Miss Mary’s sub Arctic expedition!

We arrived in Yellowknife,N.West Territories, Canada nearly 2 weeks ago to a completely white world with glorious blue skies and day temp varying between -5 and -15 degrees.Our time here has been action packed ..every day a new adventure and we’ve been introduced to a whole new world!

The ice road starts here and leads up to the mines,we travelled on it  to view the Northern Lights!Lakes are frozen and look so lovely surrounded by taiga forest.We spent a couple of fabulous days travelling out on the snow mobile to ice fish and picnic on the lake. Imagine lighting a fire on the ice and then sitting on the snow enjoying a cup of tea!The snow is a great place to see animal tracks and we’ve seen coyote, otter, lynx, ptarmigan, squirrel, rabbit, snowshoe hare and best of all WOLF!

The squirrels have just woken up after their long winter sleep and are so active. We’ve seen beaver lodges but the beavers are still underneath the frozen lake snug in their lodge and wont come up for another month when the snow and ice will begin to melt. The musk rat also has a little house under the frozen ice and he seems to be a cute little fellow unlike our European ratty!In fact it is quite difficult to spot animals at this time of year as it is so cold.

Within the next month,the summer visitors will arrive..the geese on their way to the Arctic is said to be a spectacular sight!We hiked to see a frozen waterfall and saw a bald eagle…the first sign of spring!We also saw bison,standing in deep snow at the side of the road.That was a wonderful sight,the biggest land mammal in N.America!The whiskey jack and raven are the only birds one sees all the time!I saw the whiskey jack peeling bark of a branch of the silver birch so nesting must be about to start!

One of our best days were spent mushing with the sled dogs…we just loved it and such fun!We have met and spent time with some wonderful people and last night we stayed in a log cabin on the lake.Paul and Emily have given us the holiday of a lifetime and I have great stories to share with my little Montessori class.