Dauphine, Manitoba to Saskatchewan

Had a great little reunion with Robert and Bonnie with fleeting glimpses of Zack and Chelsea, (nephew and family). Turned out that we were camped just a couple of blocks from their house so they walked over for an evening visit and invited us all over for breakfast the next day.  Nice to reconnect.  They all seem to be doing well.  Rob is a Warden in Riding Mountain National Park so he and Jack had stuff  to talk about.

We finally managed to find all of our banks so paid bills, got cash and are ready to roll again The road through Manitoba and into Saskatchewan is good, but so straight and flat it sends us to sleep. Tough day so we stopped in a little place called Foam Lake where a community campsite with power (no water or sewer) cost $18 for night.  Clean bathrooms and showers.  We are finding sites often in the $15-25 range so that helps cover the other sites that cost more.  Sunday night we are in a Provincial Park in Alberta - costing $48/night.  If a person wanted, you could certainly travel for under $30 most nights.  Not bad!

The landscape is interesting.  In parts of Manitoba it was dead flat, with one field stretching off to the horizon with the only breaks being square wooded areas.  Not very big and pretty standard.  Trees, obviously planted years ago formed either three or four sides of the square.  Often there would be 3, 4 or even five rows of trees of different types.  Blue Spruce, pine, elm, oak, even lilac - graduating in size with the biggest on the outside - but usually each row would be all the same.  Inside the square created by the trees would be the farm home, barns, buildings, equipment, often a small orchard, gardens, and so on.  Each was like an oasis in the middle of these flat huge acreages.  I can imagine how effective these are in the winter when winds howl down from the North.

As we got into Saskatchewan there is more rolling ground, and a great amount of marshland.  Result is a proliferation of ducks.  Almost every pond has a duck family; sometimes geese. And of course, now is the time of ducklings and goslings so it is quite charming. Most of the towns and villages are off the highway, so the only signs of humanity (aside from the traffic on the highway) are grain elevators and gas stations.

The negatives here are the isolation, the stunted trees, the heavy truck traffic (although not as bad as the southern route to Calgary) and the obvious challenges being faced by farmers.  Many fields are lying fallow.  Either the soil is too wet, or the farmer can’t afford to put in a crop.  Oh, and the bugs.  They have the biggest deer flies, the meanest horse flies, the most mosquitos, bitting black flies and now we are being warned about wood ticks.  Found a tick on my hand yesterday.  Jack beat him to death with a knife, then we stuffed the remains in a plastic bag which we dumped in a garbage can.

The bugs have forced us to eat and stay in the motorhome a bit more than we would like, but hopefully we’ll soon be away from them.  A nuisance.

Because of the weekend coming up we called ahead and booked sites Nr. Saskatoon and Vermillion AB.  

Time to hit the hay

Julie

Remember if you want to get in touch email me at julie@seacroftpei.com