Thursday July 4

Left Regina this morning and headed for Saskatoon. Long straight road but the sky kept it from being boring. Stopped at Costco in Saskatoon for some provisions and then took the road to North Battleford – or The Battlefords as they now call it. I guess South Battleford was feeling left out.

The countryside started to get bumpy, and then suddenly I found myself looking down into a rolling valley. There were fields of mustard seed blooming and the sky was full of clouds – grey, white and fluffy. It was so beautiful. I saw a lookout site and realized that I remembered it from my travels by motorcycle in my 20s. A flash from the past.

I arrived in North Battleford in early afternoon and found the Museum of Western Development. Felt a bit like checking into a re-education camp. But they have a large field for parking and friendly staff. I toured the museum which featured your typical western style buildings etc. The best part was a looped slide show of pictures of the area from the beginning of photography until now. It was fascinating to see – a wonderful resource.

The hearse. Windows so the corpse can see out?

Below, the grocery store:

You still see elevators exactly like this one - although new ones are metal.

Now I’ve had my supper and listened to some podcasts and it’s time to turn in and read. Tomorrow I’ll head west of Edmonton and find a place – this time an RV park I think so I can take a shower!

Thursday July 4th

The last few days have been happily spent in Regina staying with my friend Sally. Time for laundry, trailer tidy up, grocery shopping, etc. And a real shower.

I did manage to kayak on Wascana Lake, but didn't feel like taking part in any other tourist attractions. I did attend a knit night at The Naked Sheep which was fun - meeting local knitters.

Staying with Sally meant seeing all of her wonderful Saori weaving - looms, sewing room, huge amounts of fabric and yarn. All very inspiring! Perhaps when I'm back in the fall I'll start to weave.

In the meantime I'm off to BC, stopping once in North Battleford tonight, twice in Alberta (near Edmonton, and Grande Prairie) and twice in BC (Chetwynd and Prince George) before arriving at 100 Mile House. As always, cell coverage and wifi will be spotty, so signing off until next Tuesday unless I find a place to post.

Sunday June 30

Well, the peace didn’t last – there was a domestic dispute around 11 pm and the chaos continued until 12. I stayed tucked in and just fine, but my sleep suffered. This is the first time I've been nervous at night.

Today I was looking forward to kayaking, but the lake was whitecapping, and didn’t let up until evening. So instead I walked to the Nicolle homestead – the property which gave rise to this place. It’s a beautiful stone building which must have been something to make back in the day. As usual the surroundings were spectacular.

Approaching the house.

Someone had removed the board from one of the windows - this is the inside - full of pigeon poop. The stuff of nightmares.

The view from the homestead.

It must have been a beautiful place in its day. There were foundations for a large barn - the wooden part of the structure had been removed. And there were foundations for an extension to the barn which was never completed. According to the sign, over the winter of 1906/7 the family lost 400 horses which would have inhabited the barn! Must have been a hellish place to be that winter. While this family must have been wealthy to build a two storey stone building with barns, it still must have been a hard life.

The rest of the day was spent around camp – reading, needlepoint, knitting, napping. Tough life. I’m ready to move on. I’ll stay in Regina a couple of nights and then head north and west. Alberta bound!

Saturday June 29

I started my day with coffee from my new stovetop espresso pot – a gift from the NPES Research Ethics Board on my retirement. Where has this been all my life! It makes great coffee! Thanks folks – you’ve started a new obsession!

Happy Birthday to John today – I’ll contact him when I leave to go on my hike. The weather still looks stormy after last night’s thunder and lightning so I think I’ll stay off the water.

Today’s adventure was exploring the trails at the end of the lake. The circle around the marsh and then go up into the hills. While I should have been able to see bison – I didn’t. After what we did to them (killing off the majority in the course of 20 years) I don’t blame them for being a bit shy. But the walk was lovely. It was very hot and quite humid, but once I worked up a sweat I felt fine. My knee was sore, but it’s hard to tell whether I should rest it or exercise it. So I chose the latter, and in fact it did quite well on the 4km hike.

I’ll post as many pictures as I have the patience to upload (it takes a while). The stars today were the wild flowers. So many different kinds – some are familiar, many are different. I’ll name what I can then hope that my readers can help me out with the others.

Trail through one of the valleys. Cool and wet here whereas the hills are dry and hot.

Are these Saskatoon berries?

Another kind of cactus! I thought there was only one kind which grew this far north.

One of many protruding rocks with it's cloak of colourful lichen.

This is some kind of poop. Not dog poop - the contents are dry and 'grassy'. If it's deer poop, it's not a white tailed deer - could be the mule deer they have here?

Scotch thistle.

Blue bird.

The afternoon saw the humidity disappear. It was 36C in the camper but only 34% humidity, so in fact was quite comfortable. This evening I’m thinking about a warmer shirt. It will be a good night for sleeping.

The campground seems to have a bumper crop of little boys of various ages, and I’ve really enjoyed watching them go about their business. They are so completely self-absorbed and often serious about what they are doing. I saw three 10 year old’s walk by – two with metal detectors and one with a couple of spades. Not sure that will end well. They’ve propelled themselves along the road on every conceivable form of wheel whilst having serious conversations about the relative merits of this one or that.

The evening saw me sitting at the picnic table doing some mending. So peaceful, even with all of these people – the campground is full.

Friday June 28

Well, this day was an adventure! I drove in to Regina where I stocked up on food and a few necessities for the trailer. Then, because I couldn’t check in to my campsite until 2, I had lunch at a Husky restaurant (on the recommendation of my son) and updated my blog. Just in case you are wondering, neither the wifi nor the food was up to scratch, but the people were nice!

Then off I went to Buffalo Pound Provincial Park on the western side of the city. The park is huge, with a large lake. It’s part of the Qu’Applle valley system. That was a pleasant surprise since I didn’t even know if it had water! The lake goes on and one as one drives through the park. The hills are not as steep as at Echo Lake, and the valley is wider – I liked it better as it did not have that ‘huddled’ feeling and one still could enjoy that prairie sky.

I checked in and found my site – which is unremarkable, and unfortunately close to a shower/washroom with its flood light (when did people become unable to use a flashlight?)  but adequate. I once again backed in successfully, though since there were many people around, not with the certainty I had the previous day. Then I decided to put up my new tarp and bug house. Not because there were any bugs particularly, but the site didn’t have any shade and I wanted to see what it looked like and how difficult it was to pitch. 

A couple of good old beer drinking dudes laughed when they saw the tarp stretched out – they were probably off to town for supplies to supplement their already significant guts – but they were unable to scoff when they returned. With the help of a couple of trees, I did fine, and the resulting little house is quite pretty. Thanks to the folks in the office whose contributions helped me buy this from MEC! Soaked with sweat from my efforts (it was uncharacteristically humid and very hot) I sat and read until I cooled down.

Once revived I set out to explore the park. I had been told about hiking trails at one end of the lake and I started there. I explored the Bison Range, which was beautiful, but the bison must have been laying low as I saw none. 

Then I found the boardwalk through the marsh. This was an astonishing experience. Simple enough – a boardwalk through a marsh at the end of a lake. And perhaps it was the heat, and my fatigue, but I found the experience magical.

 The reeds extended slightly above my head and the water, with floating lime green duck weed, was just a few inches below the boardwalk. 

I tried to walk quietly, but the walkway creaked and groaned as I walked along. But that did not seem to deter what must have been hundreds (thousands?) of creatures around me carrying on with their noisy lives! Bird calls, frogs, insects, maybe fish – everything had a voice or a movement that resulted in sound. I did see birds – some seemed quite tame – but the predominant feature was the sound. 

When I reached the end of the boardwalk I sat on a bench. I was bathed in a wash of heat, sun, and sound. For about half an hour I just sat and soaked in the life and beauty around me. And then I found tears streaming down my face – of gratitude that I had the opportunity of coming to this magical place, of awe at the beauty of this place, of fear for the future of places like this, of amazement that after all these years something can feel so new and unique, of passion for the immense prairie sky.

Or maybe I was just tired. I toyed with the idea of taking another 3km trail and decided (wisely) to go back to my campsite where I showered in a real campsite shower. I do love the shower/bath combo in my trailer but since I’m not hooked up to water this weekend, I wanted to conserve. A glass of gin and a light supper that I didn’t have to cook, having purchased some readymade salads that morning, finished my evening. I patched and mended my favourite white sun shirt I use for hiking and kayaking. The clouds grew darker and darker as the evening progressed and by 10 a thunderstorm was upon us settling the party troops and putting the kids to bed which was fine by me. As always, sleep in my wee hobbit house was deep, long, and delicious.

Today’s exciting flora included this cactus growing on the side of the dirt road on the way back from the marsh. Couldn’t believe it! And because I was out of the car with my camera, I captured the humble daisy which grows profusely on the roadsides here