km 1006! july 19. 42m, N 65˚16 W 126˚48. 4:45-7:15pm

made it to norman wells after sleeping in til 1:30 pm. hoo boy. and passed the 1000km mark! woot! it’s a big town, comparatively to wrigley, tulita and fort liard, but it even seemed bigger than fort simpson to me, though the internet tells me i am wrong about that. i guess we only walked the main strip in fort simpson. camped on the beach at the bottom of the waterfront cliffs and went up for restaurant dinner and wifi. it’s a very different feel here than some of the more traditional communities we passed through, there’s more foreigners here. i found i preferred the feeling in the other communities. the human-made islands here are also weird, extracting oil from mid-river. we didn’t know about them before arriving so were a little confused to see from afar these things in the river that weren’t on our maps. the river water felt less safe to me pollutant-wise after norman wells. also, interestingly, for the next few days emma and i referred less to it as the deh cho and more as the mackenzie. perhaps a combination of being in norman wells and the perceived pollution entering it, it changed in my head and became a slightly different river.

photos 5 and 6 by emma.