2013/06 NWT trip - Fort Providence |
|||||
We drove a fair distance to Wallace Creek, another place on the ranger’s map, more layered colouful rock, more fossils, and a sequence of pretty cascades and whirlpools, similar to some places we’ve been in Australia.
Beyond there the gravel road was wet as it was being graded. The truck and camper were soon covered with fine mud. We were happy to get to the junction where we turned north onto NWT 3, the Frontier Trail; this is the blacktopped main road between Edmonton and Yellowknife and much busier. We were seeing several vehicles an hour instead of a handful per day.
 |
Wallace Creek (1.53) |
 |
|---|
We crossed the brand new Deh Cho bridge over the Mackenzie River. Before 2012, the mile-wide river was crossed by ferry in the 
summer and ice road in the winter. The problem was the shoulder seasons, break-up in the spring and freeze up in the fall, when no one could cross the river for weeks at a time. The now-unemployed ferry, the Merv Hardie, was sitting high on the mud.
|
Deh Cho bridge (3.20) |
 |
|---|
We stopped across the other side to take some pictures. The river flows out of the Great Slave Lake just a few miles away, and it’s a mile wide at its source. By the time it’s traveled a thousand miles to its delta at the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea, it’s forty miles wide.
It was time to camp so we drove the side road into Fort Providence, a few miles down the river. It’s a tidy little town, a Slavey community, with a surprisingly old Roman Catholic church; it dates from 1861, a few years older than Hope’s similar church.
I should probably explain some of these names. The local Indians belong to one of three major Dene nations (pronounced Denneh); these are the Chipewyan, the Tlicho, and the Slavey. Those of mixed race are Metis. The Chipewyan used to carry copper knives, hence the name of Yellowknife. The Slavey gave their name to the Great Slave Lake, nothing to do with slavery. Needless to say it’s much more complicated than my summary!
We camped at the territorial park just outside town and found to our surprise that we had a powered site. I sat outside, watching a bald eagle patrolling the river, until the bugs got too bad even for eagle watching.