The Prairies

We left Rushing River Provincial Park near Kenora about 8:30am this morning. We were up at 6am and not only broke camp in 2.5 hours but also gave Zoe a walk. We’re getting into the groove of this camping thing. It was another beautiful day but the dew overnight was heavy ~ as it’s been all along, and our tent and fly were a bit damp as we packed them up.

By 11am we reached the Manitoba border. We were curious to notice, at our first pit stop, that no-one was wearing masks. Ontario has been much more strict in this regard.

Driving into Manitoba from Ontario didn’t seem like a big change in the landscape at first. Northern Ontario, or at least the stretch from Thunder Bay through to Kenora and the border is really very rough terrain: no decent agricultural land, mostly lakes, rocks and trees, what we might call “muskeg”: damp, water-logged soil where very little thrives, thus there are few inhabitants or towns. Those who live there don’t exactly thrive either. It’s poor land. 

Initially Manitoba didn’t seem that different but it gradually flattened out and opened up to better agricultural lands. The further west we drove, the larger the farms became. Big Agro, indeed. 

The quintessential grain elevators, the combines working the fields,

and the road following the railway all day. 

We were surprised though to see black earth.The earth of both Manitoba and Saskatchewan is black. In Ontario, it’s more of a light brown or brown colour (except in the Holland Marsh).

About an hour west of Winnipeg, the Trans-Canada highway divides into southern and northern routes. Our route to BC is along the Yellowhead highway or northern route. If you look at a map, you’ll see it goes through Saskatoon SK, Edmonton AB, and cuts through the Rockies at Jasper AB, and then down through Kamloops BC en route to Vancouver. 

We stopped for lunch in Portage La Prairie, at a grand park that was quite empty. 

Zoe was elated to find grass again ~ hasn’t had a decent patch since we left our garden in Guelph back on July 31st (no grass at the cottage, just granite rocks). Our previous campsites have been more about rocks and sand than grass. She luxuriated in rolling around on her back and ran about with a huge smile on her face. We also were able to leave her off leash. She’s had to be on leash at all the campgrounds and being an independent kind of girl, she has been unhappy to find herself so constrained. Luckily both at Neys Provincial Park and at Rushing River PP, our neighbours were dog-lovers and after getting to know them we let her have some off-leash time to visit with them. We’ve had to be vigilant however, because the fines in most campgrounds for having your dog off-leash are not insignificant. 

We crossed into Saskatchewan about 2:30pm and into a new time zone. Unlike leaving Eastern Standard Time and crossing into Central ST, there was no big plaque announcing the change into Mountain ST, just a small notice and our cell phones making the change ~ as soon as we got a strong enough connection. The connection has actually been quite reliable so far today. 

The transition from Manitoba to Saskatchewan has been almost imperceptible, except perhaps the sky seems bigger. Oh, and the lakes. We think they’re called “sloughs”. At least I remember this name from Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder about the American Prairies.

We arrived at our camp site about 4pm MST. It felt like about 8pm. It’s been a long day on the road alright (about 8 hours of driving) but we knew this one would be. Manitoba has not been welcoming to out-of-province travellers so we decided we’d have to drive through it. Tonight we’re staying at the municipal private campground in Yorkton Saskatechewan, about 45 minutes from the border with Manitoba. The best thing about this campground is the showers ARE OPEN! The provincial campgrounds of Ontario had closed their showers due to C-19. We’ve managed fine by washing/swimming in the campground lakes but after a week of this we’re pretty excited to have our morning shower tomorrow :)

After a quick supper of leftovers from yesterday, we took Zoe for a well-deserved walk. The campground in Yorkton is next to one of the many sloughs (lakes) that are all over Saskatchewan. We walked around it as the sun was setting. A beautiful warm evening here in Saskatchewan.

Tomorrow we drive into Alberta.