Hello again friends. I am sorry I kind of ran away on you for a bit. There was just SO MUCH to see and SO MANY pictures to take to share with you all. I take my tour director responsibilities seriously. Sorry I wandered off with the “Sunflower on a stick” losing my group in the process.
Getting from Alberta to Saskatchewan did not take long. The border runs straight through the middle of Lloydminster (where you remember we stayed to avoid having to go to North Battleford fresh on the heels of the car break in). According to Wikipedia, Lloydminster was started in 1903 as a British only “utopian” settlement centered around sobriety, and sits on the traditional territories of several Indigenous nations, Plains Cree, Wood Cree, Dene, Salteaux and Metis. At the time it was part of the colonial NWT. Move forward 2 years and a bunch of politicking, with a federal desire for two provinces in stead of one for fear that one big province could rival the power in the East (can’t have that… to this day) so it became two, with a line down the middle. The residents attempted to move the border so they could all be in Saskatchewan but failed and, for the next 53 years they had two incorporated towns one on each side of the main street. In 1958, it was determined that this was silly and they incorporated Lloydminster in both Alberta and Saskatchewan but created it with one city with shared jurisdiction.
From Lloydminster we set off across the Saskatchewan Prairie for Echo Lake Provincial Park and campground. Conveniently, my friends Sandra and Peter were there camping with Peters family and they invited me to crash the party. Following my trusty GPS I headed South to the park. While I did get there, I was a bit concerned when I hit the gravel roads and the GPS said things like “continue for 25 km”. I thought we left this behind in the north. Nope, Saskatchewan appears to be a few paved highways with oodles of long, flat, straight gravel roads between the fields.
People told me “just sleep through the prairie provinces” and “pedal down and just get through them and try not to doze off”. WRONG! I think one of the biggest surprises of this trip (other than finding my BnB all locked up in Rose Blanche NL but that is s story for another post) was how spectacularly beautiful the prairies are. I think the trick may be to get off the TCH and go see the countryside. The range roads took me through huge fields of endless colour, butter yellow, deep green, sage, and goldenrod that almost sparkled in the sun. This was all punctuated with splashes of purple flowers, deep green trees and endless blue sky. Absolutely no chance of drifting off from boredom. It looked a bit like god was playing paint by numbers.
I eventually got tot eh campsite and was warmly welcomed by the whole Kort crew. They fed me, loaned me a tent so I did not have to even set up my own campsite, and we had a wonderful visit. They even introduced me to what will need to become a tradition at our annual Herald lake camping weekend… roll your own sushi. I know sushi was originally a fancy celebration food, but somehow it tastes even better in the fresh air, rice cooked on a propane burner and everyone dives is to roll it up and chat and laugh. I reminded me of vaguely remembered perogy making days in Prince Rupert, or maybe sandwich assembly line at camp. The sushi was great but the company made it all so much better.
Greta had to go back into town for the night so she kindly let me stay in her tent and their family “nest” of sleeping bags and pillows. It was very comfy and, while it is a ground tent it is the type that have a 6 foot ceiling and a vestibule, so I was able to do my “stiff old lady bear walk to stand up” rather than live through my greatest fear… having to crawl out of my tent in the morning and just yell until someone came to help me get my arthritic ass off the ground! I had the morning with the Kort crew before I had to take off to keep moving East. We played cards in the screen room while the rest of the family discovered a new game. It started as bocci, until one of the balls bounced off the screen room, and “dodge bocci” came into being. Once rolls the bocci balsa t the screen room, attempting to get them under the edge and hit the picnic table in the middle, or one of the card players at the table. I am not sure if one got more points for hitting a card player or missing us, but it was a good giggle all round.
After I bid farewell to Kort Camp, I headed out toward Brandon MB. Leaving the campground I drove out through the Qu’Apelle Valley following along the water, then up onto the fields again. I made a couple of stops, Indian Head, which his the little community that the Korts come from where I picked up snacks and gassed up the car. It is a lovely tiny town, with little homes and a 2 block main street, from what I could see. I also stopped in Lebret which is a small town (population 216 as of 2016) with a really big church. It was first inhabited by settlers in the mid 1800’s and was a Roman Catholic mission. There as a residential school there which was transferred to the Indigenous school board in the 1970’s. The church is on the river and across the street there is a path up the hill with the stations of the cross and a shrine at the top, creating a sort of local pilgrimage walk. On the next hill over there is a great big picture of a buffalo, which I could not find any information out about. It was and interesting contrast, with the triangle formed of the great big church, stations of the cross path, and Buffalo. I think there could be much written about the symbolism of that, but that is for another day. As I drove through all three were lovely.
After a lovely drive through the fields of Saskatchewan I bombed down the TCH for a bit heading for Brandon MB and a visit with my cousin Laura. The TCH through MB was a bit of a slog as I was tired. It was still not “sleep through it” boring but a little less picturesque than where I had been more northerly in Saskatchewan. One nice thing that MB (and SK) have done is install gravel roads that parallel the highway on both sides, allowing for pulling out and taking pictures safely, in which one can avoid pavement in the foreground. I suspect that the farmers also appreciate the photo taking lanes as they appear to be efficient ways to move farm equipment without having to take it on the highway. I wonder if they thought about that when they built the “photo lanes”?
I landed in Brandon and connected with Laura. Laura and I, both being former party girls, headed out to a local establishment for dinner and music. Oh how times change. We had a very nice supper on the patio with a trio of acoustic folk musicians and then… went home, walking past the Caribbean band that was setting up for party and dancing inside the restaurant, in favour of a quiet glass of wine on the patio at Laura’s. Bed by 10. As I said, oh how things have changed. Laura is about to become a grandmother so I suppose it had to happen sometime.
Laura and I had a great chance to catch up. It has been ages since we have seen each other in person. We hung out on her patio and she showed me around the area. We went out to a little town called Souris, walked through the park and over their little suspension bridge and checked out the quaint little gift and art shops. I even agreed to a picture on the swan benches in the park (every now and again I have to be in a photo and prove I actually went to these places). We stopped at Lady of the Lake, which is where we had dinner but during the day they have a lovely gift store, possibly one of the best curated and most varied such store I have ever seen. They also have an art car, not for sale, with a sort of tea cup theme to it out front that one could stare at for hours, finding all the little bits and pieces and different scenes.
Lady of the Lake is a lovely curated shop with many beautiful things, from there we went out to Crow’s General Store. It is listed as an ice cream parlour but it is so much more, and so much weirder, than that. The old building has a wrap around porch fill of a completely eclectic collection of antiques, oddities, and some just plain weird stuff. On the roof is a sort of zombie-esque scene with a bed, a strange figure and what may be a “goesunder”. Inside there is in fact an ice cream parlour with good ice cream, and a continuation of the collection. All manner of soda shop memorabilia, and a bunch of random stuff, adorns the room. Of particular interest was an old ad poster for orange crush, which looked like it should bear the caption, “once the kids have found and taken your whole coke stash give ‘m orange crush to get them even higher”. Ice cream in hand we headed out to the rest of the property with more stuff around back, some old cars and a gas pump, and mini golf. There were about 8 holes ready to play and one family was having a go at it. There were several more “holes” to come in various stages of construction. It was too hot to golf so Laura and I had a walk down to the river and along the water for a bit. There was apparently trail that looped back to the shop/parking but we could not find it and the one we were on ended in a very mucky wet little stream, so, back we went the way we came.
It was a really nice visit with Laura and I got to see her son Mitchell and his girlfriend Emilee, who are about to make Laura a grandmother. Laura is bracing herself for the coming changes. There is a car seat in the back of her truck and her basement is being readied for the new family as they will be staying with her for a time. Emilee’s place is not big enough for them and Mitchell has been staying with Laura. Laura’s quiet little house is now going to be home to three adults, a baby, a cat and at least one snake (who Emilee brought over for me to meet and it really is a lovely one, but the cat is not so sure).
After my visit with Laura it was a wash for the car (despite the instructions on the wall I managed to mix up a few things, and decided that spraying random goo from the multi-goo nozzle in my engine was a non-started to begin with) and back to the highway to head for Ontario, but that is a tale for a next post.