Winnipeg & Yellowknife

I’m back in Montréal now and (for the first time in over a year) I have no major trips planned!

A few weeks ago I flew to Winnipeg. I’d previously driven through there on my way back from Burning Man but Rachelle wasn’t around so I didn’t stop. This time I spent about 5 days there, long enough to really get a sense of the place. This was a bit of a change from my road trip in September, where I feel like I barely saw most places I stopped. So, Winnipeg… not a bad place, but not an amazing city either. My big complaint is that it’s really spread out. Hardly anyone lives a walking distance from downtown, and the transit isn’t great. Winnipeg Transit does do a good job with what they have (apart from inexplicably not supporting Google Transit) but it’s still infrequent, bus-based transit. Still, I had fun there!

Then a taxi ride to an airport ridiculously far out of town and a flight to Yellowknife, to visit Natasha. Yellowknife for me is a harder question. I definitely want to go back there. The big issue is "for how long"? I didn’t fall completely in love with the place as Natasha has (maybe the -10°C in October weather had something to do with it) but there’s something really neat about the place. It kind of feels like a frontier still. There’s a good number of people building interesting things, or meeting their needs in creative ways – like houseboats. Natasha lived on one earlier this year and we took a canoe (half walking on ice, half paddling) out to see some at one point. Houseboats are interesting in that they’re largely free of regulation. The lake (Great Slave Lake) is considered federal waters, so they’re exempt from municipal bylaws and most regulations, except the ones that concern barges on large waterways. But you can still paddle or walk to the city in 5-10 minutes. The big downsides are that you’re living without any services. You need to provide your own electricity, water infrastructure, sewage, and so on. Few houseboats have showers or flush toilets.

My current idea (which I admit probably isn’t actually feasible) is to build a houseboat in the shape of a polar bear, live in it for a bit, then sell it. More on polar bears later :)

So now I’m back in Montréal. I moved into a new apartment 2 weeks ago and started to look for work. Hopefully I’ll find the time to post more and upload the photos from my road trip… we’ll see.

I hope everyone reading this is doing well :) Thanks for being a part of my adventures.