Journey In

Neil & I flew Air Canada from Toronto to Edmonton, then Central Mountain Air from Edmonton to High Level. The second flight was on an 18 passenger plane that had a nice open view of the cockpit. Sketchy much?  Maybe, but it was kind of fascinating to see the pilots do their job!

High Level is a pit stop for travellers destined for Yellowknife and the rest of the Northwest Territories.  It's also the closest town to our reserve, which, Neil & I are going to grow to love over the next year because there we'll frequent for all our supplies and banking needs.

We are living in the Little Red River Cree Nation region, named after a section of the Peace River where the water actually looks red! (see picture). They are part of the Woodland Cree tribe.  There are 3 communities within this region: John D'or Praire (symbolized by the Eagle), Garden River (the buffalo), and Fox Lake (the fox, that's us!). Fox Lake is the biggest community of the 3 and named after the lake that used to be here, Fox Lake (duh).  Because we are living on what used to be the flatbed of the lake, you can only imagine how soft the sand is around here and on the roads.  This means lots and lots of dust (quick close the window, a truck is passing!)  and roads more slippery than black ice when it rains.

The travel from High Level to Fox Lake takes about two and half hours.  First you travel on dirt roads in a long straight stretch.  The roads are incredibly dusty so it's hard to see in front of you if you're following someone, like we did. You see, when we arrived at High Level a woman named Wilma met us, showed us around (letting us stop to do our big grocery run) and took us for lunch at one of the motel restaurants.  That's when Wilma introduced us to a bunch of people who walked in and out of the restaurant, including--what great luck!-- the Chief of Little Red River, named Gus Loonskin. Gus lives in Fox Lake and was in town for a meeting. He offered us a ride once his meeting was done. So, we got to loiter around town for a few hours, waiting for him. In those few hours, our hosts changed travel plans about a half-dozen times, but in the end, Gus was ready. He drove us about 30 minutes and had been talking to his wife (who was driving about 10 minutes ahead of us) on his cell. He then tells us that his wife's truck is out of oil. His wife pulled over, and waited for Gus to come by and fill up her oil tank, at which point he decided that Neil should drive his truck the rest of the way, so that he could drive with his wife. Neither of us knew what was in store for us on the roads. Getting to Fox Lake involves going through John D'or, driving about 40 minutes through some of the muddiest, ruddiest roads we'd ever seen, then crossing the Peace River via a two-car barge (used to be a one-car barge, but they upgraded this summer). It was a fun, adventurous ride but Neil was really nervous because the last thing he wanted to do on his first day was total the chief's $50,000 truck. That being said, we can't count how many times we said "Wow, this is AWESOME!!!" and I kept pointing out the trees-- "oh look at the beautiful birches! They're my favorite!" (although, I soon learned that they're actually Trembling Aspen- and they do really look like they're trembling in the wind with their little round leaves flapping about in the air...or like they're taunting you with their fingers saying "Ooooo").

We arrived at our place at around 9pm, got unpacked with relative ease, and passed out...

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