Above the 60th-Welcome To the Northwest Territories

We made “it!” I know I keep saying this, but each time we hit a milestone on our route we sigh with accomplishment and share a conspiratorial grin; we are doing this! So we left Jasper in the wildfire smoke that got so dense the landscape virtually disappeared. We drove north, heading for Grande Prairie. We are beginning to rely on the Mile Post guidebook more and more. We generally are following the Deh Cho route to Yellowknife. We got rerouted due to fires and ended up going east before we could head north

We even had 24 hours of rain in Grimshaw on Lac Cardinal, yet the smoke from the fires continued to find us. We broke free as we headed into Fort Vermilion and enjoyed a fun stop at the visitors center, museum and historical re-creation featuring an educational pitch and putt. Thanks to the guidance of the museum manager, Steven Simpson, we ended up in a great campsite on the Peace River.

Thanks to the rain and dirt on the roads, we decided to move our bikes into the cab of the truck early and put the coolers on the bike rack. We are loving this One Up bike rack. It is super sturdy and swings handily out of the way for our stairs to our lofty camper to descend.

We crossed the 60th Parallel yesterday afternoon. Our arrival was heralded by a bizillion Bull Dogs (aka, horse flies). When we finally decided that we could not wimp out on getting a picture and ventured outside, we discovered the flies were not very interested in us. Maddie is not convinced that they won’t carry her away though.

We spent the afternoon exploring the Twin Falls on the Hay River. From our campground, there is a lovely trail that winds between Louise and Alexandra Falls. Disconcertingly, the trail is in disrepair where some of the viewpoints along the cliffs are caving in and there was plenty of bear scat on the trail keeping us on our toes.