Wood Buffalo National Park: A hidden Gem, July ’19

Our trip to the NWT and Nunavut had been in the works for two years. In 2017 at the Outdoor Adventure show in Toronto, I was fortunate to have met an experienced Parks Canada ranger. Upon hearing I was going to be travelling to the NWT in 2019, she assured me that Wood Buffalo National Park (WBNP) should really be on my list of things to see and do (if we could at all swing it).  She spoke enthusiastically about a couple of towns we would see along the way, and the new rustic cabins the park had to offer.  Andy and I discussed it as the park would likely not be a destination vacation for us in the future, but being so close and really knowing how enriching the national park experiences are, we put it on our high consideration list.  It would be an 8-hour drive from Yellowknife so not a hop, skip and a jump either. Some people discouraged us.  One relative said that he heard the highway was all gravel. We know from our experience last summer crossing southern Saskatchewan that just because a road is labelled a highway, does not mean it is necessarily paved. We were not discouraged. So, we planned it – three nights at a rustic cabin, 2 days visiting the park, and 2 days travelling to and from the park. We wouldn’t be able to see everything, but we’d get a taste of what the park had to offer.

A few locals in Yellowknife warned us about the road to WBNP. It was indeed paved but the first 100km has significant frost heaves and if one is not careful, could find himself or herself airborne on Hwy 5. One person even said, small cars could get stuck in them or lose a wheel.  Well, what is an 8-hour drive without some adventure? The rest of the drive, we were told would be good. 

We left Yellowknife early enough to hopefully catch the Saturday market in Hay River.  We also had a full tank of gas, not knowing how many service stops might be available between Yellowknife and Hay River (not much!). The day was lovely.  Not more than 10 minutes out of town the whoop-dee-doos started – ie the famous frost heaves we had been informed about.  It seemed every minute or two we saw another “whoop -dee-doo” sign to warn the inexperienced Hwy 5 traveller of the on-coming “danger.” Then our focus changed from the road condition to the side of the road.  Trotting along toward us was a beautiful lone wolf, head high in the air.  This was so unexpected. By the time Andy stopped the car in hope of a photo opportunity, the wolf has trotted by not showing a care in world of our presence.  We backed up. Then Mr Wolf slid into the woods beside the road and we never got our photo.  Already this 8-hour drive was giving us a bit of entertainment.  For the next 100km or so, we saw lots of big rocks similar to the Canadian Shield in norther Ontario. The rocks were various hues of orange, pink and greys like we had observed at Cameron Falls the previous day.  There were dozens of small lakes and streams, and here and there a territorial day-use park which largely seemed to be used for fishing. I think we saw less than 10 cars in either direction on the “whoop-dee-doo” laden part of the highway.  This was definitely a peaceful, tranquility that one would never get in the Toronto area where the hum of traffic can be heard everywhere day and night.

Just when Andy thought he could relax and have no more potential air launches, we saw a sign we’d never seen before. “Caution, wood bison for the next 210km!”  The next few hundred km of the highway that runs south of Great Slave Lake is the Mackenzie Wood Bison Management area.  Not long after the caution sign, we saw our first bison show.  We stopped. Took dozens of photos.  After the bison took their time crossing the highway in front of us, we carried on our way.  In another 10 minutes or so, we were delighted to see another herd. We stopped. Took dozens of photos. When the coast we clear and the bison safe on one side of the road or other, we moseyed on.  In another 10 minutes, we saw a lone buffalo in a nice round sandy wallow enjoying a nap or a scratch.  I lost count of the number of episodes we had along that road, stopping to observe these huge and protected at-risk animals, but it could easily have been 6 or 7.  If this show wasn’t enough, we had another one waiting for us.

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Not far past the bison excitement came the crane show. We stopped several times to get some good photos of sandhill cranes pecking along the streams and pond grasses within great viewing site if you stopped the car. Given that we saw almost no vehicles, I can honestly say that each time we stopped for wildlife viewing, not another vehicle passed in either direction. We had this vast natural viewing to ourselves.  What could be better than that?

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By lunch time we rolled into Hay River and enjoyed dining with the locals at the Saturday market.  The Fish & Chips line up was long – apparently the best of the food shops, according to the residents I spoke with. We did take a look on the river for pelicans but we had no joy there. We did also gas up. It was the first station we’d seen since we left Yellowknife.

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You must be wondering if there were any wildlife spotting between Hay River and Fort Smith where we were to check into the park and get our cabin key.  Yes, there were.  As we approached Fort Smith, huge birds’ nests filled upper levels of electricity towers.  What bird could possibly make a nest that big? An eagle?  No, a raven!  We had many viewings up close and personal over the course of the trip and I’d never realized just how large they were. An adult raven can weigh 2 kg and have a wingspan as large as 1.5 meters – not a small bird. They love pecking bugs off cars and trucks.

In Fort Smith we were rewarded with pelican sightings and the keys to our cabin. What we hadn’t realized (and probably should have) was that although Fort Smith is in the NWT and the park straddles the NWT and northern Alberta, our cabin (about 70km further on) was in fact in Alberta.  WBNP is a Canada’s largest national park and is about the size of Switzerland.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site due to containing the last remaining nesting site of the whooping crane. The Peace-Athabasca Delta lies beneath several major migration flyway zones and provides one of the most concentrated nesting environments for geese and ducks on the planet. It is also home to the world’s largest wood bison population. The park has a lot of biodiversity and landscape and the salt plains were listed as a “must see.” 

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Our rustic cabin, Aurora, was situated on Pine Lake – a quiet, peaceful lake. It had no electricity, no running water and no wifi.  For the next few days we would be truly out of touch with the world. However, it was more like glamping than camping. We brought water for cooking, drinking and washing dishes.  We had a two-burner propane stove and a cute pot-bellied wood stove to take the chill off the evening air.  We brought dry pasta and sauce for our dinners, and had bagels and peanut butter for breakfasts.  We packed our lunches each day to eat en route during the hikes.  We enjoyed the sitting on the screened-in porch each morning enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee while watching the sandhill cranes peck for their breakfast near the water’s edge., relatively free from mosquitoes.

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Our 12km hike was peaceful, relaxing and yet spectacular. Within a few hundred meters of the trailhead, we heard a small screeching which turned out to be two young owls and possibly the mother.  We stopped to take dozens of photos.  They seemed high enough in the birch trees not to be afraid of us, but they kept their eyes glued on us, should we try any funny business.  We crossed rivers, open marsh, wooded forests. We saw wild flowers and various other small souls. We pulled out lunch on a small wooden bridge as far away as possible from the buzzing mosquitoes as we could manage.  All in all, it was a lovely day.  We drove out to the salt plains on the next day.  It was interesting to see the mounds of salt.  Apparently, the salt comes from an underground saline stream and the area was once covered by sea. We saw wide open vistas on Salt Pan Lake. That day had less wildlife although we saw two separate black bears crossing the road on our way back to the cabin. 

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Would I recommend the park? If you can break yourself away from civilization for a while, it is a great place to relax and see some interesting wildlife. 

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