Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 06/99) - One of the most rewarding aspects of living in the North for many people is the easy access to wilderness and camping areas.

The Ingraham Trail, the main route for a getaway destination for Yellowknife residents and visitors seeking places to spend a few days from the more hectic surroundings of city life, is just such a place.

Dotted with numerous lakes and quiet, scenic parklands, the Ingraham Trail provides ideal locations for weekend outdoor enthusiasts to get away from it all.

Tim Mercer, an employee with the City of Yellowknife, had a few days off from work recently and decided that it would be a perfect opportunity to spend some time in the great outdoors kayaking with his friend, Jeff Baxter, from the end of the Ingraham Trail at Tibbitt Lake back to town.

"It was a good trip," said Mercer, who was met at Mason Lake, while on the last leg of the five-day journey leading back into Great Slave Lake, just outside of Dettah.

"I didn't realize that there would be so many portages though."

Mercer's expedition partner -- Baxter -- from Halifax, N.S., recently returned from Tel Aviv, Israel, where he had been working for the United Nations service. Baxter said the experience was rewarding for the solitude the lakes and wilderness in the Ingraham Trail area has to offer.

"It beats the hell out of Southern Lebanon, I can tell you that," Baxter said.

"The best thing so far, is the isolation. You don't see so much of that where I'm from.

"We just saw a bear while we were camping at the entrance to Jennejohn Lake. It was excellent."

While on not quite the arduous adventure that Mercer and Baxter were on, Serge Pelletier and his young charge, Stephanie Grenier, found portaging out to Hidden Lake for an afternoon an ideal activity to take part in on the weekend.

"This is one of my favourite spots close to Yellowknife," Pelletier said. "The water is clear and it is very quiet."

Pelletier added there is often a price to pay when venturing into the outdoors.

"We came in this morning and it was a good trip. We caught a trout but the mosquitos are bad."

Gaston Saravanja, who admits he does not have as much opportunity to enjoy the outdoors as much as he would like, finds the time whenever he can.

"I'm usually busy in the summer, that's when I make my money," Saravanja said.

"I'm usually not out camping much but when I do, I like to drive my SUV (sucky used vehicle), with the kayak on the roof rack, down the Ingraham Trail until I find a spot, always a different one, where I park and begin another Northern journey.

"I hike into the great unknown, pretend to anyway and, try to remember why people live here."

With so many great outdoors areas around, it's not hard to see why.