Go West, Young Men! Kenora to Regina (Saskatchewan)

GO WEST, YOUNG MEN!

Tuesday, September 10th, 2019

After a good night's sleep, another early start saw us leave Kenora at 7:30 a.m. 

Rejoining the Trans-Canada Highway, we started westward, looking for the sign to say that we had crossed the border into Manitoba. 

Reminiscent of the amazement we felt when we made this journey, in 2014, it was experienced again as we noticed the almost abrupt geographical change from forest/bush terrain into prairie territory. 

Sudden change to flat, prairie territory

Another landmark for us is the point at which east meets west in the Canadian Interior Plains ecozone. It truly is, the centre of Canada. 

This exhibit has been added since we were here last

After we had passed the highway that leads to Winnipeg, we drove along part of the Redcoat Trail - a 1,300 km route that approximates the path taken in 1874 by the North-West Mounted Police in their quest to bring law and order to the Canadian West.

Courtesy of: https://www.vividprint.ca/red-coat-trail-sign.html

Contrary to the boredom of which several people had warned us that we would experience, we were in awe of the variety of vistas through which we traveled. Although it was drizzling, on and off, for most of our journey, we could appreciate the sheer immensity of the countryside through which we were driving. 

We noticed that several homes were surrounded by a border of trees to protect them from the onslaught of wind and winter snowstorms.

Some borders lined both homes and businesses. 

We came across several modern grain elevators, situated alongside railroad tracks. 

At one point, Mark asked me to google to see if there were any traditional ones left, as many had been demolished when modernization occurred. We discovered that the nearest original grain elevators were to be found northwest of where we were, so we decided to take a detour of about 2 hours to take a look.

We traveled along part of the Yellowhead Route and followed the signs to the small village of Inglis, a little north of the main highway.

The Inglis Elevator Row is a row of five wooden grain elevators located alongside the former Canadian Pacific Railway track. They have been preserved as rare examples of a formerly common sight from 'the golden age of grain'. They have been fully restored and are now protected as a National Historic Site of Canada. 

We both agreed that, although it had added some time to our journey, the detour was totally worthwhile, and we were delighted that we had honoured a part of our Canadian history.

Not long out of Inglis, we crossed the border into the province of Saskatchewan - also a prairie province. 

Unfortunately, there was unwelcome graffiti on the sign

We were thrilled by the surrounding countryside, because the flatness of the prairies was punctuated by rolling hills and the sudden drop into a gorgeous valley along which the Qu'Appelle River runs. 

Approaching the valley in which Qu'Appelle is situated

Shortly before coming across this area, we saw a business that advertised marine services. We were perplexed because we were under the impression that we were far from any significant bodies of water. How wrong we were!  The Lake of the Prairies (or Shellmouth Reservoir) took us completely by surprise, and made us realize that we had entertained a totally false impression of Saskatchewan. We had envisaged huge areas of flat plains, and nothing else! 

We also came across several large fields that had small orange and white hexagonal based 'tents' dotted around - some of them had over 100 in them. We managed to catch this one.

Tent (shelter) for leafcutter bees

Eager to know what they were, we were contemplating stopping in at the next store to ask about them, but Mark saved us the trouble by using Google to find that they were, in fact, tents - or shelters - for leafcutter bees that, in turn, work hard pollinating female canola flowers to produce hyrbid seed. Who knew!!!

Making our way back to the Trans-Canada Highway, we gradually neared the city of Regina - the capital of the province. 

At this point, the drizzles became a full shower as we finally arrived at our hotel. 

After nearly 10 hours of driving, we were happy to unload the car, check in, and relax in our comfy room - in preparation for our nearly 9 hour journey to Canmore, Alberta, tomorrow!