Going Way Up North

For each of my daughters’ graduation presents, I took them on a trip. With my oldest daughter, we went to Yellowstone National Park in 2019. My youngest daughter graduated in 2021 and we didn’t plan a trip because of pandemic concerns and because I was in the process of selling my house and buying another, but I owed her a trip. So, last year we decided on going to see the northern lights and one popular place to do this is Yellowknife Canada.

Yellowknife is the capital of the Northwest Territories, and I have read that the name of the town comes from the copper that the aboriginal people used to make tools like knives and there does appear to be a lot of mining industry there. Yellowknife also lies about 250 miles south of the arctic circle and is situated in or near the aurora zone of the Northern hemisphere. The aurora zone is a ring around the magnetic poles wear aurora are most common, and thus Yellowknife is a prime destination for aurora viewing.

From what I read, the best times to see the northing lights in Yellowknife is in the early autumn and in the late winter and early spring. I was not up for seeing the northern lights in -40 degree (C or F, it doesn’t matter) temperatures, so early autumn it was. So, I booked a trip for late September to go see the aurora borealis in Yellowknife. But one thing I couldn’t plan was the weather. The weather is typically good for aurora viewing this time of year, but the day we flew in it was raining, clouds covering the sky, and smoke near the ground as there have been a lot of wildfires in the area this summer. But, I made my reservation for a few days so I hoped for a good opportunity for some good viewing on at least one of those nights.

City of Yellowknife as seen from the Bush Pilots Memorial

We made the best of the first day, wandering around on the gray day and trying to see what there was to see, but I was frankly quite disappointed and worried that my aurora viewing trip would be a waste of time and money. But the forecasts for Yellowknife had been less reliable than flipping a coin at this point so there was still hope.

The next day I woke up, walked to a grocery store for some food and on the way back I saw a little blue between the clouds. This improved my mood a lot for the day ahead. There are several territorial parks along the main road through Yellowknife featuring lakes and waterfalls and I had planned to go hiking at these parks during the day and it looked like the weather would be favorable for this and maybe even the night sky.

The Cameron River as seen in Hidden Lake Territorial Park

The first place I chose to go hiking was Hidden Lake Territorial Park, which features a 1.3 km trail to Cameron Falls. There is quite a bit of climbing up and and down the rocks on this trail to get to the falls, but there are a few stairs built along the trail to help with this. Eventually the trail leads you to a viewing area on a cliff above the falls with several benches to rest upon. We saw a few other people along the trail, so we weren’t alone in the wilderness and eventually got to the viewing area and rested while enjoying the view.

View from the cliffs above Cameron Falls

Further up the trail is a bridge that allows you to cross the river with dry feet and get to the trail you can see on the distant river bank in the image above. The photo below shows the bridge and you can see how the skies were clearing. Hopefully there would be aurora to be seen this night.

Bridge across the Cameron River in Hidden Lake Territorial Park

We never did find the lake; it must have been well hidden as the name of the park implies. But we did enjoy the waterfalls.

Our next destination was just down the road at Cameron River Crossing Territorial Park. This park features a short hike, with a nice stairway down to the base of the Cameron River Ramparts waterfall. This is a smaller waterfall, but still very pretty and you can get down a lot closer to the base of it without risking your neck in the process.

The photo below was taken at midday and the sky had cleared up, so there is a lot of hard light on the falls creating deep contrasts. Waterfalls probably photograph best under softer light conditions on a cloudy day. But I was was not complaining about the clearing skies.

Cameron River Ramparts Falls

In the photo below I became a little obsessed with shooting this dandelion in the foreground. I was basically right up close to the dandelion shooting at 14mm (ultra-wide). Not sure how well it worked in the end, but it did get some water spray on my lens. Everything was shot handheld because my tripod wanted to stay back at the hotel in my suitcase for some reason.

Dandelion in front of Cameron River Ramparts Falls

This was mine and my daughter’s nice day of hiking at some of the territorial parks near Yellowknife. We were thankful for the nice weather. With the sky looking mostly clear, I had a lot of hope for the coming night. I’ll write about that next time. Thanks for reading

38 thoughts on “Going Way Up North”

  1. Wow, beautiful shots! What a great adventure you took your daughter on.

    I was stationed in Iceland for a year, while in the Air Force, and saw the northern lights on numerous occasions. They were very hard to photograph with my polaroid camera, so I had to settle for buying some photos from professional photographers. Usually they manifested as distant bluish streaks at a high altitude in the night sky. But on one occasion, in the month of October, I witnessed a spectacular display of gyrating orange, flame-like light that seemed as if was only about 50 feet above my head. I understand that kind of display is fairly rare. I just laid down in a field and watched it for about a half hour. It was really something.

    And then, due to my distraction and that of other servicemen, the Russians attacked and took over the world. Oh well.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I didn’t know any US military had been stationed in Iceland. I guess it is a NATO thing?

      The worst part about this trip was arranging air travel. I didn’t see a way to fly from Austin to Yellowknife in one day, mainly due to the limited number of flights to Yellowknife. So we get to see Calgary for an afternoon going in each direction. But Calgary is a really cool city to walk around in, so that was nice too.

      Maybe one day I will make it down to see the Southern lights, but I kind of doubt it.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. There was a U.S. Naval Air Station in Keflavik, Iceland until it was shut down in 2006. About a third of the personnel were Air Force. Now it’s an Icelandic Coast Guard Station. But the U.S. Navy and Air Force have returned recently, deploying some of their aircraft there. They’re keeping a watch on the Russian military, that has been prowling around the island.

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        1. Being stationed in Icelands sounds great if you are into nature and photography and if you could get away from your duties. I am guessing that at 20 years old, I would not have been clear headed enough to have appreciated those things though.

          I guess my Flickr embedded photo of the dandelion showed up well? Never quite sure how even a static link is going to display.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I got away from time to time, to explore the island. I went pony-trekking once, I swam in their famous Blue Lagoon, and I explored the roads in a rental car. Then my dad came out for a visit. He rented a car, and we drove all over the western side of the island, and had a blast.

            Yes, your Flickr embedded photo showed up well. Nice photo, too. So far I’ve had no problem seeing your embedded photos. I’ve occasionally had a problem where I’ve had to press a Log-in button to make a comment on your blog, and apparently others have experienced the same issue with commenting on my blog. I don’t know what WP is up to these days, but it seems like they do a lot of tinkering with their code that sometimes screws everything up.

            Liked by 1 person

  2. Beautiful pictures, Jason! I’m so happy you and your daughter came to Canada to visit our northern territories! I hope you both enjoyed your holiday! I am anxiously awaiting to see the northern lights through your camera lens! I can’t imagine how beautiful they will look!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Nice photos, Jason. And a nice adventure. It’s fun exploring and seeing other places. I liked your opening image showing the community from the hilltop (mountaintop?). I’ve been to British Columbia a couple of times back in the late 1980’s and enjoyed tooling about in a rental car. It seemed easier back then to carry gear on board a plane. Will you be making a photo book for your daughter of the trip?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Not sure if I will have enough photos. We have taken many selfies together which are called “usies” I think.

      I did get a rental car which made a lot of sense here to get to the outdoors places.

      Like

  4. I think this may work?
    Good photos in general. The Cameron River made for some excellent shots… Very beautiful area. Harder to pick anything as a “favorite”; though, I think like the last two photos maybe appeal to me for different reasons… irony, versus the close-in but difficult-to-travel perspective.

    Interesting place. There in mid-autumn of ’03, via Whitehorse. (Ugh, 20-years ago!) At the time, I was living in Vancouver. The route out was on an old 737-200 that could land on the gravel runway at Whitehorse. (Maybe paved now?) In Yellowknife, we took a tour out to the east to (try) to see the Aurora Borealis… Prelude Lake, I think. Searching for the Cameron River, looks like you went farther in the same direction.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I think it’s great how you take your daughter’s on graduation trips. Precious memories are made, I am sure.
    Beautiful waterfalls!
    Looking forward to seeing the Northern lights, through your camera lens. I can’t understand why you wouldn’t choose to go see them in -40 degrees weather! You have gloves, right? 😉

    Liked by 3 people

  8. What a lovely graduation present. We were debating about whether to visit the Northwest Territories or the Yukon this summer and opted for the latter. It worked out well as we would have likely had to cancel our trip as the timing coincided with the wildfires and evacuations. The scenery in and around Yellowknife looks lovely.

    Liked by 1 person

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