2013/06 NWT trip - Lesser Slave Lake |
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Tuesday June 25th
We had a sunny morning for our drive out. The map showed that the road south, which goes through forest and swampland and no towns, was gravel, but it turned out to be newly surfaced, perfect blacktop, with the only obstacles some rickety bridges. Then, with no warning we were off the blacktop and into a ploughed field, at least that’s what it looked like. The road builders were getting it ready for more blacktop but they weren’t working because of the rain, so we had miles and miles of soggy mud, trying to keep the truck somewhere between stalling and fishtailing. We had one scary broadside-on moment but luckily snow-driving techniques work in mud too. After an hour or two of this, we emerged onto blacktop again and we began to see some civilization, or at least some oil and gas well machinery and workcamps. We stopped for lunch and were marooned in the camper while a thunderstorm washed the worst of our mud off.
We were headed for a park on Lesser Slave Lake; having seen the Great Slave Lake 400 miles north, I thought we should at least drop in on its sister. Just before the park we saw a wolf cross the road in front of us, the first we’ve seen in the wild, though we’ve heard them back in Minnesota. We arrived
at the Marten River campground in fine drizzle.
It’s called the “lesser” lake as it’s only 50 miles long compared to the “great’s” 300 miles. We took a walk in the drizzle along its sandy beach; it looked to be a great spot for kids on a nicer day. The fishing is supposed to be really good too; this guy had just hooked one, and some of my colleagues in Minnesota would fly to the lake on fishing trips. The shoreline was littered with tree trunks, signs of some big wave action at times. We came back through the woods, a big mistake as mozzies just love drizzle!
Wednesday June 26th
The drizzle turned to heavy rain overnight and by morning we had drizzle again. There were other parts of the park we could drive to and I had the really dumb idea of driving to the top of Marten Mountain and looking out at the view of the lake a thousand feet below. It turned out to be a mud road, deeply rutted with water rushing down through the ruts. Long before the top we were in cloud so there was no view. Coming down was a real joy, but that’s what 4wd low-range bottom gear is for, I guess.
We filled up with diesel in the town of Slave Lake; for obvious reasons they drop the “Lesser” for its name. The town’s houses looked brand new; most of the town was destroyed by a catastrophic forest fire in 2011.