We are on the way the home and now in Alberta. I know this doesn’t have much to do with the Arctic, but it is exciting and it happened to us. We glided across British Columbia until we got to Alberta and visited with Mr. And Mrs. Eberts for 3 days. They were very, very nice, Mrs. Eberts even set up 5 horses for us to go riding on through the fields. We weren’t exactly very experienced, except Mrs. Eberts and Dad, but we have all ridden horses more than once. We were riding them in the field when Mrs. Eberts saddle slid off of her horse and spooked her horse. Which sent him off running. That spooked my horse too, so he started to canter which was a bit too much for me, so I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t pull the reins because the horse kept stepping in holes, if I tried to grab the reins, I would stop holding on and fly in front of the horse. He kept on going faster and faster and I jumped off and landed feet-first right before he broke into a gallop. Mom and Dad couldn’t do anything because if they ran their horses, my horse would of gone faster before I went to bail. We couldn’t get the saddle back up on that one horse, so we left it so the cowboys could pick it up. I got back up on the horse though, but it was led this time: by Mrs. Eberts. But now that I think of it, if I tried a canter a few more times, it would be fun. But that whole day was awesome, with the horse run or not. And I would like to do it again some day. We also went to see the Spruce Meadows horse show, it is was named the best horse show in the world 2 years ago. We saw a jumping horse show, walking horses, miniature ponies, and British police horses. But they don’t only show horses, they have people from all over the world so there are dancers, cuisine, and all sorts of stuff. We also went to see the Prarie Dogs’ dog show. They had a run-around-the-barrel race and 3 border collies won 1ST, 2ND, and 3RD and a young pup black retriever won 4TH. And guess what, we are picking up our very own Border Collie when we get back home! His name will be Yukon Jack, and he will always remind us of this summer up north, when in the Yukon we decided to get our first dog. We had a wonderful time, and I hope we can visit them again soon.

- Andie -

We invited Martin to come with us back to Whitehorse, where he lives. I have to say that the Dempster Highway held a lot more wildlife on the way south. We saw some grizzly bears and tons of caribou. At two moose lake we did see two moose again. A mother and a baby. We also saw lot of fall colors up there. When we went for an afternoon hike through some bumpy tundra for Dad to do some painting, we actually saw a grizzly bear follow Dad until we warned him of it. I wasn’t really scary, just a bit. We had bear spray and bear bangers. However the bear kept coming and stopping and coming until he was scared of Dad and Martin yelling at him with all of their might and went over to some caribou on the next hill. Another bear came that day but he was running a lot and didn’t stop to check us out. We did make it off the Dempster though and got back on pavement. So, this is a very important summer, and a bunch of great things have happened, but I think that home sounds very appealing now. So I will end my journals here and I will end this summer here too.

- Andie -

I’m going to be skipping a few days here; again. Ok so where do I start?
We woke up that morning and it was very foggy, and slightly raining. We took this as an advantage to take our tent and move it around to the middle of the plateau and had nothing but rain and fog most of the day.
The next day, we found out that Jonah had to leave early to guide some mineral prospectors.
The next day, Steve came over with his dog, Floppy. Later, Jonah left.
On the next day, we worked our way down to the bottom of the canyons and went fishing. I caught 4 grayling! And we has a great campfire by the river.
On the last day out, we made it back to Paulatuk and slept over at Steve’s place.
The next day we spent at Paulatuk and talked to their school about maybe setting up a pen pal e-mail system with some of my school classes and some of theirs.
The next day we spent packing up for our flight back to Innuvik, but then got fogged in and our flight was cancelled.
And last but not least, we flew away back to Innuvik and went to Pat’s place; friend who offered us to stay at her place for a while.

- Andie -

I am truly sorry, folks, but there are no terribly important or spectacular events that are very long so I am still skipping some days. We arrived in Inuvik yesterday and slept over in our RV there. Dad, Martin (remember him from one of my other journals?), Kate (a new friend) and Pat are going to Ivvavik to take pictures, hike, paint, and enjoy the scenery with the arts in the parks program. During that time Mom, Sydney and I agreed to house-sit and pet-sit for her and it was fun. She has great pets they are a black and brown dog, Belle, an orange cat, Peaches, and another black cat, Cally.
We spent a lot of time at the library there that was great. Inuvik may be small, but it has one of the best pools I have seen. There is a “lazy river” where a current pulls you through a channel. It also has a great waterslide. So 7 days seemed to fly by like nothing.
When the gang came back we made a few calls to home telling them that tomorrow we are on our way home!!!

- Andie -

Today was very exciting indeed. But I wouldn’t ask for another one like it. We were with Dad while he was painting. But we soon got up and left. That day was very hot and sunny so we got the idea that we would have no trouble. Until, huge walls of black clouds started to swell up. From the direction of the wind, (Which was behind us) we thought it was going to pass right away from us; even Jonah was sitting down with a cup of coffee while watching the huge streaks of lightning. It was so electrical my hair was standing on end! The thunders’ roar was magnificent and we were having a fine time enjoying it. Dad had started to pack up painting gear and made his way back.
So here we are all drinking a bit of coffee talking. Dad was taking some footage until it started to sprinkle. We tied of the ATV to our tent along with the sled and slipped inside. We were all fine until a big SWOOSH and a huge, powerful wind coming towards the cliff came towards us like a bullet. And with it, came very heavy rain our tent was big, and built for ventilation. It was so powerful that Mom and Dad had to hold up the tent. Sydney was crying and we were scared, especially when it started to hail. When the storm let down for a tiny bit, we dashed into Jonahs’ tent (which was farther away from the cliff and closer to the ground. Jonah was as relaxed as could be, waiting out the storm with a cup of coffee and a warm tent.
So as you can tell, we all made it and had quite a time.

- Andie -

We packed up today, which was particularly a foggy day, and we took a boat to go to a fish camp past Paulatuk where we would go out to the Brock Canyons where Dad could paint.
When we reached the camp we got ready to go out on 2 ATV’s and a dog sled that was going to carry the gear and Sydney and me. A man named Jonah was going to be one of our guides; he was going to be driving an ATV with Dad and a trailer behind to carry gear. The other man was a guy named Steve and he was driving the ATV with mom on the back and a dog sled behind him with us in it and some more gear. There was also Jonahs’ dog: Princess.
We started out great and had fun on the sled and ATV’s but then we stopped. Jonah’s trailer had blown a tire and no matter what they had tried they couldn’t fix it. We ended up leaving it there and going on. Jonah and Steve would go back later and get it.
Out in the field, after we had gotten past a bunch of bumpy terrain, we got onto Gravel and moss terrain. Princess was running along until she saw a sik-sik (Arctic Ground Squirrel) and she darted after it. It put up a fight, but Princess claimed her prize and cracked every bone in its body.
We almost made it to Brock Canyons, but we were getting tired, so we stopped early, made supper, went to bed, and Jonah and Steve went back for the trailer.

- Andie -

Did we ever make it past the Dempster? Watch and you’ll find out…

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Today was the day to take a plane to Paulatuk, which is a little town out past Inuvik. There are no roads past Inuvik so there is no choice but to take a plane to get in and out of the town.
I have never been on a plane before, and Sydney has twice, but she was only a baby. We packed our bags and waited for the plane to come. Finally, it came time to go. We got on the plane and stuffed earplugs in our ears. Then we started to go up higher and higher until we got into the clouds.
When we were almost there, we were shown a tail of a plane that had crashed there years ago, they now use it for a sign that it is very shallow water there. They also showed us an abandoned, old, broken down, barge stuck on one of the sandbars of the Arctic Ocean that surrounded Paulatuk like a peninsula.
When we arrived in Paulatuk we went to the visitor center in a truck with our gear thanks to a nice man named Ken. He also gave us a little tour of the town.
When we got to the visitor center, some of the local kids helped us take in our gear. The lady at the counter said that she had a tent that we could use, the kind that is made of wood and canvas and doesn’t get taken down at any point in time.
They attached a little platform to their truck that trailed behind them and they took the tent out to a lake behind the visitor center. We settled down and got our stuff unpacked, than we went some swimming and met some kids.

- Andie -

After a while of driving we had finally made it to Inuvik, the end of the Dempster. We actually made it! It was a bit bigger than I expected. And it had lots of huge buildings. But no Tim Hortons. We couldn’t wait till tomorrow. We went and parked in one of their RV parks and visited their public library. We read some books and were now waiting for the fly-out day to Paulatuk, a small town of about 300 Inuvialuit people on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

- Andie -

Today we kept driving and driving and driving. Up ahead was a lake called “Two Moose Lake”. Sydney asked, “Mom, is there gonna be two moose in Two Moose lake?”
“I’m not sure.” said Mom.
We finally reached Two Moose lake. It didn’t have much, just some info boards. But as we looked into the bushes, we saw a few figures, 2 of them, they were 2 moose! We were stunned to see Sydney’s wish had come true.
After shooting some footage, we also saw some little sandpipers swimming away without a care in the world.
We continued our drive until we ended up at another lake: Chapman permafrost lake. Permafrost means a layer of the earth so far below the surface of the earth stays permenatly frozen. That’s why the lake stays there; it doesn’t sink into the ground all way.
We had much fun that day, canoeing all over the place, we even saw 2 loons who seemed to be very annoyed by us. We also went fishing and got a

few nibbles, but the grayling didn’t stay on the hook. Later we saw a trumpeter swan, which swam away from us at first sight.
Before going back to the RV, we went swimming in the permafrost lake. It wasn’t even that cold!
We had a very exciting day, and Dad had even started another painting!

- Andie -