2013/06 NWT trip - Yellowknife |
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Sunday June 16th Fathers Day
It was a bright sunny morning, perfect for yesterday’s hikes, but we had chores to do, and were headed back to Yellowknife, Sandie to the Laundromat and me to chase a tyre problem we’d noticed; one of the rear outside tyres was looking soft. I hadn’t been keen to investigate amongst the mud and mozzies, but the parking lot was perfect. The outside tyre turned out to be fine but the inside one was flat. No tyre places were open on a Sunday so we headed back to the Dancing Moose for lunch. 
I’d seen the Northern Heritage Centre on the city map but it was still hard to find, with no signposts and little parking space. Admission 
was free and it turned out to be a superb museum, really well done, with lots about the natïve peoples and the area’s geology and animals, the history of the gold and diamond mines, and a collection of old boats and planes and snowmobiles.
There was even a tent there from the Fort McPherson Tent and Canvas company. A decade ago the owner of that company told us that he couldn’t take the darkness of the Arctic winter, so he flew south each November. Where in the south? – 
Winnipeg!
We walked around downtown Yellowknife, reflected in this picture, but nearly all the stores were closed so we returned to the Fred Henne campground and took the same campsite we’d used on Thursday.
Monday June 17th
We were off early to Canadian Tire. The workers there were friendly but perhaps not the sharpest pencils in the box; jacking up the body of a one ton truck, rather than the axle, will not get the back wheels off the ground. Eventually they got the job done, at a reasonable price. We made a quick search in town for souvenirs, but everything seemed to be focused on skyscrapers and polar bears and the northern lights, so we hoped to have better luck elsewhere. I was looking for waterfall postcards.