A proposal and a promise; how diamonds sparkle

  Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
Saturday, August 9, 2008

Muskox for lunch - same colour as shaved beef really. Similar marble, a bit chewier and a more 'liver' taste... somewhat of a jerky aftertaste. It was delicious! Senica ordered a caribou and muskox poutine - how much more Canadian can you get when it comes to food?! Here we sit at the Wild Cat Café, this log cabin looks like an old furtrading post, it's been around since the 1930s.



The Legislative Assembly is full of symbols - a building with an exterior shape of a tepee and an interior shape like an igloo, uniting the two unique native dwellings.  The Speaker's chair is made of seal skin. To the right of the speaker is a drum, to the left is a carbing of three loons.  Directly above the chair is a soap stone carving of an elder and a child.  The backdrop wall behind the chair is made of zinc and interpretive designs have been welded into the zinc.  Windows line the tops of the walls to allow spring light in after a long dark winter, they have been sandblasted to represent different areas of the north and different seasons/melting stages.  Below those sunlight windows are office windows, allowing viewing spaces for TV and newspaper media as well as translators for various aboriginal languagues.  In the middle of the floor is a polar bear skin, a white giant.



Last night Senica and I went for a drive after midnight to view a dark sky and hopefully catch some aurora borealis.  We found a dock on Great Slave Lake and watched the northern lights until they dissapeared and the sky started to lighten again around 1am.  It was then that Senica proposed to me on bended knee - how romantic!! What a beautiful setting on such an auspicious day!!  


However, now the trip has come to an end. We fly back tomorrow.  What a whirlwind tour across and around Canada. I'm pleased with the ground we covered, the people we got to spend time with, and the new places we explored.  What a perfectly romantic partner to cap this memorable trip with a proposal and a promise of more adventure to come.