Diamond Capital of North America: Yellowknife

Photo: Donald L. Telfer

Aside from the midnight sun and the dazzling aurora borealis, Yellowknife sparkles with diamonds that lure visitors from around the world.

BY DONALD L. TELFER

Casseroles, hearty soups and freshly caught lake trout are on the menu yet the wild caribou burgers command top billing at the legendary Wildcat Cafe.

A true frontier stop, the cafe is the oldest restaurant in town and the most famous log cabin of all, serving superb cuisine on split-log tables and rickety benches where the table you share with a stranger can be a gold miner or a diamond merchant from New York.

Rivalling the early gold-rush days, diamonds are making Yellowknife sparkle. In the "Diamond Capital of North America" jewellers are selling the precious stones that have been mined, cut and polished in the North to visitors from around the world.

"I have sold custom-made rings, pendants and jewellery to people who have made special trips to Yellowknife," says Margaret Baile, a long-time resident who recently opened Arctic Diamonds, one of an impressive eight diamond retailers in the city of 18,000. "Our bonus is that diamonds are cut and polished here."

Each diamond mined in the Northwest Territories comes with the signature of Premier Stephen Kakswi, a Dene from Fort Good Hope, along with a certificate that assures its quality and color.

"Diamonds are a nice complement to our tourism," Baile said. "It's really raising our profile."

In the land of the midnight sun - Yellowknife has more summer sunshine than any other Canadian city - the wilderness city is the lodestar for northern lights in winter. The peak season for the aurora borealis, which runs during fall and winter, attracts some 15,000 Japanese and Koreans alone to Yellowknife.

Perched on the rocky shores of Great Slave Lake, the capital of the Northwest Territories has come a long way from its rough and tumble beginnings when the Wildcate Cafe opened and gold was discovered on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake.

Named after the Yellowknife band and their yellow-bladed copper hunting knives, the first settlement was established by Alexander Mackenzie in 1789.

Miners on their way to the Klondike a century later discovered gold but it was not until 1934 that the rush began, and two years later Yellowknife was a boom town.

Wrapped around Back Bay, the Old Town pokes into beautiful Great Slave Lake, the clear, cold and deep waters glittering with colorful houseboats, gleaming sailboats and noisy float planes. In winter, the crisp air crackles with the sound of panting dogs and the swish of sled runners gliding over the snow-crusted lake.

Old Town is dotted with aging gold-rush buildings and Rainbow Valley, named for the brightly coloured Dene houses. Once a thriving fuel depot run, the historic Woodyard is best known for Ragged Ass Road, a street that memorializes a defunct mine and its hard-luck miners.

Ingraham Drive passes over The Rock, a steep pitcropping where miners first pitched their tents in 1934. Stairs lead to the Bush Pilots Monument, a marker which honours the legendary pilots who opened up the North. From atop the promontory, visitors enjoy a magnificent panorama of Yellowknife and the lake.

Armed with a historical walking tour guide, follow the handsome brochure as it describes the history and heritage of Yellowknife buildings and landmarks.

Lined with modern stores, restaurants and high-rise office and apartment towers, New Town is a striking contrast to the original settlement. Franklin Avenue is the main drag, an easy 20-minute walk which can extend for hours with the many diversions along the way.

Just off Franklin Avenue is Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. A good introduction to the North, the museum contains artifacts such as a woolly mammoth tusk, beaded Dene clothing and Inuit stone carvings. It also features an exhibit devoted to the search for the Northwest Passage, and an aviation gallery dedicated to bush pilots and legends such as Wop May, Punch Dickens and Max Ward.

A short walk from the museum facing Frame Lake, one of several lakes in the city, is the glass-domed Legislative Assembly. Rising from the boreal forest, the striking building was designed to accommodate the unique consensus of northern government.

Decorated with paintings and Inuit art, a large oval table takes centre stage in the round chamber, giving representatives equal voice in a manner practised by aboriginals. Surrounding the chamber are translation booths which permit debates to be carried out in nine official languages.

There is no word for "diamond" in Chipewyan, Dogrib or Inuvialuktun. No one seems to mind down at the Wildcat Cafe because - as diamonds may be a girl's best friend elsewhere - they are everyone's friend in Yellowknife.

For more information on this destination visit the Canadian Tourism Commission website www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

The Best of Nunavut Territory

Photo: Nunavut Tourism

Nunavut is a land of breathtaking scenery with a promise of adventure, says Margo Pfeiff in this essential primer to Canada's newest Territory.

BY MARGO PFEIFF

It was a pitch black mid-winter evening in Cape Dorset when a knock came at my hotel room door. Outside stood a young Inuit man in a voluminous parka. "Wanna buy a carving?" he asked quietly, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a soapstone kayak complete with a miniature hunter holding an ivory harpoon. I handed over the $80 he asked for and was given a shy toothless smile before he vanished into the Arctic night.

Before I landed on Iqaluit's icy runway when I first went north in 1990 I had already lost my heart to this stark landscape. From 2,000 metres up, icebergs littered an inky Arctic Ocean and the tundra was polka dotted with pothole lakes shimmering in blues from turquoise to indigo. And once I'd spent time with the Inuit I was smitten by their unpretentiousness, sense of humour and their generosity with the shank of caribou that squats on every home's kitchen counter.

Nunavut - " our land" in Inuktitut - was born on April 1, 1999. It was the first time since 1949 when Newfoundland joined Confederation Canadian that map makers had been sent back to the drawing board to change the boundaries of our country. Nunavut covers one-fifth of Canada's land area, 1.99 million square kilometres, a vast area where lives are often still lived according to time-tables thousands of years old.

Iqaluit, with a population of 6,000, has been booming since it became Nunavut's capital. By far the biggest community, it is a dusty frontier town with the territory's only hospital, law courts, banks, jail, licensed restaurants and movie theatre. The 28 "settlements" scattered throughout the territory are accessible only by boat, plane, snowmobile or dogsled. Outnumbered nearly 30 to 1 by caribou, Nunavut's total population of 28,000 could easily fit into an average sized sports stadium, a statistically solitary .01 persons per square kilometre.

The waterfront Unikkaarvik Visitors Centre shares a building with the town library, a good source of polar books. The Centre has maps and knowledgeable staff who can plan anything from a walking tour of Iqaluit to a North Pole expedition. Nearby, the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum is housed in a renovated Hudson's Bay Company trading post building. It has an excellent collection of artifacts including a sealskin kayak and displays of Inuit artwork from various communities. Inuit art from throughout the north - including carvings from internationally renowned Cape Dorset and prints and tapestries from Pangnirtung - can be purchased at galleries and shops around town.

Just walking around Iqaluit is a cultural experience. In summer, carvers work soapstone outside and in winter women still dress in traditional amoutiq jackets with babies tucked into the gaping hoods. Everyone is free to attend service at the igloo-shaped Anglican church which features an altar cross made of two narwhal tusks. Hymns are sung in Inuktitut. The Northern Store, formerly the Hudson's Bay Company, looks like any modern grocery except for the frozen goods section with its chunks of narwhal muktuk, Arctic Char sausages, musk ox and caribou.

Most of Nunavut's far-flung settlements are no bigger than a couple of hundred people. Life here is quieter and more traditional than in Iqaluit. Most folks hunt and fish to supplement their food supply and it's common for entire families to head out "on the land" to camp for the summer. But even here pick-up trucks, snowmobiles, ATV's and outboards have replaced dog sleds and kayaks.

I rarely linger in the settlements. For me they are jumping off points for the wilderness, Nunavut's main attraction. The territory has three national parks and several Territorial parks, but even in the hamlets the wilderness is never far away and it's easy to head out for a stroll. Kayaking is popular in Pond Inlet near Nunavut's newest national park, Sirmilik. One summer I spent a week poking along the coast near Pond, paddling around icebergs drifting through Lancaster Sound, listening to the dripping of water echoing in their wave-sculpted caves.

The short summers, when snow disappears and temperatures nudge above freezing, are the time for whale watching out of Clyde River or hiking anywhere in the territory. One of Nunavut's most spectacular hikes through a landscape of fjords and jagged peaks in Auyuittuq National Park starts a short boat ride from Pangnirtung, a scenic Southern Baffin community. There is also canoeing down the Soper River through Katannalik Territorial Park near Iqaluit, which I did several years ago. Wildflowers carpeted valleys where caribou and Arctic hare grazed. We finished up our trip on the coast in the community of Kimmurut, known for its soapstone carvers.

Spring is lovely in the north when daylight approaches 24 hours and temperatures rise enough for comfortable dog-sledding; single and multi-day trips are possible right out of Iqaluit. It's also the season to head to the floe edge, particularly at the northern end of Baffin Island. When the frozen sea ice first breaks up narwhal and beluga whales arrive to feed in the open leads, which also attract millions of seabirds. A small group of us headed out of Arctic Bay on sleds pulled by snowmobiles to camp on the ice and view wildlife on this northern version of a safari.

For those who love a solitary landscape and a rich culture, the pull of Nunavut is strong and the memories linger. I remember setting off hiking through Ellesmere National Park - 700 kilometres from the North Pole - in July through knee deep wildflowers with butterflies fluttering all around. Then there was the nest I came across of baby snowy owls in the Belcher Islands, and the mid-winter night in Hall Beach when the Northern Lights shimmered red and green with such brilliance that I swore I could hear them crackle.

And I'll never forget a young Inuit girl I met in Resolute who pointed three inches above the top of the television screen that was broadcasting the weather report. "I live up here," she proudly told me, "on a part of the map you can't see." "Off the map" neatly sums up Nunavut, a land of breathtaking scenery with a promise of adventure.

For more information on this destination visit the Canadian Tourism Commission website www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

In Search of Gabrielle Roy's Manitoba Roots

Photo: Travel Manitoba

Although Gabrielle Roy's famous novel The Tin Flute was set in a working-class district of Montreal, Roy herself grew up in Manitoba. Her formative years there were largely uneventful, but you can still find tantalizing traces of the world-acclaimed author around her home province.

BY LOUISE GABOURY

Born in 1909 to Quebecois parents who had chosen to move to Manitoba, Roy decided as a young woman that the Prairies had no hold on her own soul. She left the province in 1937, returning only sporadically thereafter. Yet years later, she wrote so poignantly of the Prairies that it was as if physical distance had drawn her emotionally closer to the land of her youth.

The girl who would grow up to garner a swarm of accolades - including the Prix Fémina, three Governor General's Literary Awards and the Companion of the Order of Canada - was raised on Deschambault Street in tranquil St. Boniface, now part of Winnipeg but at the time a separate city. Provencher Bridge, which Roy and her mother would cross on foot to shop at Eaton's in Winnipeg, still links St. Boniface to downtown. The St. Boniface Cathedral was ravaged by fire in 1968, but the surviving facade and walls are an eloquent echo of its grandeur in the days when Roy would go there to pray, a period she recalled in Enchantment and Sorrow. Her parents, Melina and Leon, are buried in the cemetery in front of the cathedral, along with two of her sisters who died tragically young.

The wooded area at the end of Deschambault Street is long gone; only a few stunted trees remain, and it would take an awful lot of imagination for a little girl to play there at being the great explorer La Vérendrye, as the character of Christine does in The Road Past Altamont.

The house where Roy was born in 1909 is a designated historical site, and most of the other houses on the quiet street have probably changed little from her childhood days. The plum and apple trees planted by Leon have disappeared, but you can still sense Gabrielle's presence at the dormer window where she spent long hours daydreaming, and on the shady veranda where her father thoughtfully strung a hammock for her.

Village Schoolteacher

At 20, Roy left St. Boniface to work as a schoolteacher in several villages in a predominantly francophone region of southern Manitoba. Tracing her route from modern-day Winnipeg, you're soon swept up by vistas of endless plains disappearing over the horizon, dotted with stands of scraggy trees that stand sentinel over this infinite arid expanse.

Roy's first teaching job took her to Marchand, a tiny village on a dusty road an hour outside Winnipeg. The Marchand school where she taught no longer exists, but you can pick up her trail again in Cardinal, "a bigger village, not so poor, and yet scarcely more lively, at the far end of the country," in Roy's description.

Less than 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, Cardinal is today even smaller than Marchand. A few houses huddled together and a stately heritage church at the end of a dirt road are all that remain of the village Roy depicted in Street of Riches, Children of My Heart and Enchantment and Sorrow.

Roy's grandparents, Elie and Emilie Landry, originally from Saint-Alphonse-de-Rodriguez near Joliette, Que., are buried nearby, in a small cemetery between Somerset and Saint-Léon, where Roy's mother grew up.

Remote Settings

Turning northwest, you travel across the prairie on wide roads that lead away to infinity, with nothing but sweeping plains and immense sky as far as the eye can see, broken up by the occasional solitary grain elevator or a farm sheltered behind a bank of trees, rising from the flatlands likes oases in the desert. After a while, rolling north toward what feels like the ends of the earth, the road seems to become a river, a shimmering mirage beneath the prairie sun.

Near Riding Mountain National Park, the scenery at last begins to change and the monotony is broken by a few steep hills. Some of the names on the roadmap designate nothing more than small clusters of houses or a few abandoned barns that barely classify as hamlets. Onwards you go through Sainte-Rose-du-Lac, Rorketon, Toutes Aides, Meadow Portage and finally, after hours of driving, Waterhen - the northern Manitoba communities that immediately bring to mind Roy's 1950 novel, Where Nests the Water Hen, and its cast of colourful characters. You almost expect Luzina to materialize, or the priest from Toutes Aides, or even Martha, the gutsy heroine of Roy's Garden in the Wind.

In contrast to the south, this is a lake-filled region where the gentle gurgle of water is a steady backdrop to birdcalls and the whistle of the wind. You'll see Gabrielle Roy Island, so designated by the Manitoba Geographical Names Program in 1989. But you need to drive still further along a dirt road to find the idyllic setting evoked in Where Nests the Water Hen, written while Roy travelled in Europe with her husband a full decade after her sojourn in northern Manitoba.

The novel portrayed a large, loving family living on a beautiful, remote island in the middle of a river. Today, beyond a fragment of wall from the school, few signs remain of their world. That Roy could write so poetically of this lost land merely confirms she was blessed with both imagination and a piercing nostalgia for her homeland.

After a single summer in the area, Gabrielle returned to Winnipeg and then left Manitoba one autumn night in 1937. But Manitoba never left her.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Riding Wild with Salmon in British Columbia

Photo: Carnegie Street Productions/Paradise Found

Looking for a novel adventure? Snorkelling with thousands of Pacific salmon in Vancouver Island's Campbell River is guaranteed to add a little excitement to your life...if you catch the drift.

BY MATHIEU LAMARRE

The West has enthralled me as far back as I can remember. The Lone Ranger, Once Upon a Time in the West, shots of the Calgary stampede in the yellowing pages of an old National Geographic. I was forever imagining myself out on the plains, galloping alongside a herd of bison or rounding up some wild horses to take back to the corral.

But it wasn't until the summer of my 35th year that I finally answered Horace Greeley's immortal call, "Go West, young man!" Gathering the horsepower to ride off into the sunset, I set out to visit Canada's westernmost province for the first time. I quickly learned that in another sense, it's also Canada's most Eastern province. Perhaps I'd been too long in the saddle, figuratively speaking, but I found that in British Columbia, chopsticks outnumber chaps and people prefer fish patties to steer burgers.

Befuddled but nevertheless determined to play John Wayne, I contacted Paradise Found Adventure Tours, an outfitter in the tranquil town of Campbell River. Their recommendation for adventure-starved city slickers: an afternoon of snorkelling with 80,000 salmon in full-throttle migration. My inner Clint Eastwood champed at the bit.

A minibus transported our group of 10 to the shores of the crystalline river, which flows amid pine-scented forests. Doubt stirred within me as we were instructed to don full-body wetsuits - akin to putting on weird, uncomfortably humid rubber jeans - plus mask, snorkel and bizarrely colourful, enormously long fins. But, ever the optimist, I decided to overlook this unorthodox beginning, took a deep breath and threw myself into the river.

And that's where I finally caught the drift of the whole exercise. Instead of riding a horse, I was riding the river itself. And the creatures flying past below me were not bison or mustangs, but thousands of Pacific salmon, huge fish up to a metre in length.

Unique tour
Spawning season, which runs from July to October, draws five salmon species and two trout species to Vancouver Island rivers. For nearly 50 years now, local snorkellers have braved the cold rushing waters to recover lures and artificial flies lost in the riverbed. Paradise Found came into being in 1997, when Catherine Temple and Jamie Turko hit upon the idea of making this activity into an ecotour that's the only one of its kind in the world: snorkelling with salmon.

Swept along by the current, the snorkellers attempt to follow the frenetic course charted by the fish, which are heading in the opposite direction. The water temperature is a chilly 14° C, so you're inclined to move around a lot, partly to stay warm and partly to get closer to the fish instead of simply floating along like a felled log.

On the other hand, getting souvenir snapshots of yourself among the salmon is tricky because it calls for holding still. To the fish, the unidentified floating objects travelling past overhead are of no interest. Unless, that is, someone has ignored the advice to remove all rings and earrings, which are surprisingly attractive lures to salmon.

"We work with the inspectors at Fisheries and Oceans Canada to make sure our presence doesn't affect the natural spawning process," Turko said during the preliminary briefing. "But the sport has been so successful and is becoming so popular that we're thinking about establishing our own limits on the number of participants," Temple added. "We've also started offering related activities like trekking and whale watching, and we're looking at snorkelling with sea lions in the Strait of Georgia." Clearly these are environmentally aware entrepreneurs who plan to carefully manage their new tourism resource.

Snorkelling with salmon can't really be compared to a rodeo-on-water because the run is down the bottom few kilometres of the Campbell River, where the water is generally very - although when you're underwater, the current along the rocky riverbed can seem impressively fast. The most danger you'll encounter comes in the shallow areas, where the guides remind you to keep your arms stretched out in front of your body so that you'll float right over the rocks. Periodically, you find yourself waving at fishermen on the riverbank who have no way of knowing, as you do, just how many salmon and trout are streaming past right under their noses.

Towards the end of the outing, in the deep-water tidal pools at the mouth of the estuary, we observed giant Chinook and Tyee salmon - at more than 30 kilos apiece, the Clydesdales of the river. I tried to dive down to mingle with these magnificent specimens, but without weights, a rubber-clad tenderfoot doesn't stand much of a chance.

Instead, I surfaced and swam to the riverbank, as exhausted as an old outlaw who wants only to remove his dusty shirt, sit in the sun and regale his friends with the details of his latest adventure... and then set out again as soon as possible on another wild ride. "Go West, young man!" Just remember to take a towel and bathing suit.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

British Columbia Sanctuary in the Rockies

Photo: Parks Canada

Floating in the Radium Hot Springs pool, you feel cradled by the beauty of the British Columbia Rockies. And there's no smell of rotten eggs.

BY TAMARA NOWAKOWSKY

You wouldn't expect a true feast for all of the senses to be found at a hot-springs pool, but if you immerse yourself in everything that Radium Hot Springs has to offer, your cup will runneth over.

The experience begins with the drive to the springs. Coming from Banff, two factions fight for your attention - when you're not staring in awe at the breathtaking scenery whose sole purpose is apparently to clear the mind and prepare you for what lies ahead, you're rubbernecking at the animals that seem to come out of their forest home to greet passersby. A steady parade of whitetail and mule deer, moose, bears, mountain sheep and other wildlife is not uncommon hereabouts. Cars slow to a crawl as they pass woodland residents and blink their headlights at approaching traffic as a friendly warning.

The highway twists onwards through a rugged mountainous corridor replete with a variety of wildlife, wetlands, forests and rivers, to finally arrive at a rocky gate. The jagged gap, crudely cleared through the mountains by dynamite in the early 1900s, opens up into the Radium Hot Springs townsite, a welcoming little community nestled among the peaks of British Columbia's Kootenay National Park.

The hot springs themselves, discovered in 1841, sit tucked away in the Sinclair canyon. Radium Hot Springs got its name from the small traces of radon in the water. However, the amount of radiation is harmless - much less than that given off by a wristwatch. The water is odourless because the hydrogen sulphide that gives most hot springs the aroma of rotten eggs dissipates before it emerges at Radium. The theory is that this happens when the gas is exposed to oxygen en route to the spring outlet. A plan to bottle and sell the water from the springs was almost carried out in the early 1900s because it was thought to have therapeutic and medicinal value.

And here's a secret: if you start with a dip in the cooler swimming pool (set at 27-29°C) and exert yourself for at least a few laps, you'll feel like you've really earned a warm soak. Then you can slip into Canada's largest hot spring pool and let the relaxation truly begin.

A ledge runs in a ring around the pool perimeter and a small circular seating area in the middle of the pool gives visitors a 360-degree view of spectacular scenery. As a pleasant bonus, the water at Radium is tasteless and odourless, so there's no rotten-egg aroma commonly associated with hot springs. (This results from the fact that the hydrogen sulphide that gives most hot springs the quirky smell has already dissipated before it emerges from the rocks at Radium. Apparently his happens when the gas is exposed to oxygen on its way to the spring outlet.)

Ken Fisher, Chief Operating Office of the Canadian Rockies Hot Springs, has worked in the area for six years, and he feels that Radium is different from the other Rocky Mountain hot springs. The physical setting, he notes, is unique. "Here you feel like you're in the cradle of a mountain rather than sitting in a pool viewing mountains in the far-off distance," he says. Indeed, the mountain walls are so close you can literally reach out and touch them, since one side of the pool backs onto solid rock.

If the scenery and stress-melting warm water aren't soothing enough, a body treatment at the hands of one of the talented staff members at the Pleiades Massage and Spa will take you to levels of relaxation you didn't know existed.

The feeling of being nestled in comfort continues in the spa. In an example of "what's old is new again," the gorgeous sanctuary was designed as an historic homage intended to re-create services that were once offered at Radium.

The hip décor is akin to what you might find in the best European and North American spas, yet doesn't seem out of place in this 52-year-old heritage building. The revamped facility offers hot-stone massage therapy, salt rubs and more, using all-natural, handmade scented oils and other products, in treatment rooms filled with natural light. Wrap things up with a complimentary session in the hot plunge pool or the aromatic steam room, and it's just about enough to put you over the edge of relaxation.

It may be difficult to ascend the staircase in your tranquil state, but if you can muster the energy to do so, the display in the pool facility lobby is well worth the effort. Rounding out Radium's feast for the senses in the autumn of 2003 is the second annual Stained Glass Art Show (on until Oct. 13), featuring artists from western Canada who this year are interpreting the theme Wonder of Water in dazzling glass artworks imbued with extraordinary colours and textures. Visitors can even help select the People's Choice award by casting a vote for their favourite piece.

You might want to cap off a perfectly wonderful day by browsing the gift shop or picking up a snack and a cappuccino in the café to enjoy in Radium's picnic area.

At times in our convenience-oriented culture, we can leave places of so-called sanctuary with remnants of the stress we walked in with, feeling cheated of a full experience. It isn't often anymore that one can be pampered through-and-through and have all the senses thrilled at just one location. A day of soaking, massages, art and food at Radium Hot Springs will leave you pleasantly surprised, and more importantly, thoroughly satiated.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Driving the Dempster

Photo: Northwest Territories Tourism

Adventurous road trip along the 734-kilometres gravel lifeline from the Yukon to Inuvik follows a traditional Gwich'in hunting and trapping trail.

BY MARGO PFEIFF

It was the first time I'd ever seen a grizzly bear swatting at mosquitoes. A huge shaggy beast, he pawed his face and took swipes at a halo of bugs I could make out even through binoculars. He was making his way across the broad North Klondike River Valley, autumn yellow and orange tundra stretching towards the jagged skyline of the Tombstone Mountains. There was not another person in sight. It struck me as remarkable that less than two hours of driving had brought me to this wilderness from the Gold Rush razzle-dazzle of Dawson City where paddle wheelers ply the Yukon River and Diamond Tooth Gertie's gambling hall and the Sourdough Saloon dish out honky-tonk and burlesque.

Mounds of century old mine tailings line the road out of Dawson. After 20 minutes I turned left up the Dempster Highway, Canada's only public road north of the Arctic Circle. For 734 kilometres this gravel lifeline travels through the Yukon to Inuvik on the McKenzie Delta in the Northwest Territory. It follows a traditional Gwich'in hunting and trapping trail across three mountain ranges, two continental divides, five rivers and two time zones. Started in 1958, the Dempster didn't reach Inuvik until 1979. Although unpaved, the road is remarkably well maintained and is a popular road trip not only for cars, but also for intrepid RV drivers and cyclists.

Green roadside kilometre signs tick off the distance and by the time I've reached 70 I've climbed into Tombstone Territorial Park, the route's most scenic stretch and the best place for hiking trips, short and long. At kilometre 102 a single bull moose munches pondweed in Two Moose Lake. Further on a full grown wolf darts across the road. Lined in purple fire-weed, the highway plays tag with the tree line; in the lowlands lush boreal forest surrounds lily pad-dotted ponds and as the road gains altitude the landscape is transformed into wide open, tree-less High Arctic tundra.

There are no communities on the Dempster's Yukon stretch, only the service oasis of Eagle Plains at kilometre 369 - a hotel, restaurant and gas station. Historical photos cover the hotel hallways including those of the famous outlaw, the Mad Trapper of Rat River. In December 1931 trapper Albert Johnson shot a police officer on the Rat River then evaded a posse before being killed in a shootout with police at his cabin on February 17, 1932, just 25 kilometres from the present hotel. The leader of that police patrol was RNWMP Corporal Dempster after whom the highway was named.

Blowing snow that obscures the Arctic Circle marker at kilometre 405 is a reminder that this is a winter road even in mid-August. Snow storms have closed the Dempster during every month of the year and in some stretches strong winds have ripped signs off posts and flipped fully loaded trucks. Near the Northwest Territory border a broad valley is on the migration route of the Porcupine Caribou Herd; in late fall vehicles can be surrounded with antlers as thousands of caribou are on the move.

A car ferry shuttles me 200 metres across the Peel River to Fort McPherson, the southernmost of three NWT towns on the Dempster. A Gwich'in native settlement of log houses, satellite dishes, tepees, canoes and skidoos, many of its 950 inhabitants still carry on a traditional lifestyle of trapping beaver and hunting caribou.

At kilometre 608 the MV Louis Cardinal ferry takes me across the kilometre wide McKenzie River - the second biggest in North America after the Mississippi - which drains one-fifth of Canada's land area. The ferry is also the only access to Tsiigehtchic, formerly Arctic Red River, a Gwich'in community of 170 perched on a hillside overlooking the confluence of the McKenzie and Arctic Red Rivers, where moccasins sway on clotheslines and smokehouses filled with drying whitefish billow on a quiet Saturday morning.
In November, as the Peel and McKenzie Rivers freeze up, the Dempster Highway is closed. Road crews monitor the ice until it's thick enough to re-open the highway in early December when vehicles simply drive across the ice road until spring when the highway closes again during break-up.

Smooth paved road feels strange under my wheels after 734 corrugated kilometres as I pull into Inuvik, population 3,400, a no-nonsense far-north working town and the life support for the entire Western Arctic. Restaurants serve caribou and musk ox and the town landmark is an igloo-shaped church. In forested suburbs I bed down at the Swiss-style log Arctic Chalet run by a true northern couple; Olav Falsnes is a bush pilot and his wife, Judi, raises blue-eyed Huskies to pull her dog sleds.

In summer Inuvik is the terminus of the Dempster Highway, but in winter the road continues for another 190 kilometres across the frozen Arctic Ocean to Tuktoyaktuk. In a Twin Otter I fly across the McKenzie Delta to "Tuk", an Inuvialuit hamlet surrounded by the world's biggest concentration of pingos, conical tundra frost heaves with ice cores. A town tour takes in the old log Anglican church where the altar cloth is sealskin and the collection plate is of wolverine fur. There is also an unusual community freezer carved out of the permafrost 10 metres underground where families store food for their dog teams.

I was invited to the home of James and Maureen Pokiak for a traditional Inuvialuit meal. While she lays out strips of smoked beluga whale that look like beef jerky, Lorraine explains she came north to Tuk to teach school for a year. "That was 28 years ago," she laughs. She married James, a traditional hunter and trapper who also leads polar bear hunting trips. Our multi-course meal includes smoked whitefish, bannock bread and beluga muktuk - cubes of skin and fat. "We like it with HP sauce," says Lorraine. We finish with a delicious caribou soup.

On the way to the airport I ask my driver to make a quick stop to complete a ritual that signals the official end to a Dempster drive. As a cold wind whips up whitecaps and sled dogs howl I strip off my shoes and socks, take a deep breath and very quickly dunk my toes into the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean.

For more information on this destination visit the Canadian Tourism Commission website www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Whitehorse: What a Rush!

Photo: Robin Armour

From gold to tourists, Yukon's capital gleams as the gateway to adventure.

BY TOBY SALTZMAN

In the heady gold-rush days of 1896, Whitehorse was labelled "a place to wash your socks." It was just a stop en route to the promises of Skagway or Dawson City. For the thousands of prospectors, entrepreneurs and adventurers who survived the treacherous rapids of Miles Canyon that "foamed like the mane of a wild white horse," the town meant a drink of quick cheer, a dancehall girl and a place to hearken dreams of gold.

Legends of survival, foolhardiness and horror were common in the community that suddenly sprouted from 500 stragglers to some 25,000 people: of men drowned in Miles Canyon, just 10 kilometres shy of safety; of men who struck gold; of cheechakos (Yukon greenhorns) who became sourdoughs (Yukon old-timers) by watching the river freeze in the fall and melt in the spring.

When the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway was constructed in 1900, Whitehorse blossomed as the Yukon's major transportation hub, strategically located at the railway terminus and at the head of navigable water on the Yukon River.

The narrow-gauge WP&YR carried passengers and freight from the Alaska seaport of Skagway inland to Whitehorse year round, traversing deep gorges and dense forests. From Whitehorse north to the Klondike, people travelled the Yukon River by sternwheelers in summer. In winter, they trekked the Overland Trail in horse-drawn sleighs, huddled beneath bison skins, grabbing warmth in cabins along the way.

When the gold rush washed out, so did many Whitehorse residents. By 1929, the western provinces and Alaska needed a northern road to counter their isolation. It came after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 and committed Americans to the Second World War: the United States needed an Alaskan supply route to defend its west coast. So Whitehorse, with solidly established supply lines, became the northern centre for U.S. army projects. Suddenly, it faced a second rush, this time the Army Corps of Engineers troops who were tasked with building the Alaska Highway. After construction, the population once more dwindled. But as capital of the Yukon, Whitehorse was never a backwater again.

Today, Whitehorse faces a new rush: that of visitors seeking adventure in the clean, fresh air and splendid scenery.

Spreading from the historic Main Street strip and the old WP&YR station at the river's edge, Whitehorse is easily explored on foot with a guidebook from the Yukon Historical and Museums Association. What little Klondike-era architecture remains is worth seeing. Among the quaint survivors are small wood-frame houses (including author Pierre Berton's family home) on Wood Street and some log "skyscrapers" on Lambert Street. At the Old Log Church Museum, film fans can hear the story of "the bishop who ate his boots" that inspired a scene in Charlie Chaplin's 1925 classic, The Gold Rush. Down by the Yukon River is the SS Klondike, the Yukon's only authentically restored sternwheeler, its gleaming woodwork a testimony to the craftsmanship of the period.

As in bygone days, Whitehorse - though today it is the capital of the territory - exudes the warm-hearted charm of a small town hovering on the cusp of wilderness, and its true appeal still lies in its status as a steppingstone to adventures in nature.

For first-timers, the Yukon Visitor Centre downtown is a convenient source for details on current attractions, events and contacts for daytrips. Visiting the museums will enhance your historical perspective. The MacBride Museum brings to life tales of the gold-rush days with its exhibits of animals, the North-West Mounted Police and the cabin of Sam McGee, who was immortalized in the famous Robert William Service poem. The Beringia Interpretive Centre focuses on Beringia, the prehistoric, unglaciated bridge of land linking Siberia to Alaska that vanished during the last Ice Age. It sheds light on the woolly mammoth, steppe bison, giant beaver and scimitar cat as well as North America's first humans, ancestors of the First Nations people who settled the Yukon some 24,000 years ago.

About 10 kilometres from Whitehorse is Miles Canyon. Placid since the White Horse Rapids disappeared when the river was dammed for hydropower, the area invites easy hikes, trail riding and boating.

Upriver, the abandoned town of Canyon City is a jumble of beaver-gnawed tree stumps littered with rusty tin cans. A staging point on the stampeders' route to the Klondike between 1897 and 1900, Canyon City was occupied for only those three short years. But according to Yukon archaeologist Ruth Gotthard, the thin scatter of historic debris at Canyon City overlies traces of an ancient Southern Tutchone Indian fishing camp that once thrived here. Gotthard pointed out the subtle remnants of human history, noting mounds of earth that suggest building outlines and holes where stone tools and bone fragments were discovered, indicating occupation of the site 2,500 years ago. As to the tin cans, she said, they're "highly sensitive time indicators by virtue of their sealing techniques."

"The Yukon is the only place I ever wanted to study," Gotthard said. "In the mid-1990s, a miner found a prehistoric Pleistocene horse pelt that was 26,000 years old, complete with long mane and tails. A surprise, since we thought it had a short mane." Results of recent Canyon City excavations are described in a publication available on a Government of Yukon website, www.yukonheritage.com. In summer, the Yukon Conservation Society conducts walking tours to the site from Miles Canyon, an easy two-kilometre outing that follows trails and the old tramway bed alongside the Yukon River.

The Yukon's most spectacular attraction is Kluane National Park, about a two-hour drive west of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway. Proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its St. Elias range includes Mount Logan at 5,950 metres, Canada's highest mountain and one of the world's largest massifs. Amid the rocky peaks also lie the largest non-polar icefields on earth, a legacy of the last Ice Age. And skirting the ice edge is the greatest diversity of plant and wildlife existing north of 60 degrees. Visitors may spot nimble, curly-horned Dall mountain sheep, peregrine falcons and herds of caribou or moose.

Invariably, hikers return from Kluane with tales of breathtaking descents through alpine tundra to view the massive Donjek Glacier.

True to its Indian meaning, Kluane - "place of many fish" - has an abundance of lake trout, arctic grayling and rainbow trout in its lakes. Fishing from boats is exciting but due to unpredictable high winds, canoeing is discouraged.

In keeping with a wilderness preserve, there are few facilities or roads in Kluane, so everyone is advised to register at the interpretive centre. In this "Land of the Midnight Sun," visitors from around the world flock to revel in the endless daylight of summer and to view the northern lights that stream across the night sky from autumn to spring.

With a host of outdoor tour operators, Whitehorse abounds with year-round adventure. Spring to fall, people go for exhilarating fishing, hiking, canoeing, white-water rafting, hiking and camping excisions. Other popular attractions include Yukon River cruises aboard the MV Schwatka, the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue at the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel, the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, the Whitehorse Fish Ladder and the Takhini Hot Springs. For extreme types, Yukon Wild, a consortium of tour operators, offers everything from heli-hiking to camping in a remote yurt, while winter thrills include dogsledding, cross-country skiing and skidooing across the frozen tundra.

A century after the gold rush, Whitehorse remains a steppingstone to the Yukon. But now, savvy adventurers stay awhile before moving on.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission website at www.travelcanada.ca.

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Soaking up the scenery in Banff's hottest attraction

Photo: Parks Canada, Brenda Falvey

Lingering in the warm mineral waters of Banff's Upper Hot Springs pool, surrounded by jagged mountain peaks, is pure pleasure.

BY TAMARA NOWAKOWSKY

"There is a feeling of having caught Nature unawares at her work of creation. Here was purity and dignity and measureless peace." - Renowned 19th-century Canadian geologist A.P. Coleman on Banff, Alberta, and its mountain surroundings.

In 1884, as the railway that would join Canada from coast to coast was pushing steadily ahead, Canadian Pacific Railway workers William McCardell and Frank McCabe stumbled across a cave containing hot springs on the eastern slopes of Alberta's Rocky Mountains. Until then, only the Stoney Indians had known about and used these waters, which they held to be sacred and infused with healing properties.

Looking into the waters nearly 120 years ago, the railway labourers saw opportunity reflected back. They wished to develop the hot springs as a tourist activity and destination, knowing that the much sought-after European market would especially appreciate the soothing properties of the warm mineral waters. It was a dispute over the ownership of these hot springs that prompted the creation of Banff National Park - Canada's first national park - in 1885.

The springs are still rumoured to have healing properties. While, the Cave and Basin springs at the foot of Sulphur mountain are now a national historic site, today most visitors to the national park - whether they're here to enjoy outdoor adventures like mountain climbing or skiing, to attend corporate meetings, to participate in educational programs, or to wheel and deal at one of the local film, TV or book festivals - eventually make their way to the current hot springs site, Banff Upper Hot Springs.

Modern-day explorers experience the same benefits as their counterparts of the past, though it can be difficult to determine what plays the biggest role in the rumoured healing - the warm mineral waters, or the scenery. The stress relief gained by simply slowing down and spending time in the pool, surrounded by jagged mountain peaks, is invaluable. In a setting like Banff, soaking up the view as you soak in the waters, the pressures of life seem to evaporate. You'd have to go a long way to find anything like the restorative qualities of these hot springs, open to the scenery and the elements.

Banff Upper Hot Springs are open year-round, and if you enjoy one season, chances are you'll be captivated by the next. Perhaps the most incredible time to visit the springs is winter - the cool air and gently falling snowflakes melting on your face as you sit in the warm water adds yet another degree of charm.

Reverence for Banff's rich history is another of the park's attractive qualities. One of the most interesting aspects of the hot springs, for instance, is to be found not at the current springs, but at the original site. For a full experience that puts it all in perspective, visit Cave and Basin first before heading for Banff Upper Hot Springs.

At the Cave and Basin springs, which have been preserved as an interpretive centre, a short walk through a rocky tunnel leads into the earliest developed hot springs site. You can't soak in this water, and even dipping a finger into it is strongly discouraged, so as to safeguard the remaining habitat of the rare and threatened Banff Springs Snail, a tiny creature found nowhere else in the world. The endangered Banff Springs Snail (Physella johnsoni), which lives in five of Banff National Park's natural hot springs, is found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these snails are about the size of an average small fingernail. They live in warm water, clinging to algae at the water's surface. The Cave and Basin Hot Springs contains a protected pool for the snails because if people were to bathe in the water or merely dip their hands into it, the resultant waves would disturb the algae mats where the snails feed and lay eggs. Chemicals, deodorants, and insect repellents on people's skin also harm the snails and their habitat.

Outside the exhibit building, history comes alive. Stepping into the area of the reflecting pool and fountain in the former Bathing Pavilion is like stepping back in time. The open-roof structure, with stone arches and windows in the surrounding walls that look out onto the scenery, makes you yearn for the days of such beautiful architecture. Gazing at historic photos, you might find yourself straining to hear gleeful laughs from the past.

The more recent springs location is a short trip from the Cave and Basin site. The main building at Banff Upper Hot Springs was refurbished in 1995, in homage to its original 1932 appearance. Today the heritage bathhouse offers the kind of services modern travellers have come to expect, including interpretive exhibits, a restaurant and boutique, and the recently renovated Pleiades Massage and Spa. Staff at Pleaides use only handmade, all-natural products in their massages, facials, salt scrubs and other treatments.

When you finally immerse yourself in the hot springs, you'll discover that though the modern world is fast-paced, the mountains surrounding the site are ages old, and the experience of the waters is timeless.

A.P. Coleman's words still ring true in this little corner of the world. In large and traffic-heavy cities it might seem impossible, but in its development of Banff Upper Hot Springs, Parks Canada found a way to ensure that the purity, dignity and measureless peace Coleman spoke of nearly 120 years ago still exist today.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca

Pools of Heaven

Photo: Parks Canada, Brenda Falvey

The views are worth the drive for a heavenly dip in the steaming waters of Miette Hot Springs in Jasper National Park, the hottest of all the Canadian Rockies thermal springs.

BY TAMARA NOWAKOWSKY

It's cool to be hot in Alberta's Jasper National Park. Here, at Miette Hot Springs, the steaming hot springs - with the hottest water of all the Canadian Rockies thermal springs - reach a maximum temperature of 53.9° C. Mind you, the water is cooled for bathers to a comfortable 39° C or so.

On a first visit to Miette, or a return trip if you haven't been here for a while, chances are you'll walk away feeling like a modern-day explorer who has just made a very important discovery.

First-timers can be forgiven for mistaking the drive to Miette through the spectacular Fiddle Valley as the reward, since the road winds past interesting sites like Punchbowl Falls and the jaw-dropping scene at the Ashlar Ridge Viewpoint. Surely, half the fun is getting there.

Similarly entertaining is the family of mountain sheep that visitors encounter while finding a parking spot at the pool site. A fixture at Miette, the sheep have been greeting arriving guests here for years. Stories abound about people leaving the pool building and concluding they were in the hot water a little too long, having caught sight of a sheep on the hood of their car. The sheep also like to crawl under cars to lick salt from the undercarriages.

The staff at the Miette Hot Springs pool facility are so friendly you might feel like you're visiting relatives. And like a grandmother who scolds you for walking in the house with your shoes on, the cashiers eagerly call out to people walking into changing areas to remove their shoes. The mixture of heavy foot traffic and a wet, warm environment with a heated floor can potentially breed bacteria, so cleaning staff work continually to provide and maintain sanitary conditions.

When you exit the change room to the poolside and take in the view, you'll be struck with the realization that the journey to get here, as wonderful as it was, was simply the means to an end.

The only decisions remaining are where to start, as there are three pools, and where to sit, since there are amazing vistas on all four sides of the pools.

The little pool tucked away behind a half-wall evokes the most curiosity, and visitors soon realize it's called the cold plunge pool for a reason. If you're brave and hearty enough to enter past your ankles, you'll probably end up asking yourself: "If I could make a sound, would my shrieks reverberate off of the mountains or be absorbed by them?" And then as you remember that two hot pools await, you'll likely exit faster than from any pool ever before.

The shallow hot pool is set to 39° C, while the deeper hot pool is kept at 41° C, a temperature that makes a long soak difficult and in fact inadvisable. (In the hot springs, the deeper the source water goes, the hotter it gets. At this, the hottest springs in the Canadian Rockies, the precious liquid is heated directly by the Earth's core and returns to the surface hot and loaded with dissolved natural minerals at a rate of 1,540 litres or 350 gallons per minute.) When the time comes to get out, many bathers can't resist the urge to do the circle of all three pools again.

For those who have time and energy after their dips, the site offers plenty of other activities as well. In addition to a café, gift shop and gardens, Miette's rich history is depicted on an interpretive trail leading to the original bathhouse that was erected at the source of the hot springs. Historic photographs provide an entertaining and informative peek at the period from 1919, when the first crude pool and change house were built, to the 1930s, when the original building was constructed. Miette also offers outstanding hiking in the surrounding sub-alpine terrain, along with excellent wildlife-viewing opportunities.

At the end of the day, head into Jasper to check out a variety of hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. Or if you have only enough energy to get down from the mountain, consider staying at the cozy Pocahontas Bungalows at the base of the mountain.

Resist the urge to share stories of your discovery with friends and family... at least for a day or two. Bask in the glow that comes from knowing that while you were not the first to discover the hot springs, the experience has left you deservedly, thoroughly pleased with yourself.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Trophy Fly Fishing in Saskatchewan

Photo: David Smallwood

An expert's take on the best fly-fishing spots in northern Saskatchewan, which happen to be some of the best in Canada.

BY DAVID SMALLWOOD

When autumn arrives in Saskatchewan, it brings with it some of the top trophy fly-fishing Canada has to offer, for this is a province where lake trout, rainbow trout, walleye and northern pike grow to world-class proportions.

One of the great trophy destinations in the province is Tobin Lake, 275 kilometres east of Saskatoon. Formed in the 1960s with the construction of the EB Campbell hydroelectric dam, the lake has developed into a renowned walleye fishery. It holds the current walleye record of 8.2 kilos and the pike record of 17.1 kilos, and fly fishers have a good chance of hooking into a five-kilo-plus walleye at the lake. A few suggested flies are Clouser Minnows, Crayfish imitations and Grey Ghosts.

If the walleye fishing is slow, consider the Nipawin Great Northern Pike Festival. It runs at Tobin Lake until Oct. 4, letting anglers try their luck at catching and releasing one of the tagged northern pike with a total prize pool of around $70,000.

Or you could head for the hills - the Pasquia Hills, to the south of Tobin Lake. One of the best ways to explore this unique wilderness region, a kaleidoscope of colours in autumn, is on horseback. Check out the Eastview Wilderness Guest Ranch, which provides trail rides into the backcountry.

At Narrow Hills Provincial Park, meanwhile, you might wish you had brought your horse, or at least your hiking boots! Located about 170 kilometres northwest of the Pasquia Hills by road, the park offers a wealth of lakes and species to tantalize with a fly, including kokanee salmon. The waters are not readily accessible, but if you take along a small canoe or a fisherman's float tube, you can have these isolated lakes all to yourself. My favourite fly for these waters is a G.R. Hare's Ear nymph size 14 to 16.

Rainbow Lodge, a must-stop for any fly fisher seeking local flies, equipment or up-to-the-minute fishing conditions, is located just outside the park's northwest boundary on Piprell Lake, home of the provincial record rainbow and brown trout. The lodge boasts of 45 lakes within a 24-kilometre radius, with 15 different species of fish.

At the park's south entrance is Esker Road, a meandering gravel trail that weaves hikers upwards through jack pine. And the 9.5-kilometre Island Lake Trail leads to the Gem Lakes, a beautiful setting for backcountry camping in autumn. As an added enticement, the Gem Lakes - Jade, Opal, Sapphire, Diamond and Pearl - are stocked with trout.

For trophy lake trout, however, head for Lac La Ronge Provincial Park further north, via Clarence-Steepbank Lakes Provincial Park, Saskatchewan's newest park, where more fishing and hiking opportunities abound in an undulating landscape. This area denotes the "approximate geographic centre of Saskatchewan," which provides an idea of the province's immense wilderness (some 326,000 square kilometres). The drive to Lac La Ronge also offers examples of some of the startling contrasts in the Saskatchewan landscape, like the Nipekamew Sand Cliffs, sandstone cliffs that soar roughly 25 metres.

An hour northwest of the cliffs, immense Lac La Ronge Provincial Park encompasses more than 3,300 square kilometres of beautiful forests dotted with 100 freshwater lakes and portions of the Churchill River. Lac La Ronge itself has been a trophy lake-trout destination for decades. As cold-water fish, lake trout normally prefer the depths, but move to the shallows in autumn when the temperatures drop and the water cools.

Hunter Bay on the eastern shore has produced more trophy lake trout than any other part of Lac La Ronge. The gravel shoreline and boulder-strewn bottom are trout magnets when the conditions are right. Large minnow-imitating flies (five to 12 centimetres long) and heavy sinking fly lines are excellent choices here.

For those who want to stay awhile, there are outfitters on Hunter Bay and houseboat rentals at Eagle Point Resort at McGibbon Bay on the lake's west side. Houseboating is a great way to explore the lake, with a small boat or canoe towed behind for secluded excursions among the shoreline.

Hikers and cyclists can head to Nut Point on the east side of McGibbon Bay, where a beautiful 15-kilometre trail runs out to the Nut Point Peninsula. This is a wilderness route, so pack accordingly. Twenty kilometres north of La Ronge, the Don Allen Nordic Ski Area is another excellent hiking and mountain-biking area, offering two five-kilometre loops over steep outcroppings, streams, muskeg and many other oddities.

With its fishing, hiking, cycling, boating and beautiful wilderness, Saskatchewan's north country pleases so many because it offers so much.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca

source: Canadian Tourism Commision

This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.