NWT~ The Getting There is Half the Battle

Returning home after a 20 day trip in the Northwest Territories, admittedly I’ve had a difficult time trying to decide where to start my story. I guess logically it begins with my invite to be a videographer and photographer on the trip to Redstone Trophy Hunts, an area located about 250 miles south of the arctic circle. Known for Dall Sheep, Alaskan Moose and Mountain Caribou hunting, we set out for 2 weeks to document our horseback hunt in the Mackenzie Mountains.

So on Aug 27th, we hopped a commercial flight to Norman Wells, NWT where we were met by Northwright Air, a local charter company that flew us about an hour SW of “the Wells” into Hook Lake where Redstone’s main base camp is located.

Flying across vast untouched territory you begin to get a creeping feeling of insignificance in one of the last frontiers, as the longer you travel the farther removed you begin to feel from daily life. I can’t say it’s a bad feeling and think everyone should be able to experience it at least once in their lifetime.

Once at base camp we discovered we would set out with horses the next day to ride up to 20 miles to get to our spike camp. With 32 horses in tow we would pack enough to be out the entire trip and live comfortable out of a tent camp.  We garbage bagged everything we owned for the river crossings and shot our rifles again to make sure they were still sighted properly… Heck they were even packing lettuce for salads, definitely not the backpack meals I had been preparing myself for.

To document the trip, I purchased another of my favourite moleskin journals (perfect for backpack use and potentially wet river crossings) I documented everyday of our trip so later down the road I could recall it, one memorable quote from my book about the travel up was, “As with anything in the north, the journey was a game of hurry up and wait. The place of the midnight sun doesn’t seem to understand or acknowledge a watch” Next time, I’m bringing a good book and settling in for the trip. Stay tuned, there’s still lots of stories to share from this adventure.


9 Comments

Cheyenne

Your photos are stunning.

Do not spare any details here.

You realize-you are living out my bucket list—!!

I’ll have my husband read this post tonight-I still don’t think he knows what a blog is, but he has read stuff of yours in the past-I know he will appreciate it.

Sincerely-thanks for sharing.

Brandy

Thanks Cheyenne, we took over 1200 photos and 25 hours of video, so hopefully I don’t bore everyone to death with the details.
The trip was amazing and I highly recommend it if you get a chance to go, you won’t need to convince your hubby, it’s truly spellbinding.

Suzie Salmon

I’m with Cheyenne! What beautiful photos and I can’t wait to hear more details on the trip!

Oh, and I LOVE your new header photo! Stunning!!!

Brandy

Thanks so much Suzie! It was pretty epic with lots of great stories, I can’t wait to tell you guys about my Urkel glasses and running after a caribou blind! lol

Raquel - Horses & Heels

Time away from technology & civilization, that sounds fabulous. I can imagine it would be a little erie but wonderful at the same time

Brandy

The horses were my favourite part Raquel, riding for 2 weeks straight thru the mountains was a dream come true!

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