“I crossed Lake Athabasca last year, which was a big lake, but that’s nothing compared to this.”
Stephen Mills is back in Fort McMurray after a snowmobile trip to and from Yellowknife that took in the Slave River and a day-long crossing of what he calls the “ocean” of Great Slave Lake.
“It tells you who’s boss,” he said.
Mills and four others formed a group to take on the journey earlier this month – all residents of Fort McMurray. Four are originally from Newfoundland, Mills included, with the fifth from Ontario.
“It’s not something very many people have done,” said Mills, asked to describe why the trip came about.
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The group packed extra clothes, additional fuel, a tent and stove, while Mills custom-built two sleighs for the voyage, which took four days each way.
Day one took them from Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan, day two on to Fort Smith, day three to Fort Resolution and day four across the lake to Yellowknife.
“Number one on the list was all the people we met along the way and their willingness to support us,” said Mills.
For example, he said, local leadership in Fort Resolution offered to find help if their snowmobiles had issues, as did residents in Yellowknife. Someone took the group fishing, while residents in Fort Smith introduced them to the Wood Buffalo Frolics annual festival (they arrived just as it was about to start).
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The region has experienced a cold winter. Mills said that gave the group extra faith in the ice conditions for the trip. He also enjoyed watching the landscape evolve as the quintet made its way north.
“In Fort McMurray it’s mostly sand. When we got farther north – getting back into the Canadian Shield and the rocky shore, rocky ground that I’m familiar with growing up in Newfoundland – I enjoyed that,” he said.
“Athabasca is a big river, but when you get onto the Slave River, you’re like, oh my. This is a big, powerful river.”
Crossing Great Slave Lake to Yellowknife was among the biggest challenges.
Not long after leaving Fort Resolution, Mills said, “a snowstorm came up and it was just looking at the GPS. We couldn’t see anything for about three hours straight. It was a test of nerves.”
That test wasn’t enough to put him off future trips like this.
“There’s a push to see if we can make it up to Tuktoyaktuk,” he said, referring to the Arctic coastal community that is the northern terminus of Canada’s highway system.
“That’s the dream, whether we leave Fort McMurray and go all the way or if we drive to Yellowknife and pick it up from there.”
More photos and video from the trip are available on Mills’ Facebook page.
