North of 60 : Adventures in Yellowknife, NWT, day 1

We took a taxi from the Air Tindi base back to the Explorer Hotel, where they were kind enough to let us check in early, and gave us a great room on the top floor. We settled our things, unpacked (you know how much we love unpacking into a hotel room...), and then made a plan. I had a few things I wanted to see / look at / do in town, so we soon headed back out.

First stop? The visitor center to pick up our YELLOWKNIFE PINS. I cannot tell you how much I love this.

We also received our "Order of Polar Explorers, North of 60° Chapter" certificates. Who knew?

Then we walked over to The Quilted Raven, a fantastic quilt shop.

I didn't take any pictures inside, somehow, but it was a treasure trove of beautiful calicos, batiks, and flannels. I was, as usual, overwhelmed by the projects and the selection! I decided I wanted to buy some of their fun "northern lights" fabric, even though I didn't know what I would do with it. And then Wil spotted some nice pillowcases and pillowcase kits -- and since they didn't have two kits with the purple fabric, we just bought two finished pillowcases. Oh, and 4 fat quarters of various northern lights fabric, and no I don't know what I'll do with it, okay?

Then some more wandering around in the very cold weather -- we found the liquor store, the cinema, and some souvenir shops. And we noticed, for the first time, how freakin' adorable the license places in the Northwest Territories are. SPECTACULAR!!!

BEAR SHAPED LICENSE PLATES FTW!!!

By then we were hungry, so popped into the very cute Black Knight pub, where we had remarkably good fish and chips (and pints, of course...)

On the way back to the hotel for a well-earned nap, we swung by the YK Center temperature sign, one of the most photographed sights in Yellowknife. Brrr.

We went back to the hotel and I laid out our haul from the day. Not bad...

Later that night we decided to see a performance of Frankenstein by Manual Cinema.

We bought a pair of seats in the front row -- to be honest, a little too close we think, but it was still really cool. A combination of puppetry, shadow puppetry, acting, and live films being projected on a screen, it was unlike anything I had ever seen.

The musicians set amazing moods -- really cool music. The actors performed at various spots on stage, creating shadows, working with shadow puppets, and also being on cameras, all of which was edited together into a seamless piece on the big screen. It was fascinating technically as well as beautiful.

Afterward we walked back to the hotel, unsuccessfully finding a late-night pizza place, but not not being particularly hungry anyway. Oh, and how cold was it that night? Cold. 

Back in the hotel we wondered if we would be able to see the northern lights, despite being in the city. 

Well, yes. Yes we could, albeit faintly. 

A pretty great way to end our first day back in Yellowknife!

Next up: Snowking Castle, Bullock's Bistro, and the Call of the Wild