Rob-n-Hild, oot and aboot eh? Sorry - 2022
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Riding Mountain National Park - Sasksatoon (584 km. 6.75 hours. Elevation maximum 698 metres) 
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| To set the scene for this morning - Rob remembers a quote from the book "Helen's Babies". Rob's sister, Liz, used to read this book to Rob when he was 3-4 years old... and he still remembers it verbatim: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"The next morning would have struck terror to the heart of anyone. Rain was falling fast, and in that steady, industrious manner which seemed to assert an intention to stick closely to business for the whole day. The sky was covered by one impenetrable, leaden cloud, water stood in pools in the streets which were soft with dust a few hours before; the flowers all hung their heads, like vagabonds who had been awake all night and were ashamed to face the daylight. Even the chickens stood about in dejected attitudes." |
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| A driving day today - and a good job as it was raining all night so it would have been a very soggy walk! It was still raining as we packed up so we didn't make breakfast (no coking in the yurt), just had a mug of milk and chewy bar and got on our way. We had to stop for gas just up the road in Dauphin anyway so we had a 12-grain bagel and tea/coffee in Tim Horton's then! We also popped in to Walmart to get a new frying pan - more on that later, but Dauphin has a fun statue as well (Anisk the Beaver) - which we duly photo'd before carrying on out of Manitoba and into Saskatchewan. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Just before we left Manitoba we crossed the "Lake of the Prairies" - which is not too wide, but quite long. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It was a nice drive as although we were out of the mountains and back
onto prairie, it wasn't as flat as the pre-historic lake-bed that
makes up southern Manitoba (and which we had driven through two days
ago). There were some nice rolling hills and more varied agriculture
- some of that because the soils aren't as good so there is more
pasture and less wheat, but a pretty drive anyway.
We also spotted the Dunleath Grain Elevator. Many of the grain elevators we spot are so old and falling down that they won't be much in the way of tourist attractions soon. Others were in quite good shape. |
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| In Gilbert Plains we caught a photo of Gilbert the Golf Ball. Later we caught a snap shot as we passed the border to Saskatchewan, and we were reminded by our gadgets that we went one hour back. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In Saskatchewan our first stop was a town called Yorkton. We planned this mainly as we expected it to be nearly lunchtime, but not only did we start earlier (as it was wet), but Saskatchewan is an hour earlier than Manitoba because they don't shift to summer time here. Quite confusing as we knew we were still in the Central time zone, but Central Standard not Central Daylight Time. So, we got to Yorkton before 10 and instead of lunch we went to the Western Development Museum to look at some agricultural history. We saw it referred to as the Smithsonian of Saskatchewan. |
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Well, this turned out to be really interesting morning as not only
did we get to look at a lot of exhibits and learn a lot about the
early settlers in Saskatchewan, we also had a great chat with the
manager who turned out to be one of the few sheep farmers
hereabouts! She could answer many of our questions about farming in the region.
We also compared noted about breeds, bottle feeding triplets, veterinary costs,
how hard sheep-shearing is except for the professionals. We had a blast and loved meeting
such lovely people - as we seem to do everywhere along our path.
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Many familiar artifacts from: Ukraine, Russia, Poland, UK, Norway and many more.
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Oh so many tractors! Where to start?
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John Deere and Massey, of course!
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| We found this beautiful quilt from Yorkton's 2005 centenniel. Saskatchewan's motto is Land of the Living Skies. | We found it interesting to learn about the Regina Riot in 1935 during the Great Depression. A protest gathered in the west and started trekking towards Ottawa to raise their issues with the Government. Only the Government would not meet with them and listen, so it ended with a riot. Does this sound familiar to more recent events? I guess it is true that we will never learn from history. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| After an hour or more in the museum part and another hour and a half chatting, we were ready for lunch big time (given that we had "gained" an hour as well) so rather than chase around, we found another Tim Hortons and had our favourite lunch - Chilli combo with a Canadian Maple doughnut for afters! We had to check if it is as yummy as in Ottawa. Yes it is! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| On our way to Saskatoon we drove past many Nutrien (world's third largest producer of fertilizer) sites where they extract potash. Their operations are everywhere here and they employ a lot of people - including the son of our favourite sheep breeder. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| At one point we spotted these blue domes placed around farm fields. After some research (thanks to Snusmumrikken we have internet along the way) we learnt that they are where farmers introduce leafcutter bees to increase pollination and therefore yields in alfalfa seed production. | We also saw lots and lots of snow gees - all three colours: white morph, blue morph and intermediate morph. There were so many of them sitting in fields that we couldn't help but thinking that these could well be a bit of a pest to farmers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We also drove past the huge Quill Lakes. These are the largest saline lakes in Canada - caused by precipitation. It plays host to oh so many bird species and it helps in producing fertilizer. As one can imagine, it also creates lots of local discussion on how much of surface water run-off to allow to enter the lakes as it can no longer be used for households or irrigation after that. That would be an interesting case study. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| By then the rain we had left behind in Manitoba had caught up to us (even though Rob was driving now) so we pushed on to Saskatoon. We had some roadworks along the way and some fun new species including pigs (but still no sheep, although we kept on looking 'cos we know they are out there somewhere), but we made it to our hotel in Saskatoon by 5.30 or so. We have two nights here so we unloaded the car - which actually made it look like we were staying for a week - as we have som re-packing to do after the couple of days in the yurt. |
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Coming up: A bit of touring around Saskatoon tomorrow, which will be nice as although Rob has been here three or four times before, they have been work trips so there was no time to look around. They were also usually in February which is not a time of year that you wander around outside here on the prairies - the wind blows and blows so even if it is not officially very cold, the wind-chill makes it much much colder! | Start | Nerdy | The Largest... | Ornaments | Go To Previous Day | Go To Next Day |
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May/June 2022