Whiteshell, MB to Nojack, AB

July 15 – hot and sunny, ~4200km from home

We left Whiteshell Provincial Park and headed for Winnipeg. About halfway to Winnipeg we came out of the wooded hills and hit flat, wide-open agriculture – the prairies. You see pictures and hear descriptions of the prairies and it really was unbelievably flat and stretched out as far as you could see (within an 1.5 hour radius of Winnipeg was the flattest prairie we encountered). Initially this gave Josie a very strong feeling of unease, and at first we had trouble driving because we couldn’t judge distances...we would see a car coming, wait for it to pass before turning, and it would keep coming and coming and coming. Eventually we adjusted.

We made a side trip off the Trans Canada to stop in Steinbach, where we ate lunch at the Mennonite Heritage Village. Besides borscht, we had no idea what anything on the menu was, so we took our chances. We ended up getting a bowl of “komst borscht” (warm cabbage and ham soup with tomatoes, potatoes and dill), “vereniki” (cottage cheese pockets that are basically perogies) covered in a cream sauce called “schmauntfatt”, “foarma worscht” (a pork sausage-like item that tasted like real corned beef), coleslaw, homemade whole wheat bread and, for dessert, “rhubarb plautz” (part pie and part coffee cake). Yummy, all homemade. Josie finally got her chance to buy a real old school Mennonite cookbook!

Next we drove to Winnipeg, which was actually quite easy to navigate. First we went to The Forks, which is where the Red River and the Assiniboine converge, also a very touristy National Historic Site. Josie was impressed by the numerous fossils visible in the limestone walls along the waterfront. We left The Forks to walk across the Promenade Louis Riel, only to find nothing very interesting in St. Boniface (except a mass emergence of flies on a fancy new condo building). We stopped by the windiest intersection in Canada, Portage and Main, and wandered into the allegedly hip “Exchange District,” only to find nightclubs and no place to sit on the sidewalk and enjoy a smoothie (which is what our hip-selves wanted to do).

We found our smoothie back at The Forks and then left town. On our way to a provincial park and campground on Lake Manitoba, we saw our first ground squirrel - it sat up on its haunches to get a better look at us (and looked like Duncan - Josie’s miniature Dachshund - when he wants a belly rub). We also noticed a lot of killdeer along the rural roads, even some babies (cutest bird babies ever, also the stupidest). We spent the night camped on Lake Manitoba, another huge lake that could have been the ocean, and it turned out we got to stay for free because the park office was closed the entire time we were there. Also got to witness a huge insect mating mass directly over our tent. Being huge nerds we loved it!













July 16th – rainy, then sunny and hot, ~4450km from home

In the morning it was raining but we went for a short hike to a marsh behind the camping area. We walked to a look off tower where you can see lots of nesting and migrating birds – mostly swallows, unidentified waterfowl, red-winged blackbirds, some sparrows and maybe a yellow warbler. Also saw some new trees like green ash, Manitoba maple and cottonwood.

We left the campground and drove to Portage-la-Prairie, where a couple people struck up a conversation with the Nova Scotians...living up to their license plate slogan of “Friendly Manitoba.” Next, feeling adventurous we threw our plan of driving north on the Yellowhead Highway out the window and swung down south to Spruce Woods Provincial Park. Why? Because this was our big chance to see Northern Prairie skinks (a lizard) and hog-nosed snakes in the wild.

The Park is situated on the remains of a sandy delta where the Assiniboine once ran into glacial Lake Agassiz. We ate lunch and hiked the Spirit Sands trail, apparently your best bet for reptile encounters. The trail was a totally different environment than the surrounding prairies, a huge sand barren complete with sand dunes and cacti (but technically its not a desert, just dry and sandy and hot). The hike was about three times longer than we expected to be and we ran out of water in a sand pit on a hot sunny afternoon. Besides returning dehydrated and without seeing any reptiles (not for lack of effort!), we got to see lots of interesting plants and trees, along with what MAY have been skink tracks.

We stopped to cook supper in Brandon because we couldn’t find any place to get perogies and then said goodbye to Manitoba. We spent the night in a campground near Moosomin, Saskatchewan.












July 17 – rainy in the morning, ~5200km from home

We decided it would be easier to bypass Regina on the way to Saskatoon, so we drove north to meet up with the Yellowhead Highway in Langenburg, Saskatewan. On the drive from Moosomin to Langenburg we hit our first really lengthy construction stop. Compounded by the fact that we had to find a grocery store before we could eat breakfast, the half hour wait for construction was a stomach growler.

We got some groceries in Langenburg, a small prairie town right out of a movie set, complete with a single main street of business, railway and grain elevator. It looked like there hadn’t been any new construction in at least 30 years.

We had our hopes up once again for a perogie filled lunch but when we stopped in Lanigan to inquire where we could find perogies, they told us that despite the Ukrainian Heritage they didn’t know of any place...for a minute or two it sounded like the girl at the Info Center was going to make us some (she was Ukrainian) but she never came out right and made the offer. We settled for nachos and apples from the trunk.

We made it to Saskatoon in the late afternoon and they did have perogies in two locations. We were trying to make it to Alberta by evening to meet a friend of Josie’s, so we opted for the perogie location closest to the highway. BUT, there was no restaurant anymore, closed, gone. Perogie-less in the Prairies once again.

We got back on the highway and headed for Alberta. Despite being really nice people, the people of Northern Saskatchewan were the speediest drivers since Quebec City. We made it to Lloydminster, a border town that is partly in Saskatchewan and partly in Alberta, although we didn’t make it in time to visit with Josie’s friend Candace who lives another 2 hours north in Cold Lake (Hopefully we’ll see her in August). As we were coming in to town we saw our first magpie and our first major oil development besides pipelines and wells, the Husky Upgrader - Hello Alberta.

The Lloydminster campground was full but we got an overflow site close the washrooms. We also got a glimpse of the housing crisis in Northern Alberta, people were living in the campground and working from there.


July 18 – rainy in the morning, then sunny and warm, ~5550km from home

Lloydminster was a fast-food dominated town where most people drive a gigantic pickup truck (not just your average trucks, these are “super diesels,” F250s, 2500s, 3500s, extended cabs, duel rear wheels, extended beds with runner boards and tinted windows). We didn’t stay long, the 2-door Echo didn’t fit in.

Now let us relate a tragic little story. Settlers once came to the Canadian prairies chasing dreams – the dream to live and work freely on their own lands, to practice their religion free from persecution, the dream of building a nation. Josie, too, came to the prairies with a dream, the dream of eating authentic perogies for three meals a day, everyday while crossing the Canadian bread-basket. Josie’s dreams were not to be realized...that is until Alberta.

Now picture Josie with a heavy heart, having driven through Manitoba and Saskatchewan with only one perogie ingestion. Now Josie was driving somewhere on the highway between Lloydminster and Edmonton and see saw a sign...”Vegreville, home of the world’s largest Pysanka”. Wondering what the heck a pysanka was, she pulled off (Scott didn’t have a say because he was napping from the stress of driving with so many giant pickup trucks). It turns out a pysanka is a Ukrainian Egg, and at the tourist bureau in Vegreville they were selling frozen perogies! At last, an end to the perogie drought...we picked up 2 dozen perogies to cook up later.

Shortly after leaving Vegreville we came to the Ukrainian Heritage Village, just east of Edmonton. Thanks to a coupon and a CAA membership, we got in for about 60% off. For lunch we enjoyed authentic Ukrainian food (perogies, cabbage rolls and kielbasa), then wandered the reconstructed circa 1920s Ukrainian village and interacted with the period actors. It was a bit strange but really interesting and neat. We got to go on a wagon ride, learn how a grain elevator works (lots of chutes and conveyor belts, way more complicated than you would think). Scott was excited about the use of cob and how fertile the soil was.

In Edmonton we visited the Old Strathcona district to cruise the hipster shops, only to remind ourselves of how very un-hip we really are. Then we left Edmonton and headed for Jasper, finally stopping for the night in a little highway-side campground in Nojack. We ate some of our Vegreville perogies and fell asleep amid the tall lodgepole pines and the sound of transports roaring past.