Fort Macleod to Swift Current

Tuesday Sept. 7 saw us wake up at 5:30 am to a heavy hard frost. The truck was coated in an ice like frost as was everything else outside. At 6:30 am I put the thermometer outside and it registered –1C, and the sun was up. It would have been colder at 4 am so this has been the coldest morning of our entire trip. The weather forecast is calling for snow in the mountains tonight. Time to head east.
We got underway around 8am after being serenaded again by the local coyote packs. Their morning songs will be missed. We will also miss Buffalo Plains RV and tenting Park and the owners Sue and Ernie. They run a small, friendly, clean oasis of a park that is ideally situated for many day trips through southwest Alberta. The location is very quiet helped of course by being about 12KM away from any major highway, but having an excellent paved road leading to their location. The washrooms and laundry facilities were clean and well maintained and the whole place was well managed. We will be back and can highly recommend it to anyone traveling in this area.
Traffic was light through Lethbridge and we stopped at Tabor to pick up another dozen corn from a local truck vender.

We arrived in Elkwater, Cypress Hills around 1 pm and got quickly settled into our site. Very quiet here with hardly any campers left after the long weekend. We took a long walk along the lake and found out that we have not been walking enough lately. Our legs started to get tired after a couple of hours.
Had a great dinner of steak, baked potato and corn on the cob. Just as we finished dinner three deer paid us a visit. The doe and her fawn did not want the other one around so an interesting chase took place all around us until the interloper was scared off. It is very quiet here. Only about three rigs in the section of the park we were in.
The next morning, Wednesday, we left for Swift Current. It was overcast but no rain. But there has been a lot of rain this year in Saskatchewan. Fields have standing water in low areas, which are filled with ducks and geese. We heard on the news that only 13% of the crops have been harvested and farmers need about three weeks of dry weather for the crops to mature and the fields to dry out so they can be harvested.

We drove through Maple Creek where the TCH was washed out in June. The highway is divided here but only one side of the highway is open with two-way traffic, east and west. It is hard to say if it will be finished this fall or not. Anyplace where there were hills you could see slumps and slides because the ground is so water logged.
We arrived in Swift Current early in the afternoon and found lots of spaces available at the Trail Campground, right in town. We got set up, found the local mall and did the shopping we needed to do, groceries etc.
Thursday morning we woke up to cloudy skies and a forecast for rain. We decided to stay in Swift Current for another day. I was able to find out on the internet that a representative from the hearing aid company that made my aids was scheduled to be at a local Pharmasave Store. Since my aids needed some work on them I decided to go down and see if I could get to see the representative. We got there at 9:30 am and she took me right in as the person who had an appointment for that time had not shown up. She did the repairs that were needed and within 20 minutes was on my way with hearing aids that worked much better. Talk about good luck. This representative is only in Swift Current every second Thursday and this was the day! N did all kinds of Christmas shopping here as well, so we can now say our Christmas shopping is done.
Tomorrow morning, Friday, we head south to Coronach, a small town near the US border. Coronach is central to the area of the “Big Muddy”, which was home years ago to many famous outlaws from the USA, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are a large number of historic sites to visit and a fair number of museums that should be interesting. We plan to spend three to four days in that area and then head towards Brandon Man. To see the grand kids. There is no WiFi in Coronack and area, so this will be the last you will hear from for the next week, or until we arrive in Brandon.
Quote for the day: When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
  - Bernard Bailey

Cheers
P & N

Moving on Tomorrow

Well here it is Monday, the end of the Labor Day week-end. The highways will be a mad house today so we are staying here until tomorrow morning when we leave for Elkwater in the Alberta side of Cypress Hills.

 On Saturday morning we found a great grocery store right here in Fort Macleod called Family Foods. The meat looked like it was local, there were lots of bakery items including whole grain breads of several types, and local produce. We were able to buy green and yellow beans even this late in the year. Great service here too as our groceries were carried out to the truck for us.
After lunch, we drove the 3 km to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump. It was really crowded as the weather was warm and sunny and although we have visited this place five years ago it was good to be back. It is a well-designed center with a World Heritage Site designation. The center is built into the side of the cliff next to the actual buffalo jump that 1st nations people used for thousands of years. The hills are known as the Porcupine hills and afford a view of the southern short grass prairie that is unparalleled.
Feeling energetic, we walked a trail along the foot of the cliff, where the buffalo that went over the cliff were butchered and prepared for the long winter ahead. Just about every bit of the buffalo was used for something. Food, clothing, shelter, utensils, just about everything the plains Indians needed to survive.
The Blackfoot, which consist of three or four clans, are the traditional 1st nation in this area. Their territory used to stretch from Montana to central Alberta. Traces of human activity go back hundreds of centuries long before even the Blackfoot.
At the beginning of the trail was a posted bear warning, along with coyote and cougar warnings. Have to carry the bear banger all the time out here!
Saturday was the last of the warm weather. Sunday dawned with a cold windy rain. The temperatures never got above 7C so we stayed inside and caught up on cooking, baking and cleaning. It did clear up in the evening and we were able to go for a walk, although it was cold and windy. We talked to a couple from Switzerland, who pulled in late in the afternoon and they had driven through snow on Route 22 “the cowboy trail”. Sunday night was cold, probably the coldest we have had this trip. We woke up and had to put the furnace on at 5:30 AM. With the amount of moisture that came off the roof in the morning sunshine, it must have been covered in frost. On the way to the washroom  we heard coyotes howling and yelping to each other from two different locations. Don't know if the cool morning had anything to do with this or not!
Today is a bit warmer than yesterday but not short sleeve shirt time. Quite cloudy but not raining and the temperature is about 12C. We are packing up today to leave tomorrow morning for Cypress Hills. Weather for the next few days will be marginal, but we’ll have a great time! It might a few days before we can post again as we will be in some of the more remote areas of Saskatchewan.
Quote for the day:

There are too many people, and too few human beings.
  - Robert Zend

cheers

P & n

Fort Macleod

Today is the fifth day we have been here at Buffalo Plains RV park and we will be staying here until Tuesday next week through the long week-end. In our previous post we said we were going to drive to the town of Foremost to look at their RV park and perhaps stay there.  On Sunday we made the the trip through Lethbridge to Foremost back up to Taber. It was raining most of the drive and gave us a look at the prairies in south western Alberta under these conditions. It always has been hot and dry here in our previous trips through this area. It was wet and certainly not hot as the temperature never went above 8C all day.

We arrived in Foremost, checked out their municipal park and decided that we would continue to stay at Buffalo Plains Park. After a short drive through town we headed back to the TCH, Alberta route 3. On our way through Taber, we stopped and bought a dozen ears of the famous Taber corn. On our last trip through Taber we bought corn and it was without a doubt the best ever. By the time we got back to Buffalo Plains the rain had eased up and the clouds were starting to break up. The park cat came over to officially welcome us to the area for the next few days.

We packed a lunch and got under way early Monday morning. There is a lot to see in this area so we decided to head back to the mountains, go up to Crowsnest and visit the Frank Slide area. The first thing that we noticed was fresh snow on the mountains ahead of us. What we got in rain arrived as early snow on the higher mountains. It was really weird because when we drove down from Cochrane there was no snow to be seen on these same mountains. Just shows how quickly things can change in this part of the country. The Frank Slide occurred in 1903 when the side of Turtle Mountain collapsed and millions of tons of rock took out half of the town of Frank in less than two minutes. The interpretation center is a fantastic place with human interest stories, history of mining in the area and an excellent explanation on the formation of different kinds of mountains. You could almost become a amateur geologist with the information at this center. The interesting thing is that there will be another collapse of the south side of this mountain. It's not a matter of "if" but "when". Movements in the mountain are being monitored on an ongoing basis and a system has been set up to evacuate people well ahead of any collapse, they hope!  This photo shows the CPR rail line going through the existing slide residue. An interesting piece of folk lore is that for centuries the First nations people would never set up camp at the base of Turtle mountain which they called the trembling mountain.
We finished off the day by visiting Pincher Creek then heading back to our campsite.

Tuesday we headed out to the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston, about a 45 minute drive to the south of Fort Macleod. It was another fine day, a bit cool but sunny. Cardston is another of these southern Alberta prairie towns. Neat, tidy, lots of flowers and, of course, wide streets. This museum has the largest collection of carriages, wagons and early cars in North America. We took a guided tour and then did the tour on our own so we cold take our time. Some of the carriages were magnificent. We ate lunch there and then took a tour of the restoration area within the museum. An elderly gentleman gave us the tour and explained the process of restoration. It is a fascinating story that is too long to be told here. A side note. This is our 25th anniversary year and N did not get a Yellowknife diamond when we were in the NWT. However, here in Cardston, she got her prairie diamond. It seem that when people were moving into the western provinces as settlers, young couples would meet, fall in love and get married on the way out, Wagon trains moved slow! Since jewellers were not among the early settlers,  diamond rings were created out of horse shoe nails. Our host in the restoration shop made N hers. So, now she wears a prairie diamond. We left Cardston and drove to a small town south of Lethbridge called Raymond. The reason we went to Raymond was to visit the Old Country Sausage shop. (www.oldcountrysausages.com). Owned and operated by Klaus Schurmann, this shop produces smoked meats, dry cured bacon and ham, back bacon and all kinds of sausages, using only herbs, spices and sea salt. He uses no binders, no fillers, no MSG, gluten free,no sugar, no grain products, no artificial colouring and no nitrates. Needless to say we bought as much as we could bearing in mind that our freezer space is limited. It is real good stuff!!
The next day, Wednesday, we just stayed at the campsite and took it easy. The wind was blowing, it always seems to blow out here, but it was a good day. The sun shone, we had showers, some cloud and more sun. Watching the weather out on the prairie is fascinating. You can see rain showers coming when they are miles away. The sky can be black in one quarter while the sun shines in the other quarter which makes the light patterns on the ground change constantly.

Thursday was a good and bad day. We spent the morning in Fort Macleod touring the old North West Mounted Police fort and museums. Fort Macleod is a good history lesson on how the Canadian west was developed in a far more peaceful manner than the American west. There is a exceptional first nations museum devoted to how their clothing was made, how they travelled and lived. The decorations on and quality of some of these exhibits was magnificent.  This was the good part of the day. The bad part started in the afternoon at the campground. It was time to empty our holding tanks and this campground did not have sewer outlets at each site. This meant that we had to hook up to the RV and move it to the central dump site. This type of move means that our slides have to come in, gear has to be stowed etc. We did all of this, hooked up and moved towards the dump site. All of a sudden we heard a SNAP and I remembered that I did not lower the TV antenna! The power line I hit with certainly lowered it for me. The antenna was broken off completely.  We dumped the tanks, got back to our site and I went up on the roof and disconnected the cable and brought the pieces down. I needed some new parts for sure. Friday morning I got on the phone and found a dealer in Lethbridge who said he had the pieces I needed. We drove to Lethbridge only to find out he did not have the same pieces I needed. On our way back we decided that we might be able to repair the antenna and get it back up. Not that we had to watch TV, but I wanted to make sure that I could keep the roof watertight, and the only way to do that was reinstall the antenna. With N's help we found a piece of wood and cut a piece out of it to slide inside the two broken pieces. Two or three screws, some gorilla tape and we were back in business. Went up on the roof, straightened some bent aluminum and attached the repaired antenna. Good as new, almost!!
This brings us up to date. I'll post a new album later today.

Quote for the day:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
  - John Gaule

Cheers

P & N

Hinton-Cochrane-FortMacleod

Going to use this post to try and catch up with where we actually are. We left Hinton on Wednesday morning in bright sunshine which stayed with us all day. On our way out of Hinton we stopped and refreshed our grocery supplies and picked up some disposable rubber gloves which we use when emptying our tanks.
We drove down towards Edmonton and turned off on Route 22, the "Cowboy Trail" runs all the way down to the Crowsnest Pass in southern Alberta. We had a great day for driving. With the exception of some lengthy delays due to road construction the drive was very smooth and the scenery was nice. Lots of cattle and horses.
We arrived in Cochrane by mid afternoon and set up at the Spring Hill RV Park. This park is only five years old and still under development.  The services were good. We contacted our friends in the Calgary and Cochrane area and made arrangements for them to join us on Friday for dinner.

On Thursday morning we left Cochrane and drove a loop through the Kananaskis region of the Rockies on route 40. It was a fantastic drive. Deep in the mountains, lots of hiking trails, campgrounds and beautiful scenery. A lot of the hiking trails were blocked off with bear warnings. This time of year is when the grizzlies come down to fill up on berries and whatever else they can find to get their body fattened up for a long winter. It was also one of the hottest days we have had so far, up to 30C with a strong warm wind blowing. Part way down into Kananaskis country is a provincial park named after Peter Lougheed. We drove in and covered some 40 km of roads through campgrounds, trail and lakes.  The pictures above are only a sample of what we saw. We'll post a new album in a couple of days with all the pictures.
We drove over 340 km before we arrived back in Cocharne. N was really happy because she was back in the mountains. I've got a feeling that we might have to relocate out here because of her love of the mountains.
The next day was spent getting ready for company and dinner. We had a good day talking and getting up to speed with our lives. It was great to see Gail and Sharon. They got away around 8:30 in the evening and we began to pack up to get underway the next morning (Saturday).
Needed to turn the furnace on this morning. It was down close to 0C last night but the morning dawned bright and sunny. We got underway later than usual but we knew it was not going to be a long day. We had planned to go to Waterton National Park but decided that since we had been there several times before that we wanted to go somewhere new. After a very scenic drive through the foothills, we wound up in Buffalo Plains RV Park just outside of Fort Macleod, which is just to the west of Lethbridge. We can see Buffalo Head Smashed In historic site from our window about 5 km away. This is a little gem of a park. Small, only 34 sites, quiet and not very crowded, large campsites and very clean facilities. We plan on taking a break from moving from place to place and stay put in this area for the next few days and over the long September weekend. We will either stay here or at another small municipal park in Foremost, which is south and east of here. We'll drive to Foremost tomorrow to look at that park and then make our decision. We have been on the road since the first of June, travelled almost 18,000 km to this point. Time for rest and recuperation before we start heading back east. It will give us a chance to rest up, get all our photos posted and get the rv cleaned up and looking presentable again.
Stay tuned!

Quote for the day:

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
  - Franklin P. Adams

Cheers

P & N

Manning to Hinton

We left Manning early on Monday morning and drove straight to Grande Prairie, only a three hour drive. Arrived at McGoverns RV and Marine Center service department just outside the city limits. They were the people who repacked our wheel bearings on our way to Yellowknife. After a few moments wait we got to speak to Dale, the Service Manager, and show him our problem. Although he and his technicians were rushed off their feet, it only took another couple of minutes for a technician to come out and start to fix our problem. He was able to use two of the existing screws to fasten the floor of the slide up in place but needed to locate three more screws of the same size. The ones they had in stock were too short. Dale sent one of his staff to Grand Prairie to try and find the necessary screws. After searching the town for two hours he was unable to locate the right size screws and it would take a couple of days to order them in. We opted to go with the temporary repairs and get the job done when we get back home. Dale did not charge us a penny for this fantastic service as he said it was a warranty claim. McGoverns have only been a Keystone RV dealer for a year, but a lot of dealers could learn some very important lessons about customer satisfaction. I can highly recommend this dealer to any RV traveller who is passing through Grand Prairie.
After leaving McGoverns, we drove to the RV park where we were going to stay for the night. Did some running around town for groceries etc.
We headed out the next morning later than usual because we only had a short drive to Grand Cache.  We encountered some of the steepest hills we have had on this trip. The scenery was ok but the driving was tough. The truck was really working hard, especially when you had a sharp curve at the bottom of a hill and then a climb of 5 km with grades up to 10%. We finally arrived in Grand Cache and found that all the RV parks were full of workers who were there for the entire season. We had no choice but to drive another 190 km to Hinton where we checked into a lovely KOA RV Park. Nice level site, cable tv and all the other necessities of life. We settled in for the night and decided that we could reach Cochrane by the end of the next day.

Quote for the day:

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
  - John Lithgow

Cheers

P & N

Manning Alberta

Manning Alberta appears to be a hidden gem in the Peace River district between High Level and Grimshaw. Named after an Alberta premier with a population around 1500, Manning appears to be an agriculture center for the large grain farms in the region.  We discovered it by chance on the way towards Grande Prairie from Louise Falls. It was getting late in the day and we were looking for a place to stay when N found a listing for a municipal campground in Manning.

We drove into a nice little campground situated beside the Notikewin River in the center of town. Only 9 sites, but all equipped with electricity and water. There are washrooms and showers available as well.
When we were getting set up, N noticed a problem. The floor on our main slide out which contains the sofa bed and dining room set had started to pull away on one end. On closer inspection we determined that the super rough roads going into Yellowknife had apparently bounced the sofa enough to separated the floor from the sidewall of the slide. Now I will admit that the sofa air bed is one heavy beast, but I would have thought that the engineers at Keystone would have designed a fastening system between the floor and wall to keep it all together. We will stop at the Keystone dealer in Grande Prairie and get a temporary fix until we get home and have our local dealer repair it permanently. This has been our first major problem in some 15,000 km so I guess we should feel lucky. However, it is still frustrating when you buy a supposedly well built unit only to find out that the engineers who worked on the building specifications had not factored in the strength to carry the load of furniture in the slide!
Now, back to Manning.
When the town employee came around to collect the $20.00 fee, he turned out to quite a salesman for the town. There is a lovely trail along the river. Across the bridge was a place that sold great ice cream, there was free firewood as well as free coffee at the seniors complex right next door to us and that the Saturday night movie at the local theatre was Gunless, starring Paul Gross.  He was just a fountain of information abut his town.
We had dinner and then decided to go for a walk around town. We thought we would try the ice cream for dessert and her was right. It was about the best soft ice cream we had ever had! While strolling around town eating our ice cream we came across the theatre and on the spur of the moment decided to go and see the movie as it was just starting. We both can highly recommend seeing this one. It’s easy to watch and will have you rolling in the aisles laughing. Well written, well acted and well done! On our way home we realized that this was the first movie we had gone to see in years. By the way, the ice cream and the move cost a total of $20.00.
We decided to spend an extra day in Manning to look around a bit more. By staying here on Sunday, it will allow us to stop in at the RV dealer in Grande Prairie on our way in town to let him look at our damage and hopefully do some quick temporary repairs.
We slept in on Sunday morning! First time in a long while! Most everything in town is closed. The only open store we cold find was the IGA, so we freshened up our food supplies.

Spent the rest of the day doing general chores around the rig and walking around town. From the parts of Manning we saw it is a nice neat little place. We had a late dinner and got the rig ready to move out to Grande Prairie tomorrow morning.

Cheers

P & N

Yellowknife & Area

Tuesday morning dawned bright and clear. After a leisurely breakfast we headed downtown to do a bit of shopping (my black rum supply was getting low and you can buy Old Sam in Yellowknife) and spent a couple of hours at the library sending e-mails and  updating the posts. Looked around downtown at a few shops and then went back to the campground to just take it easy, have a good lunch and get ready for our evening fishing trip.
By 4:30 we were on our way to old town with our packs full of snacks, sweaters, rain gear, gloves and anything else N could squeeze in. We also had our rubber boots. left our fishing rods at the trailer as our guide was providing all of the equipment. We arrived at Bluefish Charters (www.bluefishservices.ca) and our guide Mike was waiting for us along with the owner Greg Robertson. Our little outboard was loaded and ready to go. Mike informed us that he was taking us some 22 miles up the coast out of Yellowknife Bay where the fishing was really good. Our boat was an open aluminum 16 footer, broad beam, with a large outboard on back. Two seats for N and myself and mile at the tiller had a consul with marine gps, radio and sounder. All the deck was carpeted. There was a water holding tank for our catch, and several compartments with an assortment of rods and reels and other fishing necessities.

We headed out of Yellowknife bay, keeping a careful watch for landing and taking off  float planes, into a cool breeze and slight chop (white caps). N was holding on for dear life as she felt like she would be bounced right out of the boat as we sped along at a really fast clip. Mike really knew what he was doing and got our confidence very Quickly. He slowed down to show us an Bald eagle nest with a fledging in it and momma watching us closely. Because it was blowing a bit and cool, Mike decided to head to another place just 18 miles out. He took us into a group of islands where the wind dropped off and the sun was warm. At our first stop, Mike was advised of N’s just acquired fishing skills and assumed that I was old enough to look after myself and not fall overboard. He spent a lot of time with N. teaching her the proper way to cast as well as providing her with a lot of fishing hints. I had the first hit, but lost the fish. So guess who caught the first one, N. It was less than two pounds and had to be tossed back. I guess I should say here that we were fishing for Pike. Things were slow where we first stopped so mike took us to another spot about 15 minutes away. N landed the next one and it was a keeper for our shore dinner. I was starting to feel like I should jump over board as my amateur fishing wife as putting me to shame. Then my male ego was restored when I landed an 8lb pike. It had to be tossed back in as it was too big to keep for dinner. The outfitters up her throw back the big ones and the small ones. This is all a part of conservation and ensures they always have fish for their clients to catch. They keep the 3 lb ones for dinner. After my “big one” was thrown back, N caught one almost as big and then caught the second fish for dinner! At the end of the day she out caught me by the count of 4 to 2. Nuff said! Mike found a nice spot on shore and brought out the food. He prepared the fish fillets, batter and deep fried them in a cast iron frying pan over a portable stove. We had baked beans, crusty Italian bread and pickles. What a feast. No bugs, warm fall evening ( fall starts up here on Aug 1), no wind and nothing but quiet! If they had more than 2 seasons up here (winter and mosquitoes) I might consider living here!
By 9:30 in the evening we were speeding back over calm waters back to Yellowknife and the end of this short but fun filled adventure. We said our goodbyes to Mike and headed back to the trailer, tired, stomachs full and ready for a good nights sleep.
We were up bright and early the next day to head out on the Ingram Trail, a 65 km stretch of road that heads north out of Yellowknife and ends at a lake with a sign “ice road closed”. This is where the “ice road truckers” start their run over the ice roads to the many diamond mines up north. We walked a neat trail to Cameron River Falls, looked around three territorial parks, did some fishing and generally had a good day. It’s really stating to feel like fall up here. The trees are starting to turn yellow and we are waking up to temperatures in the 4 to 6C range.
Thursday we woke up to a cold rainy day. High of about 10C. We did a bit more shopping, got the truck fueled up with a load of diesel, and got groceries. Still trying to figure out why diesel is cheaper here than in N.S. (every liter of fuel come in by tank truck from Edmonton), and why groceries are cheaper as well!!
We visited the new legislative building. It is beautifully designed and truly represents the culture of the NWT, one land, eleven languages, thirty three communities. The are no political parties, everyone elected has to have 51 % of the vote or there are run offs, the premier and cabinet ministers are chosen by the elected representatives and decisions are reached by negotiation and consensus. The caucus room and the legislative assembly rooms are set up in the traditional circle. The acoustics of the caucus room are such that the slightest whisper in any part of the room can be heard by all present, so there are no on the side deals made during meetings. Sounds like a model that the Canadian parliament should use in these days of partisan BS looking after the interests of the party as opposed to the interests of Canadians. It’s interesting to note, that only the speakers office overlooks the city of Yellowknife and the offices of all other elected officials overlook the lakes and wilderness of the NWT. This was purposely designed to remind the elected officials that their interests are those of the people who elected them, and not the “center” of the NWT, Yellowknife!
We had a great guided tour of this fantastic building and then headed over to the Prince of Whales Northern Heritage Center. This center covers the history of the NWT, it’s many peoples, economic development and environment. It has the latest cutting edge in interactive technology that is user friendly and easy to use. We arrived back at the trailer for a late dinner, ran into Bob and Luci whom we had met in Louise Falls and had an enjoyable evening exchanging notes and experiences. We were packing up and getting ready to leave the next morning, but after our discussions we decided to stay an extra day, until I found out on Friday morning that out site was spoken for the weekend. We wound up leaving Yellowknife on Friday morning around eleven pm and headed back towards Louise Falls.
We checked into Louise Falls campground around 5 pm  after an uneventful drive from Yellowknife. Got dinner ready and then an early night to bed as we were both tired. Two more days should put us back in Grande Prairie.

Quote for the day:
Perhaps the most valuable result of all you learn is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.

Cheers

P & N