The Road Goes On…

Category: Saskatchewan

  • Indian Head, SK to Assiniboine, SK

    Martin’s eyes lit up when he found a true BBQ restaurant in Ogema. Bud’s BBQ offers brisket and pulled pork along with related sides such as cornbread and beans. We had to try it and weren’t disappointed.

    The brisket was excellent but we both felt Martin’s pulled pork was more flavourful. The beans and cornbread were great, as were the Saskatoon berry and strawberry rhubarb pies. The homemade iced tea quenched the thirst. Altogether we left the restaurant with a big smile.

    We wandered around this quiet small town a bit and couldn’t resist going to a big second hand store where Ruth’s eyes lit up when she saw semi-precious bead necklaces for $1/each. A lot cheaper than Michaels so she picked up a handful for her next beading adventures.

    Our next stop was the Assiniboine & District Museum which features historic furniture and artifacts as well as a large number of old cars and African Safari animal trophies mounted on the walls.

    One of the artifacts was a school room with a teacher in a white blouse and black skirt.

    Attached to the wall was a teaching contract from 1923 which showed how strictly teacher’s lives were regulated.

    Teachers Contract, Term 1923

    This agreement between Miss ______, teacher, and the Board of Education of the School, whereby Miss ______ agrees to teach in the School for a period of eight months beginning September 1, 1923. The Board of Education agrees pay Miss ______ the sum of $75 per month. Miss ______ agrees:

    1. Not to get married. This contract becomes null and void immediately if the teacher marries.
    2. Not to keep company with men.
    3. To be home between the hours of 8pm and 6am unless she is in attendance at a school related function.
    4. Not to loiter downtown in ice cream parlors.
    5. Not to leave town at any time without the permission of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
    6. Not to smoke cigarettes. This contract becomes null and void immediately if the teacher is found smoking.
    7. Not to drink beer, whiskey or wine. This contract becomes null and void immediately if the teacher is found drinking beer, whisky and/or wine.
    8. Not to ride in a carriage/automobile with any man except her brother or father.
    9. Not to wear bright colours.
    10. To wear at least two petticoats,
    11. Not to dye her hair or wear makeup of any kind.
    12. Not to wear a dress more than two inches above the heel.
    13. To keep the schoolhouse clean; to sweep the classroom floors at least once daily, to scrub the floor once weekly with hot water and soap; to clean the blackboards at least once daily.
    14. The fire shall be started at 7am in order to warm up the room for 8am when the children arrive; to carry out the ashes at least once daily.

    Other scenes depicted a barber shop and pharmacy among others. The barber shop was a place to hang out and catch up on the latest gossip with perhaps some gambling in the back room.

    A large part of the museum is devoted to automobiles including an amphibious car with a Mercedes motor and an early camper which we thought about upgrading to. It might make our trip a bit slower though.

    The Assiniboine campground is in the town and we snagged a campsite for $16 for the night.

  • Souris, MB to Indian Head, SK

    Souris has Canada’s longest swinging bridge at 184m in length which was opened to the public on August 17, 2013. It capacity is listed as “approximately 74,843kg (165,000lbs) – equivalent to 925 white tailed deer” on the plaque next to the bridge. We wonder if the white-tailed deer is an ISO standard.

    The previous bridge was washed out by flooding a few years earlier, but a small remanent remains.

    Adjacent to the bridge is the Hillcrest Museum (“The Castle on the Prairies”), built in 1910 commissioned by Fred Sowden, the son of the founder of the town Souris. He built the first bridge so that he could walk over to his property on the other side of the river.

    The museum has many historical artifacts and, can you believe it, 5000 preserved butterflies from all over the world.

    Here are a few of the unique artifacts. The first is an early vacuum cleaner that requires a small child to operate:

    There was also a Wanzer sewing machine. The Wanzer Sewing Machine Company had its factory in Hamilton, Ontario from 1860-1891, initially starting out making Singer machines and later developing their own models.

    Another interesting artifact was an egg scale.

    The butterfly collection is quite something to see and it occupies an entire room.

    After the museum we were hungry and went to the Woodfire Deli where we had a wonderful pizza and a Caesar salad.

    The last stop in Souris was Lagasse’s Studio of Fine Art. This gallery features work from area artists and also offers workshops and lessons. We got a quick demonstration on making alcohol ink coasters. Ruth is all excited about trying it herself!

    Souris advertises free ranging peacocks but we didn’t see any. Maybe this was good because we heard rumours that the last batch had started nipping tourists.

    After Souris, we headed up to the Trans-Canada highway and drove into Saskatchewan where we are spending the night at the Indian Head Campground. This campground had been recommended by a fellow traveller who raved about its fabulous washroom facilities. As you can see it even has a tub with clawed feet, complete with a sign that says anyone caught washing their pet in there will be immediately expelled from the campground.

  • Canada 2017 Trip Summary

    Coming home gave us the feeling as though we are living between two worlds. Before we enter back into our everyday life with all its responsibilities we look back on six weeks of excitement and adventure. We’re happy we wrote the blog so that we don’t forget all the things we saw and experienced.

    What worked well:

    Roadtrek 190 Popular: We love our Roadtrek! It is small enough to go virtually anywhere and has everything you need – kitchen, bathroom, fridge, furnace, air conditioning, etc.

    InReach Explorer+ Satellite Communicator: We bought one of these units to be able to communicate with friends and in case of emergency in areas where there is no cellular service. It worked like a charm and has the ability now to request weather reports as well.

    Public Mobile: We were travelling through areas where our cellular provider (Freedom Mobile) doesn’t have their own network so instead of paying roaming charges we chose to get a Public Mobile pay-as-you-go subscription with 6GB of data for the 6 weeks we were on the road. Public Mobile uses the TELUS network which covers western Canada very well.

    Freedom Mobile’s Unlimited US Roaming. We’ve been Freedom Mobile customers for a number of years now and their price just can’t be beat. For $15 a month we had unlimited voice calling, texting and 1GB of data for the days we were in Alaska. This allowed us to keep in touch and look up things on the road.

    Good Sam Membership: This RV club membership cost $25 a year and give you 10% discount at member campsites.  It definitely paid for itself.

    Garmin GPS: We love our Garmin nuvi 2689LMT GPS system.

    Allstays Camp and RV App: We use this app on our iPads all the time to look for campgrounds. It shows the location of campgrounds and gives information about their rating, facilities and distance from your current location.

    Visitor Centres: These are always a source of great information and have invaluable knowledge of local conditions and opportunities.

    Here’s a map of the entire trip. This is an image grab from Google Earth as it wasn’t possible to use the entire GPS track on a live map.

  • Moose Jaw, SK to Falcon Lake, MB

    The Walmart parking lot was a busy place. At least 20 campers, some looking like they were there for the long haul, and hundreds of seagulls.

    Now we were ready for the Tunnels of Moose Jaw adventure where history comes alive. We took two of the tours of the underground network of tunnels of the thriving Moose Jaw of the late 19th and early 20th century. We visited the secret city of Chinese living beneath the streets of Moose Jaw and learned about the difficult life of Chinese immigrants working in a laundromat. Then we became bootleggers in Al Capone’s empire and almost got caught for seeing and knowing too much. We truly enjoyed these two staged and interactive tours and highly recommend them to anyone visiting Moose Jaw.

    We were not permitted to take pictures on the tour, so you’ll have to come and take it yourself!

    After so much fun we had lunch across the street and briefly explored the historic downtown area.

    Al Capone was definitely following us…

    We thought it better to quickly leave town before we beginner bootleggers got caught and shot so we raced all the way to close to Falcon Lake in Manitoba and hid in a secret campground off the highway.

  • Lake Louise, AB to Moose Jaw, SK

    After a luxurious breakfast, with heavy hearts we looked out of our hotel room window at the Chateau Lake Louise one last time and departed eastward.

    The second farewell was to the Rocky Mountains which very quickly turned to plains. The day was mostly driving with only a stop for lunch in Calgary at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  We were very determined to make it to Saskatchewan and we did. We made it to Moose Jaw and noticed some attractions that enticed us. Maybe something for tomorrow morning?

  • Manitou Beach, SK to Vegreville, AB

    After a good planning session of our route to come, we departed towards Edmonton rather late in the morning. It was mostly a driving day and the canola fields gradually turned to bright yellow canola fields with scattered black oil and gas wells.

    Towards the end of the day we visited the Alberta Visitor Information Center in Lloydminster where Jonathan, our competent and very nice associate, hooked us on the Ukrainian history and food in the area.

    Our first stop was the “Cheesiry”, an artisan cheese making operation. Their boutique was now permanently closed, but they had an honour fridge in the barn where one could purchase cheese.

    Unfortunately, after deciding what we wanted, we looked into the fridge and found it void of cheese, save for one small piece. There was, however, a fairly substantial amount of cold, hard, cash.

    The next stop was Vegreville, the site of the world’s largest Ukrainian egg at 25.7 feet in length, constructed in 1975.

    We were looking forward to having dinner at a Ukrainian restaurant that had advertised in the regional tourist information brochures, only to find it was closed and for sale. The city campground office was also already closed for the evening and while it had a mail slot for self-registration, there weren’t any forms available to actually register on. Walmart parking lot to the rescue!

     

  • The Narrows, MB to Manitou Beach, SK

    Our campsite was part of a larger “Resort” complex which included a small store with more liquor than food and a defunct gas station.

    We left after a wholesome steel-cut oatmeal breakfast and continued on our route of less travelled and less repaired highways towards Saskatchewan. Along the way we passed endless fields of bright yellow canola, grain elevators and a few quirky town mascots such as the one found at Gilbert Plains.

    We reached our goal of Little Manitou Lake which we had discovered on our 2008 cross-Canada trip. Little Manitou Lake has a very high mineral and salt content which is said to have healing powers. We visited the spa/pool and spent quite some time in the salty, slightly brownish waters of various temperatures. Ruth found that her mosquito bites were no longer itchy after being in the water.

    Our campground is in walking distance from the spa and is a beautifully treed park. We had a lovely BBQ hamburger dinner sitting outside listening to the wind rustle through the trees.

  • Canada 2017 Overview