Advertisement
Published: August 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
NICOLLE WHO?
Friday, 22 June 2007
Today we were all going to go to Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, named after the structures used by the natives to confine or trap buffalo ‘way back when. (I imagine they were something like the chutes used today for bringing in cattle from pasture) Using Blue I went ahead of Bob & Panna, who opted for some exercise & errands before meeting up with me. The road conditions were fine, not like yesterday’s winds, and I was 2/3 the way there by the time they passed me. As we weren’t 100% sure if I could enter the without paying for a pass again, we thought he should wait for me at the gate.
On the way there, I decided that if we could find a suitable place for me to take Panna for a walk of 5+ km, I would do that as the 2nd half of my day’s journey, as Bob wanted to try his hand at fishing - he’d just purchased a license for Saskatchewan - and I could just envision Panna trying to “help” him.
Buffalo Pound PP is pretty large, with a fishing pond, an area with
nature trails, a couple of food outlets, a pool, lakeside beaches (where dogs, unfortunately, are not permitted), and camping facilities. We decided to go first to the pond, spend a bit of time there, then go get some lunch, and, depending on the fishing, Bob would drop Panna & me off at Nicolle Flats, a marshland with nature trails, named after a significant settler from days gone by (his last name was Nicolle), with the intent to pick us up after an hour or two.
Now Bob could probably explain it better, but it seems that on his 2nd or 3rd attempt, he got his lure hooked onto a submerged branch, and, in the effort to pull it free, pulled it over his head and into the branches of the tree above him! That kind of put a kabosh to his pre-lunch fishing plans, so we piled back into the van & drove towards the lunch place. Which wasn’t open. And we were almost in the middle of nowhere with no food. Fortunately we noticed another food place on the park map & it was open, a very small convenience store, with a very disinterested-seeming gal operating it. When
we asked if she sold sandwiches, she basically said “whatever was still in the fridge”. There were two breaded chicken breast burgers, that’s all that was left, but re-heated they didn’t taste too awful. And we were able to bring Panna out of the van to be close to us - it also was a pretty hot day.
We then went to find Nicolle Flats. What a disappointment. They had really nice brochures printed up, showing possible routes & trails through the site, plus discussing at length the Nicolle Homestead house, a significant architectural site. So we drove to the flats, but were pretty much unable to see any trails, except for one leading to an observation tower. There did seem to be a portion of the TransCanada Trail, which went over a dam (or dyke, as it was called there), but we weren’t really sure where it would go, and it was all in the open, no shade for coolness.
So we decided to try locating the Nicolle homestead. At this point, Bob figured “to heck with the fishing”, and we drove for what seemed like a very long time, partly over a soft gravel road (which
was lots of fun - NOT - with the van) till we found the location. There we parked & followed a path which would take us to the old homestead. Excuse me if it’s important to you, but we found it to be an absolute waste of time! It looks like it, along with a lot of the other small-town Saskatchewan historical points of interest, were “duded” up for the centennial, in 2005, and hane not been touched since, as the tourism rewards probably have not “panned out”. It was a lovely locale, just not really worth the effort to get there, at least not at this time.
Bob & Panna then headed back to the van while I continued on in a different direction, trying to get my “mileage” in. We then left & returned to Moose Jaw.
DAY 4: on the bicycle - 29.0 km, in 1:42 hours, ave. speed 17.0 km/hr, max. speed 28.1 km/hr
On foot - about 5 km, the GPS “died” (no replacement batteries with me), so I couldn’t tell for sure, sigh.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0281s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb