

I gave Lisa a call on Skype. I'll call her again when I get to Yellowknife tomorrow. She may be able to get off work early as well, and we can hang out.

Started a fire around 6:00 and did up some chorizo and made Kraft Dinner with sausage. Yum. I had a random plastic bottle with some sort of soap or detergent, so I used it to clean the dishes. I think it was shampoo. Sure smelled like it.

The campground is filling up. Lots of campers coming in later in the afternoon and evening.

Got an email from Lisa, she is going to try to get Thursday and Friday off and we'll do a kayak trip up the Yellowknife river for a night. That would be cool.

It was a perfect evening. Clear skies, no wind, campfire, beautiful stars, nice temperature (sweater weather). I stayed up quite late, almost midnight before retiring.