Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife ( Jun 05/00) - There is a little-known secret vacation destination out on the Mackenzie Highway.

Sambaa Deh Falls Heritage Park is nestled on the Trout River, about a one hour's drive west from the highway junction south of the Mackenzie River ferry crossing.

Blink and you will probably miss it -- which in itself, might almost seem impossible. Just below the bridge crossing the river are the falls, which roar magnificently in age-old perpetuity.

"Old people have respect for the falls," said Ernest Hardisty, who along with his wife, Florence, were recently awarded the contract to supervise the park.

"They pay their respect by offering tobacco and shells."

There is little reason to doubt that the falls do not warrant some measure of respect.

Below the falls, eons of old fossils line the canyon walls where the raging river has carved them back into the land of the living. Above the falls, the river flows with rock-crushing strength into an unforgiving cauldron of boiling, frothing water and then quickly out of sight.

A cross, over-looking the falls, serves as a reminder to the river's might. In 1997, a Fort Liard man was swept away to his death at that very spot. His body was never recovered.

Its history is also measured more pleasant in human memories.

"My father built a canoe (a canvas wrap)," Hardisty remembers.

"They built it up there," he says, pointing toward Sambaa Deh Falls' sister, Coral Falls -- about a kilometre up the river.

"And when they got up to Coral Falls, they took all the ribs out and folded the canoe and replaced the ribs. They would have to do it again at the next falls."

The park itself is absolutely pristine. The washrooms and showers are clean and nary an offensive odour can be detected. It is more than one often expects from a typical campground. A visitor would be hard pressed to find a single piece of litter in the whole area.

"If people come in and see a dirty park, they won't respect it," Hardisty said, "but if it's clean, they'll keep it that way."

Hardisty praised the park's former superintendents, Phil and Mary Norwegian -- who until this year, had run the park since its creation in 1992 -- for the campground's good order.

"When Phil and Mary were here, they did a very good job maintaining the park and keeping it clean," Hardisty explained.

"I'm hoping to do my best to do the same. It's long hours trying to keep it clean.

"But we're new here, so it's going to take some time to get organized. We just got the coffee pot yesterday."

Karen Johnson, an NWT resident who views the park as an annual must for a visit, was not undaunted by the changing of the guard.

"You're living large when you camp at Sambaa Deh," said Johnson.

"There are scenic hikes, the campgrounds are well maintained and it is extremely relaxing.

"It's probably one of the nicest discoveries I've made in the Northwest Territories."