June 30, 2023: Moving on From Yellowknife

We lingered in our room until check-out, then had an early lunch at the hotel. Then we headed down to Old Town Glassworks to see if we could take a sand-blasting workshop. We were in luck - they ran a session for the three of us - we saw how they cut recycled bottles and polish them smooth with diamond sandpaper spun on a repurposed old washing machine controlled by a treadmill panel (Mark appreciated the McGyvering) to make drinking glasses.

We were then shown how to apply the stencils and sandblast them (the sandblasting machine is fairly new - they won it in a competition for North America's ugliest sandblaster, submitting their old jerry-rigged machine). Miles paid close attention to the instructions, and then led Mark and me through the steps. We were very pleased with our results: An inukshuk on brown glass for Miles, ravens on black glass for Mark, and wolves on black glass for me. We selected short, sturdy glasses, as we were worried about squeezing them into our already tightly packed luggage.

Our Old Town Glassworks creations

Harbour view

Miles poses as each of the figures in this boating scene along the walk to Old Town

Then we walked back uphill from Old Town, one last time, and waited at the hotel by the vending machines until it was time for the shuttle. We thought we would need to catch the regular shuttle to the main airport, and then another shuttle to the Air Tindi terminal, but we saw that an Air Tindi shuttle had pulled up, so hopped in. Then we had another long wait in the tiny terminal before we boarded the Twin Otter, with about 10 other passengers. The flight was very smooth, and we watched the clouds and landscape below us for about 1.25 hours before landing in Fort Simpson.

Overall, our time in Yellowknife seemed like more than we needed, although I think we made good use of it, experiencing some nice highlights. The extra day that we had to spend, due to taking the direct flight on the Air North schedule, may not have been worth it - next time I might take my chance with Air Canada in order to shave off a day.

Feeding Miles to the polar bear at the Explorer Hotel

Flying over the Mackenzie River - so wide (much wider than the lake that our cottage is on)!

A smooth flight

A Canoe North guide, Connor, met us when we landed, and we found that two other passengers from our flight, Richard and Maria, are also travelling with Canoe North, but on a different 14-day Nahanni canoe trip.

We checked in at the Lady Slipper Inn and had dinner with everybody else from our trip: Richard and Sandra, Ed and Ginger, Kristie, and Ellen and Kendra, before heading to bed in our room high up on the third floor.



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