Last post was about the northern lights here is the link if you missed it
https://steemit.com/travel/@miacats/my-travel-journal-yellowknife-canada-part-1-aurora-borealis-northern-lights
Now we are going to talk about the city of Yellowknife.
Yellowknife is located north of Great Slave Lake, 200 km to the Arctic Circle, about 240 days per year you can view the Northern lights. It is the best place in North America to see aurora borealis. If you stay 3 nights you are 95% sure to get a viewing of the northern lights. In order to be 100% guaranteed that we see the northern lights we had 5 nights booked.
Q: What to do during the day?
A: There is a lot to do in this frozen world!
We stayed downtown in a hotel and even though there was snow and ice all over we found it easy to walk to all the attractions. Most parts of the town are easily accessible with a 15 minute to 1 hour walk. Walking with the heavy winter clothing on was a nice workout, then you can eat as much as you want, LOL
The Bush Pilots monument is the highest point in Yellowknife, you can see new town, old town, the lake, the house boats and even planes and helicopters coming into town. The monument attraction is dedicated to the bush pilots and engineers who’s lives were lost as they flew the wilderness skies of the Northwest Territory during the 1920s and 30s. The Bush Pilot and engineer played an instrumental role in the early development stages of the Northwest Territory. Bush Pilots transported supplies and people to remote villages, mining camps and oil operations. The engineers mapped out rivers, lakes and mountain passages. The same routes we use today for our NWT highways, flight paths and roads. Now a lot of the good for the year supply for the diamond minds are brought over the ice road and that in itself is a different story.
The Bush Pilots monument
The “Rock”
The Great Slave Lake is the second largest lake in Canada located just south of Yellowknife.
The colorful house boats on the lake, the owners live on the house boats all year long in the summer, and in the winter. During the winter with 1.5 – 2 meters of ice it takes effort to get the boats on the top of the ice as the lake starts to freeze, but once set they are ready for the winter and the owners can drive the car and snowmobile right to their front door. They add a lot of color to the lake.
Every March the locals have a beautiful ice castle and they have an ice carving competition that includes world wide teams that take up the challenge. We had some pictures for the whales that won the competition this year.
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre http://www.pwnhc.ca/
This is a great place to visit and learn more about the rich history and culture of the Dene people and of Yellowknife. It was designed to house and display documents and objects that reflect the heritage of the Northwest Territories. It is well worth taking a day and visiting.
Bullock’s Bistro
When in Yellowknife you must visit the Bullock’s Bistro, located at the base of the Bush Pilots Monument. The restaurant opens at noon and there will be a line. The space is limited they only allow 30 people at a time. As others finish their meal they let new patrons in to enjoy another round of food.
When in Bullock's the service is very personable and the staff makes you feel at home. Our server told us “the owner/chef will improvise on your order to what she wants to make at that moment”, here is how our meal came out: three in one local fish Kabobs and the Reindeer Bison combo plate. It was delicious and their specialty sauce is out of this world.
Snowmobile ride on the Great Slave Lake, with NO SPEED Limits!
You can go as fast as you feel comfortable, however, we were warned that “SPEED KILLS” and many riders do go over 100 mph on the lake. But if you hit anything like an ice chunk you will fly right off the machine and it will be bad news. We choose to take up the back of the pack on our tour and did open up the speed a little, however we did not go that fast, but it was still very thrilling.
We rode out for about 40 minutes to a private cabin had some cookies coffee and hot coco. You can also take the snowmobile night tour for aurora viewing.
When we were walking to the Ice castle we saw a flock of White-tailed Ptarmigan feeding in the snow.
These ground nesting birds are white in the winter with little feathers covering their feet like little snow boots. They are very cute and always seem to be hanging out together.
Yellowknife is well worth the visit to see something that is really amazing to see.
Thanks for reading. =^^=