OH Bob Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I'm planning on a trip there in the summer of 2014. I tried the search engine, but could not come up with anything on Yellowknife. If anyone has ridden there I would appreciate any relevant info you may have on your trip. Thanks in advance. Link to comment
szurszewski Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Haven't been there since 2004. Have to check my notes but at that time I believe much of the road (like multiple hundreds of miles maybe) from Fort Liard north was gravel/hardpack. Not a lot in Yellowknife then - big lake, a overpriced restaurants, huge diamond mine...lots and lots and lots of mosquitoes. Link to comment
OH Bob Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 Haven't been there since 2004. Have to check my notes but at that time I believe much of the road (like multiple hundreds of miles maybe) from Fort Liard north was gravel/hardpack. Not a lot in Yellowknife then - big lake, a overpriced restaurants, huge diamond mine...lots and lots and lots of mosquitoes. [/ quote] Hopefully the roads are in better shape now.Thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to take plenty of mosquito repellant with me. Link to comment
szurszewski Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Don't misunderstand - in that part of the world unpaved doesn't mean in bad shape. Often the "all season" unpaved roads are in better shape than the paved roads. A quick check of the NWT tourism sites after your post yesterday shows that the route to Yellowknife from Alberta is all paved now. That's not the way we went - we turned off the AlCan just north of Fort Nelson in BC the year we went up, and there were long stretches of good gravel road (you do end up a bit dirty if it's dry out and really dirty if it's at all wet, but not a bad road). I didn't find a report on the current state of that route option, but I also didn't look very hard. I was disappointed to find that the crossing on the Mackenzie river, which had been by ice bridge in the fall/winter/spring and ferry in the summer, has been made by bridge since fall of 2012 (we were there around the 7th of June and the river had just broken enough to run the ferry - apparently if we'd been there any time in the previous few weeks we would have had to turn around as the ice bridge has closed in early May). Why are you headed to Yellowknife? Link to comment
MikeRC Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 OH Bob: I'm also curious why you would go there. I used to work in Yellowknife (more than 10 years ago now), and have driven to the MacKenzie River crossing in the "old days" when it was still a ferry. In my youth I worked on Great Slave Lake and the MacKenzie River supporting the dredging operations for the barges that ply the river during the brief summer season. By brief I mean from ice breakup (usually late June) to late September. Anyway, yes the road is now paved all the way from Peace River, AB to Yellowknife, NT (AB 35, NT 1 & 3). And there is a bridge over the MacKenzie so you don't have to worry about being turned back at the river. I really like Yellowknife, but certainly wouldn't consider it a motorcycling destination. The forests are all low aspen, spruce and fir. Lots of water, lots of granite (Canadian Shield), marginal roads due to winter road damage and heavy truck traffic. I go there to fish in Great Slave Lake or fly into one of the smaller fish camps. You won't believe the number of float planes in Yellowknife! Or large boats. Once the water is off the lake everyone is out on their boats headed up to the East Arm, supported by 24hrs of sunlight. If you do end up there, don't miss Bullocks Bistro. Understand the service will be crappy, it's expensive and they only do fish. Don't order anything but the freshest fish possible (esp pickerel, Arctic char). The Explorer Hotel often has a weekend meal featuring local cuisine (musk ox, caribou). The whole place is expensive, but it is the end of the supply chain. Anything fresh has to be flown in and even staples and fuel have to be trucked in. Mike Cassidy Link to comment
Lmar Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Whitehorse might be a better choice. Something else to consider. Link to comment
szurszewski Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Whitehorse might be a better choice. Something else to consider. I really like Whitehorse and have been there MANY times, though I've only known it as a tourist. If I was picking just based on what was going on in the town, it would be WH over YK hands down, but *getting there* doesn't have nearly the cache, you know? Link to comment
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