“Why are you going to Yellowknife in Winter?”

That has been the recurring question asked by numerous people not only before we left Australia, but definitely by the many locals we have met since arriving here in Canada. Initially, I really did not know why either! In fact, truthfully, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t even know why it was on our itinerary! The looks those Canadians gave us each time we informed them of our travel plans was for me personally, an alarm bell and quite a concern. Combining that with my own research of the expected cold temperatures, what little was available to see and do, and I too didn’t know why we were heading this far north! Why were we going to Yellowknife in Winter?

But let me start at the beginning!

For the last part of our trip, initially our travel agent had us heading to Inuvik, a town, located 200km North of the Arctic Circle and the third largest community in Canada’s Northwest Territories. It is a two-hour flight north of Yellowknife. She promoted the various snow activities and cultural aspects available but many of these, such as dogsledding, we had already experienced six years ago whilst in Finland. Plus, it added four figures to our travel budget, so we politely declined but kept Yellowknife as an alternative destination in the itinerary. However, even as a substitute, while we were still in Australia, I researched the extreme minus temperatures Yellowknife regularly endured during winter. The more I watched on The Weather Channel,  the more hesitant I became about my own survival under what I was seeing as extreme cold conditions when in Yellowknife!

On arrival in Yellowknife, I was immediately uncertain. I had already experienced the Cold Of Canada which, yes, was chilly but doable. However, this ‘cold’ was so distinct from any other cold I had experienced so far in my life Stepping out onto an open ramp from the small plane we had flown in from Calgary, I was instantly utterly freezing! I had on my layers of winter clothes, my snow parka, and my winter boots, but that initial blast of extremely cold air shocked me immensely. We had to wait outside the plane to pick up a bag that had been checked on last minute due to lack of space in the overhead bulkheads. Marc kept insisting I just go inside the terminal. I stubbornly stayed thinking that that is where I should be, making sure I was not separated from Marc. He kept insisting I just go in – he eventually won but not before I had already lost my core temperature. If any of you have ever been in a really cold environment, you would know that once you lose your core temperature, it is VERY hard to get your temperature back up! You are not even shivering since your metabolism is starting to shut down.  Once Marc caught up with me in the terminal, he forced me to put on every additional layer of clothing I had in my carry-on baggage.

We then went to the rental car counter and stood there enduring blasts of cold air from the adjacent terminal exit door every time someone went out. The rental car attendant was very pleasant and once the paperwork was done, remotely started our car from over 50m away, ( as all the cars do in Yellowknife) helped drag our bags through the snow and then load them into the car. No maps and the GPS on my phone did not work, but Marc approached a shuttle bus driver and arranged to follow him to our hotel along roads paved with frozen compacted snow. The car’s heater was on full, but you wouldn’t have known it.

Our hotel being warm and inviting, embraced me in its welcoming arms, but not for long! A walk was suggested to survey the town and ‘get the layout’ (as we normally do), but at minus 27 degrees, even with more layers added underneath our own (what we thought would be) appropriate clothing I just could not do it! I was freezing. This walk was cut very short. My fingers were frozen. My toes were icy. The severe cold was going straight through my current snow pants and my knees were aching from this temperature. I was almost in tears. So, stepping back into the warmth of our hire car, back to the heat of the hotel we went.

The next morning dawned sunny and beautiful. Staring from our hotel window, the image looked so surreal! Such a beautiful place! The night before we had sent various emails out trying to rent proper attire for the weather, but no answers returned except, “if you are on one of our tours, we could rent you clothing”. But we did not wish to do tours, we just wanted to get warm! Another excursion downtown to see what appropriate clothing we could rent.

Do you know that intense cold air hurts. Real sub-zero cold is vicious, nasty, and mean. It is not funny at all. Being where we were today in minus 28 degrees conditions and with a wind chill of minus 40 was not compatible with the normal operating parameters of my body. We simply HAD to access the right attire. Sitting in the car, driving around trying to find rental attire, I began to think I simply could not do this. In fact, I truly DID NOT WANT to do this at all. I did not want to go anywhere at all. I just wanted to go back to the hotel room, stay in the confines of four warm walls to recover my body heat once more. I started to cry. What was more upsetting, as I was crying, was the concern this was not the way I wished the last few days of our great holiday to be. I did not want to have memories of intense cold and tears and physically not wanting to be here in Yellowknife. Preferably I wished  to end our break away on a high, to have wonderful memories to return and talk about with others. But this was not happening!

It is amazing how so many individual Canadians we have encountered have been so helpful! Not having received any online help from any advertised tour or rental companies, we randomly ventured into a local art gallery and emporium to ask whether he knew where we could rent some gear. And, without hesitation, he rang a friend (who just happened to be away in Edmonton 1450kms away and therefore unable to personally help), but who ‘knew’ another local, who in turn suggested another local, ‘Miko’, who just happened to be working that morning in the Chinese restaurant next door in the same building as the art gallery we were in!  From that ‘round about’ ‘think-tank’ of assistance, we ended up being warmly decked out with Canadian Goose down jackets, heavy insulated boots, thick snow pants, and heavy gloves, all for the price of $35.00 per day each! Well under any prices the tour companies were charging their customers. And by that afternoon, off we went for another outdoor survival challenge!

The transformation in my thoughts from, ‘I cannot do this’, to, ‘I can’, was profound. We were now able to walk around the Old Town of Yellowknife. We were now able to look at this most exquisite pristine scenery of white. We were now able to enjoy Yellowknife. It was now achievable. It was now realistic. Importantly, I was doing it!

‘Walking’ is a loose term to use when decked out in this extreme cold attire. Firstly, you have to ensure that all underlayers are tucked in before the snow pants go on. These snow pants are all lined and heavy, but not tightly fitted as they need to be loose enough to go over all your other layers and still fit over your boots. Slide the pants on, pull them up … breathe in to do them up! Easy!

Then the boots. I abandoned what I thought were warm dense snow boots to don the heaviest boots I have ever walked in. They look like gumboots but are thicker, lined and there is so much boot sole between your foot and the ground. It is like you are walking on the first floor of the building instead of the ground floor! Two pairs of socks inside the boot and you are set.

Then the scarf! The freezing temperatures meant that any exposed skin could become frostbitten within minutes, so ALL skin has to be covered. I had to wrap my face up in my scarf like a mummy leaving just my eyes showing. My broad red alpaca scarf that I bought in Montreal for the cold there, served this purpose beautifully (of course it is red!). I learnt to wrap the scarf around my face twice. This was the item that caught all the moisture in my breath and turned my breath (within minutes of going outside) into ice crystals!

Then you place the jacket on! This red jacket is the Canadian Goose brand ( yes, red again) and it is filled with goose down, It is by far, the heaviest jacket I have ever worn! I was sure this coat weighed as much as me, and I felt like I was now wearing my own weight. It had a large fur lined heavy hood that hid and shielded your face down a tunnel and blinkering any peripheral vision. But it assisted with keeping the wind from striking your face directly …  well, most of the time!

Then, the hand coverings. Your put on your inner thermal gloves first and make sure the cuffs are under your jackets sleeves. This is the inner layer that will give you a few minutes of useful finger function if you have to take your outer gloves/mittens off for any reason such as to take a photo or open your purse. Then the outer gloves/mittens. They are Soooo bulky that you feel your hands have turned into flippers. You feel all you can do with your hands is to clap them together and bark like a seal.

Everything secured, zippers fastened up as far as they can go. Flaps Velcro ’ed over seams and zippers to stop any drafts of cold air.

Then off you ‘walk’!

Walking around is very hard, especially when you are not used to all the heavy gear that you have to wear to stay warm from the extreme elements of nature. I learnt this the hard way, because what did we do when we got all the gear….we walked! Our first day we walked 7.80 kms, our second day here we walked 8.0 kms and today we walked approximately the same … 8.25 kms. It does not sound very far compared to our ‘normal’ 20+km daily ‘walks’! our steps per day usually went to between 20000 and 26000. Now we are doing half the steps but covering less than half the distance! (i.e., exceedingly small steps!)  Walking in Yellowknife, in all this weather centred gear, is more like plodding, trudging, slogging and is plain hard work!

You lift one foot up and then the other…one foot up, the other foot down. Next step up, and so on. Think of it as like walking where each footstep is stuck in glue! I admit I did become used to walking in this fashion, except Marc’s speed was much faster than mine and he had to constantly turn his whole body to see where I was. Way back there! Oh, didn’t I mention that inside all that hair and face covering, your peripheral vision is minimal. You really do have to turn your whole body to see anything! Sometimes, all you can see is that foot, that is stuck in glue, that you are trying to move.

As you walk, your eyelashes ice up, within minutes of walking. Your hair ices up. If you have even the tiniest of loose curls around your face, icicles will form on your now extremely stiff and dry straw-like hair, and that frozen hair encased in ice will then become frozen to your face. Like stalagmites they grow and become glued from your hood to your scarf. A word of warning, (as I found out) do not try to wipe them off with your mitten or you are in a world of pain. I made that mistake of seeing those icicles in front of me, wiping them off from my face and it stung like anything since some skin came with it. Those cute little icicles are actually stuck on tight to your face!

You must keep your gloves on because if they are off for any brief period of time, your fingers start to freeze! You lose sensation and, when you resume wearing your mittens, the subsequent burning pain that has to be endured as the feeling comes back in your fingers is quite painful! Taking photos on your iPhone had to be completed extremely quickly!

But overall, you are warm! Your body is snug, toasty, and comfortable as you walk around viewing the world. That was the best part of all ! You are more than happy to be wearing all this gear! Even better, all speculative thoughts of me being left alone in the hotel room for 4 days was submerged! I got out. I walked!

The hardest part of being in this wonderfully warm attire was the time it took to get it all on! You needed to take an extra half hour to dress yourself before your expected departure from your dwelling! Then think about when that call of nature struck … as it did many times with the cold affecting my bladder frequently …  how difficult re: all the layers being lifted, and how long it took to do your wee! And … something else to think about … have you ever tried to get into or out of the front seat of the car dressed like this? Like heaving a bag of wheat into the front seat.

Yellowknife is genuinely a beautiful city – not the architecture since it is basically a provincial administrative centre and does not aspire to be more than that. There are the office buildings, shopping squares and the hotels of a normal functioning city structure. It is the landscape that makes it beautiful. It is pristine, white, clean, and scenic. The white snow stays white because it is too cold for it melt; there is no rain to fall and create slush. What precipitation falls, drops as ice crystals and snow, continuing to endorse that virgin white. On real freezing days, the air sparkles with ice crystals as any moisture in the air instantly crystalises. Impossible to film but real. As you look towards the sun, the suspended ice crystals in the air refract the light creating a subtle rainbow around the sun. There are large sections of white frozen lakes in the middle of the city. The roads are white. The parks with their green and white-dusted pine trees remain fixed in their ‘Christmas trees’ poses, like the snow has been painted on, in the constant sub-zero temperatures. The imagery presented by this white city, of this winter wonderland was like nothing I had ever seen before! It was truly exceptionally beautiful! Spectacular! Amazing!  Stunning! You would genuinely believe that Santa Claus could take residence here if he was not already established at the North pole!

Marc enjoyed snowmobiling! He decided that he wanted to do a new activity not tried before. He wanted me to join him. (He also wanted me to do snowshoe walking and riding a fat tyre bike.) Did you hear me laugh? I am sure you would have heard it when standing there in my gear, amongst this winter iceland, I laughed at his suggestions. I was finding it hard to lift a foot when I walked, imagine trying to ride a bike? Or even balance on a bike? Lyndell attempting to carry out those activities in temperatures of minus 32 degrees with a wind chill of minus 44, I do not think so!!  That was not my kind of fun! No matter how warm I was feeling. Doing physical events in that kind of weather is for the mad. But yes, my ‘mad’ husband went out, dressed in the full winter attire, ready to perch upon on a motor bike on skis ‘to have fun’! I let him have that kind of fun all to himself!

Not once, but twice! Unfortunately, although he wanted to share the experience of the snow-mobiling with me … the weaving along paths through trees before dropping out onto frozen lakes then to race across wide open frozen expanses. He tried to use his Go-Pro to film his experiences with me. But within seconds the Go-Pro froze, and the batteries died so no images did he bring back other than in his memory. He tried to share these with me but not sufficiently to convince me to try it myself – even with the promise of heated handlebars.

What was amazing was the Ice Road.

These are winter roads built across the frozen lakes connecting villages otherwise difficult to access by road if at all. We had walked on a frozen sea many years ago in Finland, but this was driving a heavy four-wheel drive vehicle across a frozen lake! Such a beautiful scene of white snow and ice but to the senses scary! Of course, my initial thoughts were of ‘Sinking Titanic here we come’ but I was totally wrong! What an awesome experience! My son would have truly loved the experience! I could see him performing 360 degrees and drifts on the ice in his own four-wheel vehicle with probably a few more things thrown in!  (No, I much preferred, and insisted, Marc to not do that even though he did suggest it!) Even more incredible was finding areas of exposed ice on the road. We could stop and peer into dark depths of the ice to see layers and layers and layers of frozen water – assorted colours, vertical cracks, encased bubbles and other impurities and there we were, driving on them.

Even more extraordinary was lying on that ice!  You ask me, why did we lie on them? Simply because we could! Tell me, what else do you do on an ice road? Lying there on the ice, your full body lying down on an enormous ice cube the size of a lake, ice with so many layers and such depth of levels. That was a humbling occurrence. It was wonderful. It was truly indefinable!  It was also so so so cold!!!!!

Contrary to some Canadians inquiries, we did not come to Yellowknife to see the northern lights. We had already seen them in Finland and were not concerned whether we saw them again or not. Definitely we were not prepared to book an aurora tour just on the chance of seeing the lights. But the local tourist information service did provide us with a map of where we could drive out of town to safely view the lights. Still, this would mean a drive-in sub-zero temperature; at night- or incredibly early in the am, in temperatures that if you turned off the car for too long it would not re-start, and no guarantee that you would see the lights. But what a bonus seeing this natural phenomenon was to our stay here! Marc, late one night, watching the Aurora zone on the computer noted that there would be a good chance of seeing an aurora within 45 minutes, so we were off.  Outside into the car to drive the 20minutes to a designated area Marc had planned a few hours before (just in case we went). (Of course, we had to put all those layers on again!)

We were not disappointed.

Officially, the northern lights are an atmospheric phenomenon in which undulating waves of green, purple, and pink lights dance across the sky. They occur when waves of energized particles from the sun called solar wind bombard our atmosphere. During the Viking period, people thought that the Northern Lights were images of young women who were dead. Others believed that the northern lights were signs of huge fires in the north. Others thought that it was God lighting up the cold, dark parts of the world. Whatever the perception is, to the human eye, what a glorious sight!

At Yellowknife, in those extreme frigid conditions, we were fortunate to observe those vast green bands of light hover in the sky as spectacular soft, wave-like emerald light waves appearing as if tantalisingly they were within reach above us! They were like velvet drapes that floated back to earth. The dark night was like a fairy tale as green to red magic lights flickered above us, dancing their way across the sky.  What a breathtaking vision as this truly spectacular session of nature was presented to us. I was mesmerised. I felt so small as part of this awesome creation displayed above me. I must admit, it was a very emotional time for me, watching these lights move and dance unpredictably; sometimes barely perceptible, then suddenly growing thick and vivid. Such a bonus to our stay in Yellowknife!

I commenced this blog with my hesitation about staying in Yellowknife. About staying in one of the coldest places I have ever been! I was unsure, I was a little scared and being honest, it was the last thing I really wanted to do. I didn’t want to go! But being there in this cold city, so far north above the Artic Circle in the middle of the northern western territories of Canada, I can honestly say, this place was the highlight of my travels here in Canada. I do now have wonderful memories to return and talk about with others!  No, not for the northern lights, they were simply a bonus, but for the overall understanding of this place, of the appreciation of the cold, of the awareness and knowledge of how you must survive, of the entire event itself.

Would I do it again?

Definitely not.

A firm No!

But I truly would recommend it as something you should try once in your life!

(By the way, the day we left, the temperature was going to minus 37 with a wind child of minus 51! Oh, so glad we left when we did!)