After buttoning everything up there was no reason not to leave, so we headed out the door of the houseboat for the last time. I'm not sure I'll miss the off-grid potty, but the houseboat was a spectacular place to watch the Northern Lights. I left still thinking about the vivid display of the Aurora Borealis from the previous night.
We left - of course via the Ice Road - and headed into Yellowknife. First stop was Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. This is a fairly nice museum dedicated to First Nation's people as well as the overall history and heritage of the Northern Canada area and its history. There were a lot of interesting artifacts and tidbits. It was well worth the hour or two it took to take in everything.
From there we went to the NWT Diamond Centre. I was under the impression this was also a museum dedicated to the mining industry and specifically the diamond mining which occurs to this day in the Northwest Territories. While there was an informational video playing down a hallway with some pictures, we were herded away and told to go to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Weird...
From there we headed to the library to use their WiFi and as a home base since we had checked out of the houseboat. Sadly, the WiFi was beyond terrible to the point I hotspotted my phone for the few things I felt needed to be done.
Then it was down the street for an excellent lunch at the Black Knight Pub. There was only one waitress working and she was running around like crazy. I felt bad asking for the check, but the time on the Ice Road Spark parking meter was nearly up.
We wound around to get gas in the Ice Road Spark before heading back to the airport. Before turning into the airport SO said that we still hadn't seen the Aurora Village. With time to kill, we headed back out on the Ingraham Trail. We sparked down to the village, but once we got there we saw nothing but warning signs and private property placards. It was not a very welcoming village. We thought about driving in to take a look anyway, but were worried the Aurora cops might get all aurora mad if we did.
Back to the airport.
Unfortunately, I didn't fully recall the rental car agreement only gave us 200km and we went well over that. So that effing trip to the Aurora Village cost me about $10 Canadian. Not that it really amounts to much considering the cost of the whole trip, but there is a principle here. Or maybe there isn't.
We had to have the gate agent print boarding passes since online check-in didn't give me the option of e-boarding passes. At least they didn't cost us $10 Canadian...
Getting to the Yellowknife airport with ample time was definitely the right thing to do as the security area is very small with only one lane. The line got arrogantly long quickly.
And so the arduous journey home began. Yellowknife's airport is small. And as its population moved in to go about their separate journeys, the frontier feeling of Yellowknife turned decidedly more third world. It reminded me a lot of Hawaii - odd how two places so geographically different end up in a similar state.
The flight out of Yellowknife went well enough. There were several people on the flight south who were also on the flight north - so about four days in Yellowknife must be about right. Once in Calgary I deleted all the bookmarks and apps on my phone for forecasting the Northern Lights. But before that, I checked to see what the Kp index was around the time of the spectacular aurora the previous night.
The Kp was a solid six which does happen a few times a year. But having it happen at night with clear skies - and after three days that already had good auroras was like hitting the powerball on the lottery.
Continuing home through two more flights, we were exhausted but very happy to be done with airplanes for a while. I will give two thumbs up to WestJet that all the flights went well enough even with some weather and mechanical problems.
I've been thinking a lot about the Total Solar Eclipse last year and the Aurora Borealis on this trip. The solar eclipse is definitely rarer as the Northern Lights occur very frequently. But the solar eclipse was so defined and so short that it had to be experienced very deliberately - and the two and a half minutes made it seem like it was a rush to both watch it, the surrounding area, and get pictures, etc.
The Northern Lights are far more colorful and animated. And with several days to observe them, there was lots of time to take pictures or just watch. Yellowknife also offered so much other stuff that made the whole time spent so great.
I have a hard time saying one is better than the other. I guess I'll just have to go with admitting that I'm probably very fortunate to have experienced both the Total Solar Eclipse and the Aurora Borealis within a few months of each other.
The flight out of Yellowknife went well enough. There were several people on the flight south who were also on the flight north - so about four days in Yellowknife must be about right. Once in Calgary I deleted all the bookmarks and apps on my phone for forecasting the Northern Lights. But before that, I checked to see what the Kp index was around the time of the spectacular aurora the previous night.
The Kp was a solid six which does happen a few times a year. But having it happen at night with clear skies - and after three days that already had good auroras was like hitting the powerball on the lottery.
Continuing home through two more flights, we were exhausted but very happy to be done with airplanes for a while. I will give two thumbs up to WestJet that all the flights went well enough even with some weather and mechanical problems.
I've been thinking a lot about the Total Solar Eclipse last year and the Aurora Borealis on this trip. The solar eclipse is definitely rarer as the Northern Lights occur very frequently. But the solar eclipse was so defined and so short that it had to be experienced very deliberately - and the two and a half minutes made it seem like it was a rush to both watch it, the surrounding area, and get pictures, etc.
The Northern Lights are far more colorful and animated. And with several days to observe them, there was lots of time to take pictures or just watch. Yellowknife also offered so much other stuff that made the whole time spent so great.
I have a hard time saying one is better than the other. I guess I'll just have to go with admitting that I'm probably very fortunate to have experienced both the Total Solar Eclipse and the Aurora Borealis within a few months of each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment