August 21 - Flin Flon to Thompson, Manitoba - 240 Miles

Whoopee - We made it to Thompson, Manitoba, on time to take the next step of our adventure.

Thompson has been an important destination, because it is here that the road North stops, and we take a plane tomorrow to get into Nunavut province.  By arriving "on time" we mean that we made reservations for this flight about four months ago, and the tickets are non-refundable, so we had to make it to Thompson today!  How's that for planning, and for riding together about 4,500 miles to get here.  (Yes, we could use the non-refundable plane tickets sometime within the next year, but we'd not like to ride 4,500 miles again to do it.)

Our ride today from Flin Flon could be characterized as passing big lakes, more big lakes, and more big lakes.  These big beautiful lakes are in absolutely gorgeous forested areas with almost no settlements.  Most of the lakes were just pristine.  The day itself was beautiful, with blue skies, puffy little white clouds, and moderate temperatures.  What a great ride.

The scheduled airline we will fly from Thompson is named "Calm Air".  Thompson has a small airport for flights going north to the sub-Arctic and Arctic, as well as south to Winnipeg.  Thompson has a population of about 14,000 and is not large, but we stopped at the Thompson Visitor Center to inquire about the location of our motel and of the airport.  Deane said that we were going to fly on their little airline, meaning that the planes were relatively small.  But the young lady at the visitor center said "That's our BIG airline", with the implication "and don't you forget it!"  OK, OK, so we're flying the BIG airline, on a twin turboprop plane with about 12 passenger capacity.

We will fly about 800 miles to the town of Repulse Bay, on the Arctic Circle and on Hudson Bay, with intermediate stops of Churchill, MB, and Arviat and Rankin Bay, Nunavut.

We are due to return to Thompson on Monday, August 25, and we will have a commentary on that trip after returning - we are not taking the laptop PC.

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