HAY RIVER, NT – A decidedly surreal element controls the drive up the Mackenzie Highway, from northern Alberta into the Northwest Territories. Thanks to the season and the locale, the sun begins its steady creep into the sky just after 5:00 AM, with clouds lingering over a local field (pictured below). After departing Peace River and nearby Grimshaw, the road leads predictably and casually north, with nature being interrupted only by the occasional small roadside community. A few hours later, however, one such community compounds the surrealism: just off the main road, in High Level, Alberta, sits the Flamingo Inn. Behind this lodging may be found the Sahara Motor Inn. And behind that establishment may be found the Stardust Motor Inn. (Cumulatively pictured above). Viva High Level!
The most surrealistic element, however, may well be the smallest. Though cars from the Northwest Territories are surely present all throughout the region – and the continent – it is around this juncture of the Mackenzie Highway that they truly become commonplace. Yet, in peering at such vehicles, it is quickly evident that one basic element is far from commonplace: the license plates. These tags do not match the usual rectangular mold that is standard in the various Canadian provinces (and entire United States). Nor, for that matter, are they the sort of ultra-wide rectangular markers that crop up throughout Europe. No, these license plates are not rectangles at all – they are shaped like polar bears. There is a head with an open mouth, a full body, the outline of a small tail, and four feet, with a the motto “Explore Canada’s Arctic” and a five-digit number (a subtle reminder of the scarce population).
In western Canada, the 60th latitudinal parallel marks the provincial/territorial border, with Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories all emerging at this point, above British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. East of the Hudson Bay, only Quebec and Labrador stretch north of this marker. It is at this point that a sign adorns the side of the Mackenzie Highway, and the speed limit temporarily declines. Why the speed limit thereafter increases is unclear; various wild animals – especially bison – have a tendency to freely roam the northern expanses of this roadway.
Ninety minutes north of the border, and a short drive down an offshoot of the Mackenzie Highway, is the community of Hay River, on the southern shores of the Great Slave Lake (named for a local native group of persons, not thralldom). Despite being a town of just over 3,500, Hay River is the second largest population center in the Northwest Territories, complete with an airport that literally bisects the community’s two primary drags. Railroad tracks weave through the locale, oftentimes alongside the river that offers forth the area’s name; boats can be seen scattered along this aquatic body and onto the Great Slave Lake, into which the river feeds.
Perhaps most symbolic of the utterly surreal experience that is the drive into the Northwest Territories, however, is a recent political anecdote concerning the lands themselves. With acreage having been chipped away from the region over time – forming various provincial areas and, most recently, Nunavut – a campaign was undertaken to rename the massive expanse. With various native identities running thick through differing parts of the territory, the search for an appropriately encompassing title proved difficult. Moreover, the Northwest Territories have eight official languages, a factoid as indicative of the underlying issue as compounding of the problem itself. Yet a name did emerge – one that played no favorites amongst heritages and, moreover, that could be evenly pronounced in every native tongue: Bob.
Yes, popular support actually started to accumulate behind this entirely bizarre notion – so much that this absurdity became the second most favored choice, before the government scrapped the whole renaming process. In a way, it might be poetic (inasmuch as the Jabberwocky is, too, poetic): driving through a strange Las Vegas satire, noticing metical polar bears affixed to local cars, crossing the 60th parallel, and slowing for the likes of bison – all to visit Bob.
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