June 22. We crossed the 60th parallel as we entered Northwest Territories.
Two beautiful falls on the Hay River. We are camped by the Louise Falls – and met ‘Bulldogs’. They are flies as big as - and some bigger than - horse flies, and they swarm like bees.

June 23. Met a man from Alberta this morning who said he had just arrived but was going home. He had been delayed and now we are just at the beginning of the worst of the bug season. The mosquitoes and black flies are here and with the bulldogs we had to use netting gear. Then we saw the Mackenzie river! Wide, fast-flowing and beautiful. The bridge will be finished in 18 months so the ferry took us across in about 10 minutes.
And – just beside the highway as we left the ferry, there were two groups of male Wood Bison. This is the edge of their sanctuary and they apparently thrive in this environment. There are 100s of them in the park and the males weigh up to 1000kg; bigger than their prairie cousins.
We are still 320 km from Yellowknife and decided to camp at Fort Providence here by the river. Though our campground is beside the river, sadly there is no way to get down the 12 metre high/steep embankment to fish. We did get our licenses (free for those over 65).

June 24. The drive to Yellowknife took 5 almost hours; the road is less than perfect so we held speed to about 75-80 km/h max. About half the drive went through the Wood Bison Sanctuary and we have pictures of many families. The bulls are by themselves now and herds with calves and mothers also grazed and rested by the highway. We didn’t quite dare to stop because they can be aggressive and can reach 40-50 km/h in no time. Such dents would be hard to explain to the insurance company.

June 25-28 in Yellowknife. The city sits on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake. Here the rock formations suddenly changed to Ontario-like granite and the precambrian shield reaches up here too. The city has about 20,000 people (1/2 native), and 42,000 live in the Territories which has 11 official languages! NWT is the third largest producer of diamonds in the world (after Botswana and Russia), and the three mines have done great things for the local economy. The “Government Certified Canadian Diamond” is 100% mined, cut and polished in the Northwest Territories. Smart move!

The car has now travelled 6200 km from home and an oil change check was due. The rest of our first day went to general sightseeing and with Kyle. We found him courtesy of the info centre and he showed me how to get rid of the error messages that I have had on this blog. You are (I sincerely hope) now going to get words, map and pictures together. We still have 3 nights in YK as they call it here.


Here is the updated map.


View Cross Canada in a larger map