There used to be an expression “As fake as Canadian diamonds….” (Long story, involving Jacques Cartier mistakenly bringing back bags of worthless quartz to the New World.) No one says it anymore—not since a prime strike in 1991 launched Canada’s Northwest Territories, whose capital was built on gold and named for copper, into the diamond business with some of the finest, bloodless specimens on Earth.
It’ll surprise you that way, Canada’s boreal wilderness stockyard. You’ll find nature on a grand scale here—North America’s deepest lake, a park the size of the Netherlands, ice roads hundreds of kilometres long over land where cars ought to have no legitimate business. And on winter nights, a celestial light show James Cameron could only dream of replicating—the aurora borealis.
“Most Canadians have never seen that landscape,” writes Rudy Wiebe, imagining the first meeting between British explorers and the local Dene Aboriginals. “Yet I see it as being at the centre of our national psyche. That’s the roots of our world, right there.”
A spirit runs through it. Many make pilgrimages to Yellowknife in hopes of catching a glimpse of the magical, mystical aurora in action. And here, pretty much every stone is attached to stories in local First Nations mythology. Stumbling home down Ragged Ass Road (yep, that’s really the name) after a long night at the Gold Range Tavern, you might feel as if the sky was magically mapping the inside of your skull.
Some of this northern Arctic seaboard was charted by the ill-fated Sir John Franklin, who ran into food-supply problems on that first Arctic expedition and became known back in Britain as “the man who ate his boots.” These days he’d just take his men for a Baron of Musk Ox sandwich at the Wildcat Café. You can find stuff like that in Yellowknife: gems pulled not from the ground, but from the imagination of the locals. They’ll draw on years of in-situ knowledge as they take you canoeing through the canyons of the Nahanni River or rafting on the Coppermine, or fly fishing in Wood Buffalo National Park. Golf you can figure out on your own.
Northwest Territories in a nutshell:
NWT nickname: “The land beyond words” (Rudy Wiebe, The Discovery of Strangers)
Who lives here: About half is First Nations, including Inuit; the other half is white-European ancestry.
Local delicacies: Caribou, arctic char, pickerel; try the Great Slave Lake whitefish fillet at the Ptarmigan Inn
Immortal song: “The Martin Hartwell Story” by Stompin’ Tom Connors
Don’t miss: Go skating on Frame Lake during the Caribou Carnival (March)
Check out: giant castle of snow at the Snowking Annual Winter Festival (also March)
Bop to: Traditional music at Yellowknife’s Aboriginal Day (June)
Epic journeys: Rent a rec-vee and drive the Dempster Highway to Dawson City, YT; head to the Mackenzie Delta to try to see the porcupine caribou migration
***Northwest Territories Day at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is Feb. 19.
www.spectacularnwt.com/
video:
Unique Dining in Yellowknife: Wildcat Café
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o34n1jzx9I
Repas sans pareil à Yellowknife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3McnesP6h4
Northern Ice: Diamond Capital of North America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaZu5OdUCh0
Class V Kayaking on the Slave River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VZXEeL1nLw
Golf, Northwest Territories Style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaxOiuzgqgU
Nahanni National Park Reserve: Virginia Falls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMXKvXjjxT4
