That's a Wrap: Final Thoughts On Our Northern Adventure

Well folks, that's in for our trip to Yellowknife and Whitehorse.  I'm back in Toronto now, sitting at my dinning room table.  As is my custom I wanted to give some final thoughts on the trip before signing off.  I also typically do a write-up of the gear that I'll be using to capture the trip before I leave, and I didn't do that this time, so I'll use this space to go over my equipment for the trip (as it relates to writing this blog) and how it all worked out.

(**EDIT: Sorry folks, this post is going to be loooong!  I've been saving up a lot of miscellaneous thoughts that didn't make it in to any one post, so here they all are!)

Let's start with that gear posting that I just mentioned.  This was easily my best trip for blogging, based on my ability to consistently write and provide pictures; I don't think I missed a day, and I only had a couple SNAFU's where I wasn't able to post images from the day.  That's actually down to a couple of things, the first being the fact that I didn't leave Canada and was therefore able to access all my Google services without issue.  Blogger is a Google product, and when I travel to China I'm not able to access it without some kind of a VPN service, and in other places I've had trouble accessing the internet all together.  The internet speeds in Yellowknife were abysmal, but I was still able to get consistently connected, so that eliminated the number one cause of missed blogs.

In terms of camera equipment, I brought my Pentax K-5II out for the ride, just like last time.  It remains a great camera, and I was happy to have it.  However, this time out the bulk of my photos actually came off my phone.  The last time I was in Whitehorse I adopted the practice of carrying my DSLR with the long lens on it, in the hopes that I'd be able to see wildlife.  Generally if you come across an elk, a moose, a two grizzly bears playing poker in the woods you aren't going to have time to switch lenses.  The last time I carried a second camera with a wide-angle lens on it, but this time I opted for the shooter on my Pixel 2 XL, which takes a great photo.  As I previously mentioned, the quality of my panorama shots can be directly attributed to Google's excellent camera and app.  The other benefit to this approach is that everything I shoot on my phone gets automatically uploaded to Google Photos as soon as I'm on WiFi, and Photos integrates directly with Blogger.  This made it a snap to add my photos to the blog posts each night.

The only remaining change-up to my gear bag was the additional of a Pixelbook.  A huge number of the posts on this blog were written on an extremely old Asus netbook which never got upgraded beyond Windows XP.  I'm happy to report that the old workhorse still turns on, and I've been using it to toy around with an Arduino I got recently, but with XP being long ago retired it's almost impossible to get anything meaningful done online with it.  The Pixelbook has been a magnificent piece of equipment.  There was one snag in Whitehorse where I wasn't able to access the photos from my camera, but aside from that it's made blogging a snap.  Jabbles got me an SD card reader that has USB-C and I was easily able to import the photos from my camera using that.  Once on here I was able to edit them using a free, compact version of Lightroom that came on the computer.  I've never incorporated post-processing in my workflow, and I didn't think I'd start while out of town, but it was a breeze to give my photos a quick boost.  I didn't play with them too much, but it was really helpful to be able to make adjustments if I'd missed the exposure by a little bit.

This really was the first time I felt like the equipment and available resources came together to allow me to just focus on writing the blog.

While not a piece of travel gear, I always need to give a big shout out to Airbnb.  It was my first time using the service, but that worked out magnificently.  I was dubious about staying in someone else's home, especially in the case of Yellowknife where the home owner was living in another part of the house, but it was great.  Adam was an interesting guy to talk to, and provided some great local insight and information.  Bolstered by confidence from how quiet Whitehorse was the last time we visited, I left booking a hotel in Yellowknife until about a month in advance.  Turns out there's a massive shortage of hotels in Yellowknife (so much so that it made the news recently) and I could find nothing in a conventional hotel for a visit.  It's not hyperbolic to say that by offering the main floor of his house on Airbnb Adam saved that portion of our trip.  Anyone heading that direction should look him up, and I'll aid in that venture by linking to his Airbnb listing here.

The place in Whitehorse was also fantastic.  Having a whole house to yourself is great when you're travelling with a big group.  I believe I'd already touted the benefits of being able to coordinate with each other, and having a place to hang out while Finn was napping.  Beyond that though, it was just nice having a spot to relax.  Sometimes on a vacation you just want to dial down the adventure and put your feet up, and doing that in a hotel room never quite fits the bill.  Kicking back on a couch in a proper living room really seems to recharge the battery like nothing else.

During the entire trip we only stayed in a hotel twice; the first night in Ottawa, and the last night in Whitehorse.  The Hilton by the airport in Ottawa is lovely, and very conveniently located.  The Best Value Inn - River View in Whitehorse, on the other hand, was a horror show.  The website mentions that it is "newly renovated" and apparently the rooms on the first floor legitimately are.  However, the second floor rooms that we were substantially less than delightful.  Euphy and I actually had to change rooms because the first one stank, and the baseboard heater had exposed wiring.  If anything the River View was a spectacular endorsement of Airbnb.

Wrapping up the gear section, I'm going to write a bit that is probably exclusively for the enjoyment of Jabbles: it's Car Review time!  In Yellowknife we got a Dodge Grand Caravan.  Euphy was registered on that one, so she did all the driving, but she really enjoyed it.  I was critical of it at first when comparing it to my Kia Sedona, but there's enough of a price difference between the two that it becomes an unfair comparison.  I've become a fan of minivans, and I think if you've got a family and you're working on a budget that the Caravan would serve you well.

Now for the vehicle I can really comment on, the Ford Escape that I rented in Whitehorse.  I'm not sure of the exact model, but it had some upgrades like leather seats, which were nice.  It handled itself very well climbing Grey Mountain, and was nice around town.  I did feel like there was a distressing lack of power when passing on the highway though.  By all initial appearances it's not a bad vehicle, but you're talking to a tech geek here, so we have to look at software, user experience, and the infotainment system.  For in-dash infotainment Ford uses Microsoft SYNC, which is a dumpster fire.  In my vehicle when I hook up my phone it detects that it's an Android and launches Android Auto.  Done.  This hateful piece of malignant bloatware has Android Auto as an option, but would constantly pull me out of that interface to display an error letting me know that my phone wasn't compatible with SYNC.  Thanks, good to know, can I go back to the software that works now please?  Another quirk showed up about half way through the trip when the car hit the mileage limit where it starts warning you that you're going to be due for an oil change soon.  In my car when I hit that point it will display a message when I start the vehicle and let me know how many kilometres I've got left.  The Escape makes an irritating ding and displays a similar message, but it has that feature when the engine turns off when you've come to a complete stop, and it considers that a restart and so you get the ding and the warning every time you accelerate away from a stop sign.  Grows tiring quickly.  Also, and I thought this was terrifying, when you come to a stop and it kills the engine, it also locks the steering wheel.  I noticed that when someone in front of me stopped, I waited for the lane beside me to clear, and then went to pass them and my wheel wouldn't turn!  Not sure what the logic is behind that, but it was unsettling.  On their own those are all small irritations, but they added up enough that I've become soured on the notion of Fords in general.

So, as a gear summary, everything worked out brilliantly except Best Value Inn and Ford, which should be avoided like the plague.  I will take a moment for you all to applaud me on reviewing both without profanity.

Okay, I think with that out of the way we can finally talk about those final thoughts I mentioned in the title.  This was, in short, a brilliant trip.  I love Northern Canada, and seeing it with my family was great.  Finn handled himself really well, but I think that a flight of that duration is more than you can ask of any toddler, and we'll probably give him a few years before asking him to sit through that again.  I can see myself repeating this voyage down the line when he's old enough to really take something away from it all.  Yellowknife is an amazing place to visit as a launching off point from which to take in all the natural beauty that surrounds it.  I'd love to go back with a little more time to just explore the vastness beyond the city borders.  Whitehorse has a lot more to offer within the confines of the city, but what like Yellowknife it really is all about what's outside the city that counts.  Having barely poked my head in the door of Kluane I feel compelled to go back and explore it in more detail.  It's a big enough area that you could base an entire trip on that alone.  I do feel the same way about the trails around Whitehorse though, and could love to spend more time wandering around the trail system near Grey Mountain.  The North's greatest treasure is its vastness, which makes it a destination great for returning to.

I think I've made you all sit through enough, so I'm going to wrap this up.  I'm not going to make any foolish promises of continued writing - I think history has shown us how that will go.  This is a travel blog, and there isn't much to say without the requisite leaving of one's house.  Rest assured that I will be back, the next time I go adventuring, and I look forward to writing here again.