“Fiery Death” – Siskiyou

Point the truck north. No plans, no preconceptions. Gone to poke around. Gone just to see what secrets the vastness may reveal. Gone for the sake of going – two days and fourteen hundred plus kilometres – because going seems normal. The laws of motion work like that.

The music up, the windows down. The last days of summer fading into fall. Watch the Mackenzie highway stretch out from the windshield and vanish in the rearview mirror. Drive all night to get nowhere. Past the poplar trees and wheat fields.  Past the “Next Services 275km” sign. Past the Alberta border and into the Territories. Into the North.

North of sixty.

Setup camp in the dark, turn to the sky and watch the northern lights dance overhead. Drink beers and ponder the endlessness of the stars.   Finally rest, close those tired eyes and dream.

Awaken early and watch the sun rise over Twin Falls Gorge.  The roar of the falls overwhelming every other sound in its vicinity. Eventually the roar turns into a distant din and the din lulls into a silence. An unimpenetrable quietness. An all encompassing calm.  A truly powerful place, begging those who venture near to sit and be still.

Push on, ever northward until the shores of the Great Slave Lake bring an end to the highway.

The endless horizon. The waves lapping at the shore. The quiet little harbour town. The fishermans wharf. Fried fish and chowder for brunch.  Beaches and beer in the afternoon. Warm sun overhead. Toes in the sand.

But its not the ocean, it just seems like it is.

With freshly procured bannock and rhubarb jam on the dashboard, move westward along the spruce lined highway. Alternately shifting through muskeg bogs and over rocky escarpments.  Every slight rise in elevation provides a shift in perspective. An infinite forest spanning out across the skyline. A wilderness crossed only by creeks and rivers and gametrails.

A notion to push on. Across the the Mackenzie River and onto Yellowknife.   But  Kakiska will be the turnaround marker.  An evening spent underneath its falls, reading on its shores and fishing its waters. With the northern sun setting slowly on the day. The smell of juniper berries and wild mint and highbush cranberries thick in the air.

And in the light of the campfire that night, there’s already an urge to return even though we’ve yet to leave.