Fly to the Arctic tundra by private plane, then get whisked by dogsled (in cozy comfort) to your luxury wilderness lodge. Sleep on a bed of fragrant spruce bows in a wood-stove-warmed prospector’s tent under the soft shimmer of the Northern Lights. Wake up and you’re on the hunt for the perfect sparkler—a coveted Canadian diamond. Find one, and bask in the glow of an Arctic dream come true.
Explore the boreal wilderness at Wood Buffalo National Park, where groundwater has dissolved bedrock, carving a spectacular landscape of salt flats and sinkholes. Discover pingos, towering ice-cored hills that rise high off the coast north of the Arctic Circle. Ride a raft down the powerful South Nahanni River and portage around Virginia Falls, twice as high as Canada’s Niagara Falls. Spot grizzly bears, caribou, wolves and muskox roaming free across the tundra at Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest wildlife refuge in North America.
Stay in a castle built of snow with windowpanes of ice at the annual Snowking Winter Festival on Great Slave Lake. Summer brings the Folk on the Rocks music festival and Canadian North Midnight Classic golf tournament to Yellowknife. While in the territories’ capital, dine Arctic style on whitefish caught fresh from Great Slave Lake, or a try NWT special, caribou stew. If you’re a true north adventurer, order the muktuk (whale blubber)—and lots of steaming tea to wash it down.
