Christmas has become increasingly tricky.
It feels like you struggle to find the perfect gift only to realize you missed the mark, or someone wants a receipt to return it. Shopping is even harder in Yellowknife so to escape this you turn to gift cards, but in the end it is passing money around. We decided to get out of the game and Christmas will be about experiences with the family. So this year we spent Christmas in Banff.
The challenge with this approach is getting out of Yellowknife is a long drive- as long as getting out of Ontario, but without the towns and villages to go by. Flying is clearly faster, but with four passengers extremely expensive. So driving it was. It takes a full day to drive to High Level, Alberta which is neither high nor level, not sure who named the place but they clearly don't get around much.
Hands down the best part of the drive was definitely the bison.
Day two we drove to Hinton Alberta and due to a GPS error on our part, we could only glimpse the outline of mountains as darkness settled in. In the morning I was shocked to realize the mountains were right on top of us. It was as though they crept up in the night. I couldn't believe we could have not seen them even in the dark! Since we were still in 2017 all National Parks were free, so in we drove to Jasper National Park.
We weren't in the park ten minutes before Brent, who was driving, spotted a herd of elk. We turned around to go back and see, they were beautiful, like deer only way bigger. Maybe ten minutes farther along Brent saw big horned sheep that I had missed. We saw two males fighting and then an entire herd seemed to race toward our car. Probably thought we had food, which we would never do. It was amazing. To top it off we saw two more herds of elk before we turned to the highway that would take us to Banff.
The road to Banff has travel status- Good, fair, poor and closed. The road was poor. However the day was clear and we had enjoyed a great road so far. So we headed in. Turns out they were right. there were spots that were crazy icy. The sheer beauty of the mountains however made slippy windy roads a non-issue. The mountains made you feel small and yet somehow also really alive. With lots and lots of stops we finally arrived in Canmore where we spent 5 days.
Aiden and Brent skied Big Three, while Owen vegged out and I did art, or explored the area by foot and once to Banff for a day trip. Aiden realized that if he lived near a ski hill like this, he would likely skip school, and last night he mused whether he really wanted to be an engineer, or if he could just work at Banff... We agreed engineering at Calgary and skiing on weekends was a good compromise!
In Edmonton we shopped at the West Edmonton Mall and the boys did the water park and mini putt. Driving back to Yellowknife was a cold, cold adventure, especially when the car wouldn't start in High Level on New Year's Eve! Thankfully a great hotel staff member jumped our car and we were only a couple hours late getting home. And home was worth getting to as there were fireworks we could watch from our condo.
It was a lovely trip with lots of memories that will last longer than any gift we could have given.
It feels like you struggle to find the perfect gift only to realize you missed the mark, or someone wants a receipt to return it. Shopping is even harder in Yellowknife so to escape this you turn to gift cards, but in the end it is passing money around. We decided to get out of the game and Christmas will be about experiences with the family. So this year we spent Christmas in Banff.
The challenge with this approach is getting out of Yellowknife is a long drive- as long as getting out of Ontario, but without the towns and villages to go by. Flying is clearly faster, but with four passengers extremely expensive. So driving it was. It takes a full day to drive to High Level, Alberta which is neither high nor level, not sure who named the place but they clearly don't get around much.
Hands down the best part of the drive was definitely the bison.
Day two we drove to Hinton Alberta and due to a GPS error on our part, we could only glimpse the outline of mountains as darkness settled in. In the morning I was shocked to realize the mountains were right on top of us. It was as though they crept up in the night. I couldn't believe we could have not seen them even in the dark! Since we were still in 2017 all National Parks were free, so in we drove to Jasper National Park.
We weren't in the park ten minutes before Brent, who was driving, spotted a herd of elk. We turned around to go back and see, they were beautiful, like deer only way bigger. Maybe ten minutes farther along Brent saw big horned sheep that I had missed. We saw two males fighting and then an entire herd seemed to race toward our car. Probably thought we had food, which we would never do. It was amazing. To top it off we saw two more herds of elk before we turned to the highway that would take us to Banff.
The road to Banff has travel status- Good, fair, poor and closed. The road was poor. However the day was clear and we had enjoyed a great road so far. So we headed in. Turns out they were right. there were spots that were crazy icy. The sheer beauty of the mountains however made slippy windy roads a non-issue. The mountains made you feel small and yet somehow also really alive. With lots and lots of stops we finally arrived in Canmore where we spent 5 days.
In Edmonton we shopped at the West Edmonton Mall and the boys did the water park and mini putt. Driving back to Yellowknife was a cold, cold adventure, especially when the car wouldn't start in High Level on New Year's Eve! Thankfully a great hotel staff member jumped our car and we were only a couple hours late getting home. And home was worth getting to as there were fireworks we could watch from our condo.
It was a lovely trip with lots of memories that will last longer than any gift we could have given.
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