T-Minus One Week

T-Minus One Week

In one week I will be leaving the tropical south (Canada's banana belt) Niagara-on-the-Lake headed out on a one week Odyssey across this great land we call Canada. At the urging of Audrey Epp and in the footsteps of Ryan Androsoff I have started this blog. Having not much experience at his I will have to learn along the way. 

For those of you who haven's heard, I am moving to the Northwest Territories, Yellowknfe to be precise to take a job with the City as a lifeguard and water safety instructor, and before you start laughing, it is at an indoor pool.  In the past few weeks I have given up my responsibilities with the different board's I am on (Fort George, Willowbank, NDFFA) and have wrapped up my jobs with the Niagara Parks Commission, Great Wolf Lodge and Niagara Classic Cars. With one week to go, I still have some planning, packing, cleaning and tying up of loose ends.  

Thank you for supporting this move I am making. I am thankful especially to the Queenston Volunteer Firefighters' who without my knowledge or permission took my car while I was in Montreal last week and put snow tires on it. I am going to miss Spike's cooking on Monday nights and especially our Friday routine with the usual suspects. My last night in town is going to be at the Niagara District Firefighters' Association Christmas dinner in Willoughby and it is going to be a lot of fun.  

I am going to head to the CAA today to get some maps and associated resources and will also pick up some travel insurance for my excursion through the States. I haven't quite decided on my route because as it is winter here in most of Canada I will decide along the way. My main choices are going to be where to cross back into Canada (Manitoba or Sask.) do I travel north from Regina to Saskatoon and on to Edmonton or do I head west to Calgary and then up to Edmonton. I figure that it is at least twenty hours from Edmonton to Yellowknife! And yes there is a road that goes up there however there might be a problem when I get to the Mackenzie River in Fort Providence but they tell me that what they do is put an excavator on the front of the ferry and get you across until the ice bridge is in. If any of you have suggestions on routes that you have taken or know of, I would be happy to hear them.

I hope you enjoy reading this Blog and I will make my best attempts at updating it as I go along heading into the darkness that is North of 60. Please keep in touch as always, my e-mail is going to stay the same: crispinb@hotmail.com 

A little bit more about how the name of this blog was created. Those of you who are from Niagara-on-the-Lake should catch on right away. I wanted to bridge the gap between the north and south and so I blended the two with the name Nwt-O-T-L. 

Here are some of the links mentioned in my blog:

www.geocities.com/n_d_f_f_a

www.willowbank.ca

www.friendsoffortgeorge.ca

www.niagaraparks.com

www.greatwolflodge.com

www.niagaraclassiccars.com