On Monday, January 9th,, at 4:30 a.m., we arrived at our local airport. Little did we know what we were leaving behind with the crazy rain. By the time we got on our first plane and had landed an hour away, the notices about school being cancelled were coming through and the kids at home were happy to find out but bummed that they were already awake and ready to go.
After our day of flying, our final stop was in Whitehorse in the Yukon! This is what it looked like out the window.
And from baggage claim. And this was 5:19 p.m., already getting very dark since the sun had already set.
We took the shuttle to our hotel for the night. Glad we didn't have to do any driving! This was the view outside our hotel room.
After dinner we walked around the part of town where we were staying. There was a lot of light displays, made me think this was their way of compensating for the lack of daylight.
That night we opened our suitcase and found wet clothes. Thankfully most of the items were dry but our pajamas were partially wet. Apparently our suitcase was out in the rain before our first flight and got wet. Thankfully we had hairdryers to get them dry before bed!
The next morning we got up and had breakfast and walked around the town more since the stores were open. They don't have many open hours for the small shops! We liked the name of this store.
After lunch we were picked up and taken to the lodge were we would be spending the next few days. It was a beautiful drive but we didn't get to see all the mountains, just some of them, because of clouds.
This is the view from our villa.
We knew our chance to see the northern lights was basically none because of the clouds but we woke up in the middle of the night to see if we saw anything. This is from the night mode, and you can see some light from the moon rising behind the clouds.
Wednesday morning we got up and went to breakfast, and shortly after 10 a.m. we started to see the first glimmers of the sun coming up!
And this is looking toward the lake.
And this is the view we had from the tree on the lake.
This is what the view back toward the lodge and villas was.
We then went back to our villa and filled Matt's pockets with snacks and headed out for more snow shoeing. This is just after 11 a.m. which is after sunrise but due to the mountains no sign of the sun yet.
We headed to grizzly falls and I made Matt stop a few times along the way and one time he got more rest while he waited for me to get ready to get moving again.
As the sun was coming up over the mountains, the view through the trees was breathtaking!
And we made it to the clearing! Whew! We stopped for a bit to eat some frozen granola bars and had some apple juice.
We were very warm from getting there and yet also cold!
And this is what Matt looked like when we made it back to the lodge.
The view did not get old!
And this is from our table at lunch.
And during the afternoon we had an ice fishing demonstration, which included us ice fishing for a bit. We both agreed that it is boring but learning about the lake and the way the ice forms and the environment was very interesting.
And although we didn't see the northern lights, it was much more clear and we saw lots of stars, and the moon rise!
On Thursday (Happy Anniversary!) we went snowmobiling! It was another overcast day unfortunately.
This is near the island in the lake.
We went around a large amount of the lake and on the far shore we saw the chunks of ice that had formed before the lake fully froze over. Check out that large piece of ice!
An ice fishing hold that had frozen over solid. It happens super fast!
As the water runs down the mountain where there is natural water runoff and it makes these banks of ice. It is thin lay on top of thin layer.
We saw otter holes and tracks and where one had recently eaten a trout. We saw lots of tracks for the wolfs and caribou. We also saw an area where the wolfs had a meal which turned out to be a moose. And as our guide noted, they were very hungry because they left next to nothing behind. It was crazy to see and a vivid remind about the realities of nature.
After a snack, we headed back to moose meadow but this time with our snowshoes. And this time we saw moose tracks! They look big right?
And with all the cloud cover it was another cruddy night for the northern lights. Boo!
This view of the sunrise on Friday morning was nice to see.
And then we headed off to dog sledding! We did a path on the lake where the team of eight dogs two sleds and three of us, one of us in a sled, our guide standing and guiding the first sled, and the other one of us standing on the second sled tethered to the first.
For lunch they had an area setup with a fire pit and benches.
On Friday nights they have a pickup hockey game that starts around 10 p.m. Yup, that late. It was a lot of fun and there are people who skate and people in boots. They recruit guests to play and Matt joined them for a bit and got an assist! And some lungs that felt like there were on fire!
This was someones dog who was convinced the puck was her toy.
The fire was nice to keep a bit warmer, and keep the adult beverages from freezing!
And here is Matt!
At this point each team had three players and a goalie. That meant a lot of running back and forth!
Here is a little clip of the action!
It was another bummer night for the lights... Not even sure if you will be able to tell that these photos are actually different but they are!
Given how crummy the sky was overnight, we weren't surprised to wake up on Saturday to a very foggy morning! This was well after sunrise.
We started the journey home and spent the night at a nice hotel attached to the Vancouver airport. The lights on the hills are areas were there were ski resorts. We had a telescope and could see the different ski runs.
Thankfully all of our flights went smoothly and we made it home Sunday night. And today we have spent the day relaxing and being with the kids.
