2018/07 Arctic Part 2 - Engineer Creek |
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Later that morning we crossed the Arctic Circle. On our way north we’d had rain, wind, and lightning strikes here. This time we had a clear view of the Richardson Mountains.
We took pictures of each other. Sandie’s photo shows that it was warm enough for her to discard fleecies and gloves. 
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Arctic Circle (0.48) |
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Sandie spotted this picture on one of the display boards. The two adults are James and Maureen Pokiak. Back in 2004 Maureen served us lunch at their home in Tuk. She fed us caribou stew, bannock, dried and smoked whitefish, dried whale meat (miptu), and smoked blubber (muktuk). She also told us the amazing quantity of food their family would get through in a year: two whales, seventy snow geese, twenty caribou, seals when available, and hundreds of fish. We didn’t get to meet her husband James, but Scottish entertainer Billy Connolly did in his Journey to the Edge of the World TV series; he and James went fishing.
Our next stop was at the bridge over the Eagle River. The river features in the other great story of the North, the “Mad Trapper of Rat River”. Back in the 1930s the trapper was accused of robbing others’ trap lines. He shot and wounded one of the Mounties sent to question him. The Mounties blew his cabin apart with dynamite, but he kept shooting and drove them back. The trapper fled and the hunt was on. He confused his pursuers by wearing his snowshoes backwards, but eventually they caught up with him and a constable was killed in the gun battle. He escaped again, but an RCMP plane spotted him on the frozen Eagle River and that’s where he died in the final shootout.
We filled up with diesel and propane at Eagle Plains, in much better weather this time. All was confusion and chaos as four or five vehicles came in at the same time and most of the drivers were confused by the odd pumping facilities, not realizing they needed to wait for the attendant. He managed to keep his cool and manage three customers at a time. 
There were patches of these unidentified pink bells around our nearby lunch stop 
We stopped again at the escarpment viewpoint over the valleys of the Ogilvie and Peel rivers and the distant Ogilvie Mountains. It was drier and warmer than on our trip north, and our pictures were a bit clearer.
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Escarpment (0.18) |
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We left the plains and entered the Ogilvie Mountains, also clearer without the rain. Likewise, we had a better view of Sapper’s Hill, overlooking
the iron-stained Engineer Creek.
We found another perfect campsite in one of the creek’s snowmelt channels, further upstream, before its colour had changed. We were closeto the road but hidden from it. The creek was almost dry but judging by the size of the culverts under the road it’s a lot livelier during the spring melt.
From our perch we had a view of thousands of rocks, dozens of different flowers, and a half dozen almost-bald Ogilvie Mountains. It was warm but windy, nice as it kept the bugs away.
Monday July 9th
It was cool and overcast, with no wind; the bugs loved it, not a place for us to linger.