Robert Vennik of Innisfail has spent the last two years finalizing his trip into the Northwest Territories and into BC.
Now two weeks after his 26 day trek to the arctic circle with four people from Holland, he hopes to do it again soon.
"I wanted to show them what a real winter is," said Vennik, originally from Holland himself. He moved to Innisfail in 2004 with experience guiding tours in his native land. He since taken courses to offer guides and is making his first trek north.
"Shows like Ice Truck Drivers and NWT Pilots ó these are shows that have started to air over there as well and they have an interested in seeing winter here. In Holland it usually lasts one or two weeks, here it's constant."
Vennik said, even though this is his first year of offering the guides to out of country tourists, through his company, We Canada.
"This is something I did in Holland and I knew I would want to offer it here, I just needed time to get used to Canada and the area."
The group visited various places as they traveled north including Fort McMurray, Fort Chipewyan, Fort Saskatchewan and Wood Buffalo.
"There's not a lot of activity at a lot of these places in the winter ó when we would walk into a museum they'd be so happy to see us and they spent a lot of time with us," he said of getting half day tours of settlements and also getting to visit a bison handling facility.
The group traveled into Yellowknife and visited remote areas such as Gameti, a community of 295 people northwest of Yellowknife accessible by air year round and connected by an ice road to the city in the winter.
"We will be island hoping to Gameti" said Vennik days before he left. "It's on the way to the polar circle and it's a beautiful drive on lake then you hop on the island and drive between trees, crisscross back on the lake then onto the island. All you see is a small house and nothing. It's big open sea of white."
Vennik said the group lucked out ó they only woke up one morning to -31 degrees. The rest of the trip the weather was mild.
