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Photo Credit: Canadian Tourism Commission
Most people go south when the nights get longer and the days get colder, but you’re not like most people. You seek adventure on the road less taken. You want to see the lands rarely photographed and meet the people unbothered by frost. Make your vacation stand out amongst the cruises and tropical resorts of your coworkers. This winter, travel to the Territories and see Canada’s True North. Here are few Winter Getaways in the Canadian Territories.
I. Cheechako Winter Adventure
– Sign up with Muktuk Adventures for a 4 day, 3 night trip of dog sledding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, and ice fishing. The staff will pick you up at your Whitehorse hotel (or YXY airport depending on arrangements), and drive you 25 minutes to the Muktuk Lodge. For the rest of your trip you will go on a variety of outdoor winter excursions, always returning to the lodge for a hot meal and time with your dog team
II. Snow Kings Winter Festival
– Visit Yellowknife during Snowking’s Winter Festival and see the true winter wonderland on Yellowknife Bay — a huge castle made entirely of snow and ice. Erected and built out of the frozen waters and white powder snow of Great Slave Lake, the Snowcastle becomes a month long bastion of community spirit, collaboration, innovation in the arts, and entertainment for young and old. During your visit enjoy entertainment by artists from across the region, and everything else that Yellowknife offers dog-sledding across a snow-covered lake, snowmobile on a day-long trip through the forest and across lakes and more!
III. Inuvik Sunrise Festival
– In Inuvik, NWT the sun sets below the horizon in December and stays there for nearly 30 days of darkness. To celebrate the return of the sun, locals come out to dance, play music, carve snow, do sunset yoga, play sno-pitch, and share in local cuisine. Celebrations culminate on the Saturday night with a party on the permafrost, a giant bonfire, and incredible fireworks display. To truly appreciate the sun, you must first know the darkness, and who better to learn from than the people of Inuvik. In 2020, the festival will run January 3rd-5th.
IV. Winter Aurora at Trout Rock Lodge
– Find your home away from home at the Trout Rock Lodge along the frozen expanse of Great Slave Lake. This 2-night VIP package includes Hagglung or Snowmobile transport to the lodge, comfortable accommodation at the lodge, hot meals, snowmobiling, ice fishing, snowshoeing, and of course unlimited 360 degree Aurora Borealis viewing. Skip the crowds this winter, and get away to a land all your own.
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V. Blanchford Lake Lodge & Wilderness Resort Winter Excursion
– Choose from two to seven nights for your luxurious oasis in the wilderness. Included in your package is a flightseeing charter from Yellowknife to Balchford and back, all your meals, hot tub and sauna, handicraft workshops, igloo building, seasonal equipment including skis, fat-tire bikes, and ice-fishing gear, and a two hour interpretive experience for each day of your experience. Live in the lap of luxury like few before you
VI. Yukon Trapping Adventure
– This winter, take part in the Canadian Fur Trade through a Yukon Trapping Adventure. You will be picked up from your hotel in Whitehorse and driven the 4.5 hours to the trailhead. From the trailhead you will travel another hour to the Pike Lake trapline, or two to the Toobally Lake Like. Now, your Trapping Adventure starts! You will spend a full seven or ten days on the trap line learning the history, following the animals, trapping your own wild game, and of course enjoying the comforts of the lodge. Unlike any other excursion out there, this will surely acquaint you with the substance that made the North.
VII. Choose Yurt Own Adventure
– Get back to the land this winter and rent a Yurt along Yukon’s Fish Lake. Pack your own food, dishes, and cutlery, and head out to one of two yurts available for rent. The staff will head out ahead of time to turn on the lights and light the fire, but after that you’re on your own. Embrace the isolation and go out on the land, while ending the day relaxing by the fire and looking up at the Aurora, unimpeded by city lights.
VIII. Spring Polar Bears & Icebergs of Baffin Photo Safari
– This safari may be labelled ‘Spring’, but March on Baffin Island is most certainly ‘winter’ to a southern soul. Spend nine days and eight nights the Tented Safari Camp, set on approximately 8 feet on ice. While you experience, first-hand, a land few have set foot on, you will learn how to locate and safely view polar bears using traditional expertise from your Inuit guide. In the evening you’ll enjoy gourmet comfort food while viewing the Northern Lights. This photographer’s paradise is like nothing you’ll find anywhere else.
IX. Toonik Tyme
– Celebrated the third week of April, this may seem like Spring to a Southerner, but it will most definitely feel like winter in the North. This annual festival celebrates Inuit traditions and the return of Spring. Learn about, and take part in, traditional Inuit games, throat singing and dancing, a traditional community feast, and more in this uniquely Inuit festival.
X. Explore Aklavik
– Avklavik is a Gwich’in/Inuvialiuit town near the Richardson Mountains in NWT; it is a place few have heard of, and even fewer have seen. Stay at the beautiful Alkavik Inn Bed and Breakfast, visit the grave of the Mad Trapper, and take snowshoe or snowmobile tours with Red Mountain Adventures. Most importantly, step into the world of the Gwinch’in/Inuvialiuit people who call this hamlet home. Make this a winter to remember while you trek Aklavic.
XI. Winter Cultural Camp Tour
– What’s the point of visiting an unknown land, if you don’t get to meet its people? On this Winter Cultural Camp Tour you will spend time with the Dene of Yellowknife learning traditional hand games, drumming, snowshoe-snaring practices, local history, and the history of the Wilideh people all in a traditional teepee. Your guide will pick you up at your hotel and drive you through Yellowknife and Ndilo, then onto an ice road, finally taking you on a snowmobile ride to the B. Dene camp.