We started out early with sunshine after quite a rain storm last night. We chatted with fellow guests in the hotel, and then hit the road going north to Canada. Our major destination is Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan.
As we drove north to the Canadian border, we didn’t see another car for 50 miles. The major challenge of the morning was Dick dodging ground squirrels that were sunning themselves on the road and racing back-and-forth in front of the car. Someone later described it as "wack a mole" with ground squirrels. They were also birds, and we even saw a pronghorn antelope on the road. All of these seem like good signs. We were headed into a rarely visited area.
The land leading up to Grassland National Park is mostly flat with some rolling hills of green grass. In earlier times, this was part of the Great Plains, which stretched from Canada all the way down to Texas and 1000 miles across the middle of the US. Now there’s only about 2% of the natural prairie that is left, and Grasslands National Park is one of those special areas.
We are always grateful for the people made it their life work to save some of these wild areas. There were people who saw the native prairies rapidly being devoured by cities, towns and ranches, and said "We need to preserve some of this beautiful land". Thank you to them.
We crossed at a very quiet Canadian border crossing which went well and then soon came to a little town of Val Marie.
Our first stop was the park visitor center where we learned more about this amazing park and picked up our brochure for the self guided Eco Tour.
Then, we went across the street to "Prairie Winds and Silver Sage". This was a small but charming, museum and gift shop. We enjoyed our visit there. Patti was particularly intrigued by any exhibit of women’s aprons and reflections on the roles that aprons have played in women’s lives. There is even a chance to try some aprons on for photos, which of course she did.
Then, we spent the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon driving about a 20 mile loop through the western part of the park. It was called the Eco Tour Road There we got to see stunning views of the grasslands hills, and also saw a lot of wonderful wildlife.
This is the northernmost boundary where prairie dogs are located and we so enjoyed seeing some of the "dog towns". Prairie dogs are very social creatures and with lots of fun antics to watch. We walked around and listened as they chirped warning messages telling of our presence.
We had hoped we get to see bison which had been re-introduced in 2005 after having been gone from the area for 120 years. We talked to some other visitors who had seen bisons in the park, but there were none to be seen on our journey today. Fortunately, we have seen bison at other times, but we would’ve enjoyed it today also. We did see pronghorn antelope, as well as mule deer which are always fun to see.
This park is not "on the way" to anywhere, and gets less than 20,000 visitors per year. It was quiet, peaceful and it was well worth our time driving out of our way to find it.
We were pleased that we were able to find a pair of the red chairs that Parks Canada places in many of their national parks. This is a project that’s called "share of the chair" where a set of bright red Adirondack chairs are placed in some scenic location in the parks. The idea is that everybody doesn’t have to drag their own chair there, we can share. You can get your photo taken while sitting on a chair and upload it if you want to. These chairs were in particularly a lovely area overlooking a valley. It was hard to get up. It was so peaceful there.
We also happened upon an interesting group who were gathered for a labyrinth workshop to be held during the summer solstice time. We have both enjoyed labyrinths in many areas and have one for walking meditations in our own backyard. It was nice to connect with fellow labyrinth lovers.
We left the park, but not the rolling prairie. We headed off on a cross-country journey through confusing back roads of Saskatchewan, headed towards the town of Moose Jaw. At various times, it was hard for us to know whether we were still on the right road or not, and we were glad to have the compass on our cell phone to help give us a little more guidance. The drive was lovely with puffy, white clouds in a blue sky. The rolling prairie goes on and on.
We ended our day in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. After a bit of fumbling to figure out why our cell phone data wasn’t working in Canada, which Dick valiantly talked to two different support people and got it fixed, we were on to our next activity. Patti had heard about this theater group that’s called the Tunnels of Moose Jaw. They do historic reenactment, immersive theater that may or may not be based on fact or perhaps on legend.
They had several shows to choose from, but the one we were able to get in to was focused on Moose Jaw’s connection with Chicago, Al Capone, and the prohibition of sales of alcohol. Because we were so late in the day, Dick and Patti were the only two audience members for this 45 minute show. (We actually have really good karma for getting private tours at general prices.) We were escorted across the street and met by "Fanny", the owner of an establishment selling illegal liquor. She gave us quite an orientation and a tour of Al Capone‘s supposed quarters when he was in Moose Jaw. She eventually handed us off to "Gus" literally in tunnels underneath the street, where he took us through the process of orientation to become bootleggers. Both these actors gave it their all, even with just the two of us. It was great fun and left us with many questions about which parts of the show were true and which were made up in order to make the story more exciting. All in all, a very fun experience.
After a Chinese buffet, we headed out to see the other thing that Moose Jaw is known for: its extensive outdoor murals. We wandered our way with a little guide, looking at the wide array of murals, many of them historic depictions of the town. We were on a bit of a treasure hunt looking for murals all over downtown Moose Jaw. Some were "so so" and some were "oh, that’s perfectly exquisite".
Before we went back to our hotel for the evening, we also made a stop to see Mac the Moose. This is the world's largest moose statue, standing 34 feet tall. Whether or not, it still is the world's largest, (which is now in dispute) it was still fun to get some views of Mac.
Finally, back to our hotel. It was the end of a very satisfying day.
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