Tiptoe with the Caribou - Rotary trip to Yellowknife

 Travel journal

 25.2-4.3.2017

Last week I got to experience Canada's fascinating North when we did a trip to Northwest Territories with other Rotary exchange students. Canada's every province is unique with their culture and environment and it was wonderful experience to get to see how life is up North and meet all the exchange students again!

Drive up to Yellowknife was long and we did it in small pieces. But non drive feels long when you have the best travelling company! We slept at school gyms and played basketball and badminton, different board games and hide'n seek, told ghost stories, listened to music, sang and made food together.

Fun fact: we weren't allowed to take our phones with us to get the full experience of the trip and it was the best rule ever! I didn't miss my phone at all during the week even though I'm used to using it a lot.

Blue dot is my hometown Dawson Creek and I got picked up from Peace River with other exchange student Michelle. Drive to Yellowknife in total was 1,012 kilometres, almost the length of Finland (1200km)!

Frieder from Germany and me

Big love for these girls!

Upper row from left to right: Lene (Norway), Noina (Thailand), Aglae (Belgium), Zsofi (Hungary), Denisa (Czech Republic), me and Simona (Italy).

Second line from left to right: Pommelien (Belgium), Tatiana (Brazil), Paula (Bolivia), Michelle (Italy) and Leia from Germany.

Local Rotary club of Hay River sponsored a delicious supper for us!

Local First Nations guy spoke us about his culture, how they survive in ice cold North and respect the nature. I found his philosophy of life really fascinating! We also built dream catchers and light up a fire outside and spent the evening watching magical Northern lights.

Photo credit to Lauty Aminue for capturing these amazing Northern lights!

In town called Edzo First Nations students taught us how to play traditional hand games. It was so much fun! It's a guessing game that includes drumming and hiding items on your hand and the purpose of the game is to try to guess which hand has the item.

Dog sledding was one of the funniest things to do! It's amazing how much power such small dogs have and how smart they are. They eat huge amounts of food, run hours and hours and they can navigate by themselves. The owner told he starts training dogs when they are 3 months old and he owns almost 100 dogs.

It was freezing cold but I wanted to take as much pictures as possible of the ride so I ended up with a frostbite in 3 fingers. Worth it? Definitely yes.

Me, Mikkel from Denmark, Frieder and Simona from Italy on ice road in Yellowknife.

Ice fishing at Great Slave Lake in Yellowknife.

Great Slave Lake is the second biggest (469 km long and 20 to 203 km wide) and the deepest lake in North America (614m). We got to go ice fishing with third generation fisherman and it was cool to see how talented he was. He had set the nets to the lake day before and we went to pull them up and got a lot of fish. We drank pure ice water from the lake and they fried us fresh whyte fish with cabbage and sweet chili sauce. I have never eaten so fresh and good fish in my life!

Happy faces and freezing cold cheeks in -44

Ice sculptures on the ice road

We found the world cutest dog from the ice castle!

Ice castle was a huge castle made of ice and snow on top of the Great Slave lake. It had beautiful ice sculptures, carvings, small tunnels, ice slides and even a stage for concerts!

We went to visit world famous Buffalo Airways in Yellowknife.

My Czech girl Denisa <3

And my fave Austrian Gregor

We visited in NWT Legislation Building and got to follow the debate.

We stayed at local Catholic school in Yellowknife and all the students were super welcoming! Local Interact club had arranged all kind of games and on Thursday morning they prepared a pancake breakfast for us. We played Just Dance, watched local basketball teams play and hang out.

On Friday morning we started driving back to Alberta and we stayed the night in High Level. 

On Saturday the bus dropped me and Michelle off in Peace River while others continued their trip home to Edmonton area. 

The trip was one of the most unforgettable week in my life that I will remember forever!

Thank you for my international Rotary family, awesome chaperones and sponsoring Rotary clubs making this amazing trip possible.

Roosa