During the morning we took a side trip to the town of Hay River, a prosperous little town near the southern end of great slave lake and on the Hay River. It is a transportation and service center particularly for the summer water traffic on Slave Lake. The town boasts the Purple High School. The town was moved to its current location when the original town located on the river flats was flooded in 1963.

Back on the Mackenzie highway we passed through Twin Falls Provincial Park which is named after Louise Falls and Alexandra Falls both on the Hay River. Alexander Falls at 109 ft is the taller of the two but they are both impressive, more for the volume of water that flows over them than for their height. At Alexander Falls we met a group of three people sightseeing that had arrived, and departed, in a small blue gasoline powered helicopter.

Later in the day we crossed the 60th parallel and the border between the Northwest Territory and Alberta, we are now definitely headed south and won't be back above the 60th again this trip.

The landscape continues to be long straight road corridor through spruce, aspen, pine and birch forest.

Our camp for tonight was a clearing in the forest beside the railway line, just far enough off the highway to give us some privacy.