I had already driven over 3000 km when I made it to Yellowknife, with so much time on the road I decided I would take today to relax a bit and do some exploring of the city. I took my time crawling out of bed, hopped in the car and headed downtown to explore. As I was driving about I saw my first destination worth checking out, NWT Diamond Centre. I walked on up and pushed the buzzer, a cheerful lady came up to the door all smiles and let me in. She began to tell me all about the diamond mines located in the Northwest Territories, the history of them, the extraction process, grading, it all ended up being pretty educational and interesting. Turns out the biggest diamond ever found in North America was recently found in one of the mines here, a 552 carat yellow diamond found in the Diavik Diamond Mine. I then got to see some of the $50,000 to $100,000 diamonds under a special magnifying glass, the details were pretty incredible though I still don’t think I’d fork out a 100 grand for one!
I said my farewells and headed off to an area called old town, an area full of all sorts of strange and unique shops. I made my first stop there at a place called Old Town Glassworks where a friendly man named Mathew happily greeted me and proceeded to give me a tour of the place. They take old bottles and make some really cool artwork out of them, adding all sorts of unique kinds of engravings, fashioning cups, lamps and other unique art, talk about a creative way to recycle! They also fixed up bikes and Mathew lent me a motorized one to take for a spin around the block which ended up being pretty fun.
I found myself getting pretty hungry and it was time, I’d had multiple people hype this place up pretty heavily, I entered the legendary Bullocks Bistro. The building alone was pretty unique with the walls and ceilings covered with all sorts of stickers, writings and the like. I sat down and got a menu, naturally I picked out the most expensive fish, the Arctic Char and eagerly awaited it’s arrival. I didn’t have to wait long, it soon arrived in all its glory in front of me. Now I have had some pretty tasty fish throughout my life but this one now sits on the top of the podium. I could hardly contain myself after the first juicy bite, it was unbelievably delectable. The chef looked over and smiled at me as I chowed down, I could see the proud look on her face as I devoured the delicious meal before me.
Full to the brim I headed off to a lookout with Winnie, took in the scenery and headed back to the car. I made a few more little stops at some shops in the area then decided to head back to camp where I finished the night off with some reading while Winnie snoozed beside me.
