NWT Road Trip: Part II: Local Law Enforcement

Friday morning we took off from Manning, AB around 8am. Cricket drove first, and then I drove. Four hours of standard road-tripping ensued until we crossed the 60th parallel and passed into NWT at noon. We stopped at the visitor station there to have lunch by a little pond which pleased the ornithologists in Mika and Oz, and made Cricket happy because the frogs were calling. I think we were all high on the idea of finally getting into the Territory.


After lunch we continued north, and stopped at Alexandria Falls. I didn’t have any expectations for the Falls; if I’d had, they would have been blown away. It was this wide mass of churning, muddy water falling over a high ledge and sending mist into the air. Watching the water go over was mesmerizing and I could have stared at it in trance for hours.


This idiot decided to climb down to get a closer look. It was such a blatantly stupid idea, I couldn’t believe it – but it gives this picture some scale so you can see how large the Falls are:


After Alexandria Falls we tried to find the next waterfall on the route, Louise Falls. We followed signs but no dice. We decided we would try again on the way out. By this point Mika was driving and we were heading toward Wood Buffalo National Park. That was when the surreal happened. It began with an RCMP truck pulling up behind us. Mika was worried about getting pulled over for speeding (for the record, I think she speeds less than I do). The cops, however, just pulled out and passed us. We were all happily relieved, until a little bit down the road we saw the RCMP truck had pulled off into a little turnaround on the left hand side of the road. After we passed it, it pulled out and followed us. Shite! There was much “what do we do?” and decelerating, then the flashing lights went on and we were pulled over (going no more than 10km/h over, I might add). Both officers came to the car, one to Mika and one to Oz in the passenger seat. They wanted to see Mika’s license, which was in the trunk. Then the other officer asked to see Oz’s ID. Then mine, then Cricket’s. We exchanged troubled glances while he wrote down our information. The first officer was outside asking Mika questions like who owned the car, where we were from, where we were going, etc. At this point we were beginning to think we’d be okay. The officers were very young, and didn’t seem very familiar with Wood Buffalo National Park – suggesting a newness to the Territory. In fact, they had been confused by our rental car license plate and had pulled us over for that reason. After warning us about bears, they took off leaving us confused and just a little indignant. We imagined them high-fiving each other as they drove away, all proud of their big bad selves for pulling over a car full of chicks. Or something. We didn’t see them again, anyway.

Eventually we made it to the Park. Given that it’s the 2nd largest park in the world, it takes awhile to drive through. And given that it’s a gravel road most of the way…it takes an even longer while to drive through. We did see a bison, though. The only one we saw that weekend. I’m not going to post a picture because it was grazing the whole time and we couldn’t see its head. For those poor souls out there who have never seen a wood bison, you can see them here.

We ended that night in Fort Smith, NWT. We spent Saturday exploring the Park. More on that later.