Saskatchewan!
Kris and I cleared Alberta today and tipped into Saskatchewan which, in my opinion, is the most fun Canadian Provence to say out loud. Getting to our final spot for the night though required that we cover some serious ground. As of this evening, we're more than 2,000 km into our trip and we saw some pretty neat things along the way. If you were to look at a map of the North American continent, you'd see that we're the equivalent of only about ⅔ across Montana. This is somewhat surprising as the landscape is more like what you'd see in South Dakota except much more green. The wind is similar to what you'd expect in the prairie as well and we had make way against a headwind that I'm sure didn't help our gas milage. Thankfully, the 4Runner is more than up for the task and covered the undulating hills with little difficulty.
One of the highlights of the day was an accidental discovery of the Battelford Tail Ruts which just happened to be near a gas station and a field where we could let Denali stretch his legs. According to the plaque,
From 1882 until 1891 Swift Current was the closest railway shipping point for the populous Battleford district. Trade, especially the buffalo bone trade, created a heavy volume of ox-cart traffic between the two centres while Battleford was under siege during the Riel Rebellion, Swift Current was strategically important to the entire country.
And so, you can see the actual ruts from the Ox Carts more than 100 years ago today!
The other nice thing about this site... a geocache. This was my first Canadian Geocache which earned me the Canada AND Saskatchewan souvenirs. Sweet!
We also passed the time listening to a documentary-style podcast called Wilder which talks about the Little House on the Prairie books, Laura Ingall's Wilder, her relationship with her daughter, and the legacy of those books and their lives. It was quite appropriate given the day's scenery.
Finally, we ended our day at a cozy camp site called Bin There. Kris and I were both happy to not have to set up the trailer for an evening and instead get hot showers, wash laundry and setting into a real bed for the evening. In fact, I am writing this as a run our laundry through the wash! Below is a quick shot of our digs for the evening.
And with that... I'll call it an evening! Stay turned for the next installment!