Canada West 2016
HEADING WEST
After travelling 3300 km to get to Winnipeg, it was time to start heading West again towards home. Our original plan was to take Highway #1 and make the fast track to B.C., but after our exploring on the way to Winnipeg, and taking advice of friends, we decided to start on Highway #2 and see where it took us. So many more Big Things to see.
Todays drive would be a series of Big Things, starting with the giant Fire Hydrant in Elm Creek, Manitoba.
Silva wouldn't even go near it, I think it intimidated her.
Next up was the giant smoking pipe in St. Claude, Manitoba, it is a fully functioning pipe, as a tribute to St. Claude in France, where a lot of smoking pipes were made. They also have a very nice war memorial for their town members that have fought in the many wars over the years. I don't even know what to say about the hay lifting strongman.
Not surprisingly, the town of Holland, Manitoba has a windmill.
The colour of the fields in this region are stunning, green and bright yellow Canola against the blue skies. Glenboro, Manitoba is home to Sara the camel, a mascot based on the fact they have a sand dune park... we never saw it.
From this point we started heading south to search a couple more big things and stumbled across a nice Surprise. As we round Pelican lake in Ninette, Manitoba, we see the sign for Terry Fox Memorial Park, our local hero has a beautiful lakeside park named after him in the middle of Manitoba, who knew?
The town of Dunrea, Manitoba is part of our detour to see a giant Snow Goose. Sorry Dunrea, it had a grade school class project feel to it. I will give you kudos for the many condominium birdhouses around the town though.
What should have been our southern most stop was the town of Boissevain, Manitoba. It was home to the giant Tommy the Turtle, and also home of "The man who knows everything". In their combination taxidermy showcase and Tourist Information office is the most annoying person we met on our trip, arrogant and ignorant... didn't know when to shutup.
"I know more about Boissevain than anybody, where are you from? ugggh does anybody live there anymore".
From that point we really stopped listening to the asshat, we really only wanted to use his bathrooms.
His town was ok, what they called an outdoor art gallery was murals on the side of several buildings. But between the Animal museum of stuffed dead things and their town wise-man, we decided to head further south.
Turtle Mountain Provincial Park
Just before the American border is Turtle Mountain Provincial Park and the Adam Lake Campground. There is a sign on the ranger hut stating which sites are available. When we decipher it, what appears to be a busy campground, is actually showing that of the 6 campsite ring roads they have, only about 4 people are actually here. The entire campsite is mostly empty, there isn't even a ranger.
We walked down the trail to the lake, being followed by mosquitoes, and when we get to Adam lake, we realized why the campsite might be empty, Gigantic Leeches are squirming everywhere in the water. Even the pay phone is covered in spiders and webs. Maybe they should build a giant Leech monument here?
Once Silva realized our newfangled Mosquito lanterns worked, she stopped trying to get into the camper, grabbed a piece of free firewood and settled in. The wood was free, mainly because they don't want you bringing your own in an attempt to prevent the spread of Dutch Elm disease. I think it's free because they found it in the lake. Luckily my new wood-drying technique worked quite well.
We paid for our site on the way out of the campsite, the ranger acknowledged that the leeches were bad this year, you think?
There was signs for a Peace Garden at the Canada/USA border, so we drove down to check it out. As we pull into the park there is a sign "Do not proceed without a park pass". Just like when we pulled into the previous nights campsite, the office is closed and there is no-one in sight. So without seeing the gardens we left, disappointment.
It only got weirder when we left, we never crossed the border, but we had to go through Canada Customs to leave. I stopped at the stop sign, and then proceeded to the window. The agent comes over... "You know what a stop sign is?" I wasn't about to argue with him that I did stop, apparently he wanted me to wait there until he motioned me forward. "Where are you coming from?", the Peace Gardens, "How long were you there?", 5 minutes, "Why?" because the sign said don't proceed without a permit, "How long were you in the states?", we weren't... it was like an interrogation. After a bunch more already answered questions we were allowed 'BACK INTO CANADA' with a "and you should know what Stop Signs are for, it's pretty universal". Perhaps he should know what a Canadian is, and not be such a dick.
Heading back into Canadian territory that we never left we stopped at the town of Souris, Manitoba. Souris is home to the countries longest suspension bridge, created by Lord Sowden to get to his property across from his mansion.
We headed back to Highway #1 for a little while, and stop at Oak Lake, Manitoba to find a big Ox and Cart... we found the Ox, but we never found the cart. We did find a cool old car for sale though.
Before we left Manitoba we had one more stop, Elkhorn, Manitoba, home of the Antique Car Museum. Of course the guy paying the entrance fee in front of us is from Maple Ridge. We drive thousands of miles and run into a guy that was at the last A&W Cruise-in that I took Lucille (my 57 Chevy) to weeks earlier. Its quite an incredible collection of very old cars I have never heard of.
(sorry if you're not an old car fan, you can scroll past these.)
We didn't spend too much time there, even though all the windows were down and Silva was in the shade, it still was hot out. We got off of Hwy #1 to go exploring some more small towns now that we were back in Saskatchewan. Rocanville, Saskatchewan was a double bonus, a giant Oil Can and a diamond to celebrate it's diamond jubilee.
Tantallon, Saskatchewan sounded like a nice detour, a white tail deer monument... turns out it was much further away than it seemed, dirt roads, a closed road, a detour around to the far side of town, all to see a very poor deer statue that wasn't even that big.
The funny thing when we left was, we saw other dirt roads pointing in different directions, but the maps never showed them. Hours later after taking the long way around we found out where those roads went, doh!
A surprise find for us was the giant Pete the Builder (must be Bob the Builder's brother) in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan. The Big Wheel just didn't compare, although the town did have a nice Barrel Racing mural across the street..
We also discovered the historic New Stockholm Lutheran Church, a graveyard dating back to 1892, and a church built in 1919.
I would imagine most people just drive right by without even seeing it
On the maps we had, there are roads indicated with dotted lines that indicate a scenic route. We decided to change our route again to drive through the Qu'Appelle Valley. Truly a scenic part of Saskatchewan.
Crooked Lake Provincial Park
Our stop for the night would be Crooked Lake Provincial Park, a lovely spot right on the water, a little breezy to keep it cool, but a beautiful sunset countered the Mosquitoes. What was unexpected was the start of a string of tick experiences. Every time Silva sniffed a bush we seemed to find one on her, luckily she uses Revolution which kills them, but they are really gross. Norine and I even discovered ticks on us, so every night a tick check was a regular occurrence.
No problems with wet firewood here, but more inconsiderate campers with their music going for a while, they stopped early, so it wasn't too bad. Besides when it is still light out at 11:00 at night, you don't get too annoyed at anything.
In the morning we wake up to two giant turds on the road right outside our campsite... what the hell?
Didn't stop us from BBQ'ing up some Bacon & Eggs. Bacon... my only Snapchat post of the trip.
We headed back to Hwy #1 and stopped in Indian Head, Saskatchewan, can you guess what the big thing is there?
An Indian Head seems obvious, but no, we discovered that this is where they film, Little Mosque on the Prairie. The lady at the TI warned us about major highway construction in Regina, so we headed back up to the Qu'Appelle valley to detour around and avoid Regina. It was scenic, but it also had us back on some dirt roads as we wound our way through the area.
You sure see some interesting things in small towns.
One of the places this detour took us through was the town of Dysart, Saskatchewan. This was where Norine's mom and a lot of family members grew up before coming to Vancouver. Interesting to see this small town that you have heard of so many times over the years, sadly not many of them are around anymore for us to tell them that we were there.
How can you not stop in a town called Earl Grey, SK?
Sometimes you just have to get right off the road to see things, good thing our truck is 4x4 for this scenic rest area, no RV is going to make it into here.
A couple 4WD's are all we see in our time here, as it's a nice spot for bar fishing.
The funniest graffiti in the outhouse "Fix The Road!". I guess they figure it will get seen there.
After our detour had us end up in Chamberlain, Saskatchewan and a rusty surveyor monument, we grabbed some Ice Cream from the Twisted Sisters shop and headed back to Hwy#1 instead of continuing Northwest. The other monuments by the same artist just weren't going to be worth the drive, they just weren't big enough or different enough. I had a double scoop Chocolate Peanut butter and Norine had the Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream... just in case you were wondering.
We rejoined Hwy #1 just as we pull into Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. A visit there isn't complete without seeing Mac the Moose.
The funniest moments of this stop were the prairie dogs (gophers/ground squirrels), they would pop up, stare at Silva and let out a loud peep, Silva would lose her mind. It was a like a gigantic Whack-a-mole game... Peep, she runs to that one as it disappears down it's hole, and another one pops up somewhere else, PEEP!, she runs there, PEEP, run, PEEP, run... at one point she is head deep in a hole trying to dig them out, Norine is being dragged all over the field, and we're both killing ourselves laughing... so funny!
The town of Chaplin, Saskatchewan is home to a giant bird wetland sanctuary, and large monuments of a Semi-Palmated Plover and an American Avocet are the first of the monuments built there to commemorate this wildlife area.
The skies are looking extremely foreboding, and it starts to rain as we head back to the car. Time to make a run for the Alberta border.
Swift Current, Alberta
Pulling into Swift Current, Alberta we found a more RV/Trailer style campsite, but because we didn't need all the fancy hookups we were able to take a spot on the far side with very few campers around us. We learned all about the weekends kite festival, but looking at the skies, I am not sure how well that will go. It was nice to have showers (1 quarter - 3 minutes) and a laundry (1 toonie 1 load) before continuing on.
Today would be the start of some stormy weather and driving to avoid it... why stop if you're just going to get soaked? We came across this odd "house" for sale, ugliest thing I ever saw, just off the highway, and looking very abandoned, we never wrote the number down.
One of the biggest monuments we would see was in Medicine Hat, Alberta, a giant Teepee. Built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, as a symbol of Canada's native heritage.
It towered above the Olympic cauldron during the opening and closing ceremonies.
After the Olympics, it was moved to the City of Medicine Hat.
Surrounding the inside of the teepee is a series of ten first nations paintings depicting different aspects of native life.
Another grassy field full of gophers and Silva is having a great time running from hole to hole.
As we are admiring the art, the skies open up, big time, and the three of us run to the truck and are completely drenched. Now that we have seen the giant teepee, it was time to get off Hwy #1 and start exploring again.
A little ways down the Crowsnest Hwy (#3) is Bow Island, Alberta, and one of the cutest monuments. Pinto MacBean, representative of the dry edible bean industry in the area. Apparently they have to keep replacing his gun and holster because people have been stealing it
On our way to see the monuments in Vauxhall by the same artist as Pinto MacBean we pass through Taber, Alberta, and see a Big Lady created as a promotion for Uniroyal tires. Not near as cute, but twice as big was their giant Cornstalks.
It was a bit of a detour, but Sammy and Samantha Potatoes in Vauxhall, Alberta were worth it. Vauxhall is apparently the Potato capital of the west, so of course you have to have a Red and a White potato to represent your town.
We got back to Hwy #3 and searched the town of Chin for a giant Trout, but never found it. We found a flower, a creek, and some nice weather, we even found Oldman River, but we couldn't find a gigantic trout in a tiny town.
More of those structures in fields, what the hell are they? We couldn't worry about that though, we were running from the rain again.
Park Lake Provincial Park
Instead we moved on to Lethbridge, Alberta, and looked for a campsite for the night, we found what appeared to be a nice campground called Park Lake Provincial Park, it was 19 km away, but outside of the city, so we made the trek. As we pull into the campground, we are horrified to see a sign saying "Reservations Only". As we are contemplating a plan, a ranger pulls up, and offers to open his office so we can use his computer and make a reservation. There was only 3 sites left for the night, so we booked one, and proceeded to our spot... it is filled with a giant trailer, apparently someone that didn't read the sign. Back to the ranger, we didn't want to make someone move, so he tells us to check the other spots and he would chat to the trailer crew. We found one of the two remaining spots and settled in.
On one side of the campground is the lake, on the other side is a farmers field.
The campsite was packed, there was no water supply anywhere, no firewood left, and the entire campsite smelled like Pee. Apparently this was one of the oldest Provincial parks in Alberta, established in 1932, maybe they need to clean the outhouses more? All night we could hear an engine going, at first we thought it was a boat on the lake, but turns out this park nestled between farmers fields has a processing plant or something on the other side of the lake.
With noise, people and the smell of urine, we got an early start and started running from stormy Weather again to the small historic town of Fort Macleod, Alberta. Probably wouldn't have even mentioned it, if we didn't see an identical 1975 Lemon-Lime Green Ford pickup with camper. This was a spitting image of our last truck that we used to camp in, except this one wasn't on fire.
As we start getting closer to the B.C. border, we start to see a familiar sight, MOUNTAINS on the horizon!
A really nice stop for a break was Lundbreck, Alberta, a short scenic hike around a campground led to a very nice waterfall called Lundbreck falls, surprise. Silva was happy to take a break, and even got to see a couple more gophers.
We managed to outrun the weather in the mountains, and it started getting much nicer and much hotter.
Crowsnest Pass is a historic route through the Southern mountains between BC and Alberta, the town of Blairmore, Alberta celebrates that with a Crow and nest monument.
Not sure how we couldn't find Ten Ton Toots (a silver train piggy bank) in Coleman, Alberta, but we did find the 350 Ton Titan truck in Sparwood, BC. It is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest tandem axle, rear dumping hauler ever manufactured.
Our stops became brief if we had to leave Silva in the truck, windows all rolled down, it was getting hot-hot-hot. The positive thing was that the mountains were getting bigger, so we knew we were that much closer to home.
Fernie, BC was home to a giant Oil Derrick... I didn't even know they drilled for Oil there.
Home of the Kokanee Brewing Company, Creston, BC had some very nice murals, and would be another brief stop for some supplies.
The scenic lookout at Castlegar, BC is amazing, looking across the whole valley and the city.
Syringa Creek Provincial Park
The Arrow Lakes in this region are beautiful, so we detour north of the city to Syringa Provincial Park. We end up in a brand new section of the campground, with a spot overlooking the lake and nicely separated from the other campers. Unfortunately we still had ongoing tick issues, but dealt with them. Pet owners, get your pets on a flea an tick program if you are going camping, ugghh.
The next morning we wake up to... Gophers!
It was hard to leave this beautiful spot on a nice lake not filled with Leeches that didn't smell of pee, but we planned a long drive today.
I... can't... even...
A brief stop in Greenwood, BC, former home of my grandfather. We pull in for gas, and this biker lady is ahead of us. She finally comes out of the store, and does what I could only describe as "the %$#@& slowest motorcycle gas tank fill I have ever seen in my life." I could have filled our V-10 trucks tank with over $100 of gas before she got $5 into her tank. I finally gave up and we drove on to the next town for gas.
As you can imagine, every stop for gas includes a mandatory window cleaning, perhaps you can see why?
Penticton, BC
After a long morning of driving, we pulled into Penticton, BC and passed the Ramada hotel with a big sign advertising "Pet Friendly", that seemed like perfect fate. Almost as perfect as Penticton's giant peach and a frosty cold Root Beer.
and almost as perfect as this 55 Chevy that we parked next to. Apparently we just missed a huge car show that was in Penticton 2 days earlier, and later I found out we also missed the Elvis convention that weekend too, damn my luck, LOL.
After visiting with Norine's cousins and a great dinner at the Kettle Valley Station Pub, we got to enjoy the last lovely shower of our trip.
In the morning we grab a Tim Horton's breakfast before heading out. All the other hotels we stayed at included a breakfast, but this one only gave us a free coffee if we ordered breakfast. Timmy's it is, but a trip to the Okanagan area of BC is not complete without a visit to Keremeos, BC for some fruit and cider. Once you see the bear peaking over the mountain you know you are almost there.
Lightning Lakes/Manning Park, BC
Our last night of camping would be in Manning Park, a place we have been many times before. We have stayed in almost every campground in this park, but never at Lightning Lake cause it was always too busy. The advantage of camping mid-week before school is out, there is lots of spots available for a Tuesday night before the Canada Day long weekend.
The last time we visited Lightning Lakes was with our last dog Pepper, and we ended up knee deep in snow on the trail. I think we needed a do-over, so we loaded up with water and hiked the Lightning Lake loop trail, so beautiful up here. Lightning Lakes is actually a chain of lakes; Lighting lake, Flash lake, Strike lake, and Thunder lake. We'd just stick to one for this hike.
There is a day use area, and Silva just about loses her mind when it's not one gopher that PEEPS, but dozens of them. We just can't stay in this area, and quickly head back to the trail around the far side of the lake.
Every angle from the trail looks like a different lake.
Back at the camp we settled in for a quiet night by the campfire, trouble is, across the campsite someone thought blasting Shania Twain music was very patriotic for the upcoming Canada Day. First, it was not Canada Day yet, second, we came here to enjoy nature, not listen to your crappy music, so I hiked over to their site and politely told them we could hear the music on the other side of the campground. Luckily they were very apologetic and turned it down, it was off by the time I got back to our site.
Back at the camp, we settled in for a quiet and peaceful night by the campfire...
On our last day, we couldn't exactly rush home, so we headed 17 km up the winding and climbing mountain roads in Manning park to the beautiful Alpine Meadows. Halfway there the road becomes gravel, and the views become even better.
Mid June is early in the summer flower season, but there is flowers of many types all around the trails. You can see the buds and early growth that indicate July will be meadows full of colours.
Very few gophers up here, but Silva still had fun sniffing every square inch of the trail. One attempted hi-jacker tried to get a free ride out of the park, he received a free rocket finger propelled tour of the side of the road..
One more pit stop in Hope, BC to wish my dad a belated Happy Fathers Day, and it was time to hit the final Hwy #1 stretch for home. It was the Wednesday before a long weekend, and I am so glad we were going home instead of leaving, because Eastbound out of Vancouver was bumper to bumper.
When we got home, our truck was due for an oil change, but most importantly a wash, driving halfway across the country tends to collect a lot of bugs on your grill. With only 2950 km coming home from Winnipeg, we ended up traveling approximately 6300 km on this trip, works out to over 70 hours of driving, but worth every minute of it. Sometimes you forget to explore your own backyard when you travel around the world, I'd encourage everyone to get out and do it.