First, so sorry for the extreme delay in posting. Major slacking on my part. Time seems to be flying by lately and I am still writing March when I write the date, even though we’re a week into April.
So, as promised: The Long John Jamboree was March 23-25, and was a huge success. It came the year after the Caribou Carnival officially ended, marking the end of a 57-year community event. The Long John Jamboree’s organizers heard hearts break across Yellowknife and worked hard to organize a new festival to take its place. There was a massive turnout at the Jamboree and there were tons of things to do, which were well planned and organized, considering this was its’ first year. We met up with friends and saw ice carving, skijoring, and the amazing Ugly Truck and Dog contest, among many other things. The ice carving was neat because the ice was harvested from Great Slave Lake, atop which it was later carved. We also took a helicopter ride around Yellowknife, flying over our house, the ice road, and the festival. I took the cockpit seat with the pilot, which was great because I could talk to her over the headset and she pointed things out to me, like Air Tindi’s ice strip, which from the ground seems big enough, but from the air looks barely wide enough for a snowmobile. We were also able to see the dogseld races from the air, which was pretty incredible. Some photos, courtesy of Chris:
Ice carving
Ice carver in action
Watch your eyes!
Air Tindi's Twin Otter on skis
Some perspective: With the ice strip right next to the festival, the twin flies right over us
Shiny new snowmobiles!
Adelle, Tyler and me - what a cute dog!
The best entry for Ugly Truck and Dog, in our opinion
The skijoring race
Another skijoring team
Alanna and Jinx, skijoring team
Great Slave Lake ice roads and Yellowknife from the helicopter
Overall the event was super fun and it was great to see such a great turnout. We saw tons of friends and coworkers there, met new people, and had an awesome time celebrating the end of winter – although we still have a long way to go before we say goodbye to the snow and ice roads!
