Saskatchewan Trip - Part III

---

Dianne said I had to finish the blog for our last holiday because we are about to embark on our next holiday. Two months in Denmark and Italy. Yahoo! And since I am writing this as we are in the plane, I had better get on it! So here comes the conclusion of our Saskatchewan/Alberta trip…

The Cypress Hills

Despite living in Alberta for many years, we had never been to any of the three Cypress Hills parks. We decided to go to the Centre Block and it was a great choice. The camping loops are huge and roomy with lots of separation in the sites, at least in our loop. The good news was they had flush toilets in the outhouses. The bad news was they shut off the water on September 21^st due to the upcoming cold weather and the day we arrived was September 21^st.

We managed to find a spot near one if the old style outhouses so we were in fine shape. On one of our walks we met a family tent camping with three pre-schoolers. In their loop all the bathrooms had running water which was now shut off so they had to rough it. Luckily they were heading home the next morning so the inconvenience would at least be short.

We had a cow moose and her calf browse through our loop. Unfortunately, they were so well camouflaged the pictures didn’t turn out.

The park has a great interpretive centre with lots of helpful staff. During the summer there are lots of activities which were somewhat curtailed as we were well into the fall shoulder season. Bu the restaurant was open and made great cappuccinos.

There are a couple of great viewpoints nearby. The elevation was 1,200+ meters and the views were spectacular. The only difficulty was that the wind was blowing so hard that you didn’t want to get too close to the edge for fear of being blown over the edge. It was that strong.

Ft Walsh

After leaving the campground we started our trip back to Alberta but had to make a slight detour to visit Ft. Walsh. It was a prominent centre for what became the RCMP in the 1870/80 time frame. It must have been a lonely posting. The recreated fort is pretty neat and was actually used to breed and train horses for the Musical Ride years later. Well worth the detour.

Writing-on-Stone

Another Alberta park we had never visited, it sits on the Milk River which flows south into the Mississippi. Very popular with the tubing set as the river meanders through the hoodoo formations. There were an amazing number of campers in a very nice campground. Cold at night though.

The pictographs and petroglyphs on the walls were neat to see but our pictures didn’t do them justice. The hoodoos themselves were awesome.

Blackfoot Crossing

The Blackfoot have built a beautiful interpretive centre on a very scenic site close to the location for the signing of Treaty #7. The summer crowds had disappeared and we had the place almost to ourselves. Which was fine except the restaurant was a bit lacking in choices.

Carstairs

We stopped in Carstairs to re-visit Dale and Pat. This was one of the first stops on our holiday. It seems like it was months ago that we were there. Maybe it just seems that way as it has taken me so long to get this blog out. We spent some time driving around the forestry roads west of town. Nothing beats the foothills in the fall. The colours were incredible.

Home again

Now we were in a position to get serious about retirement on Pender. Dianne volunteers at the library and is on the Library Board. I volunteer at the Nu-To-Yu, Pender’s famous thrift store. Our kayaks are now getting more use than they did when we lived “away”. But they just turned on the seat belt sign so I guess I am done for now



To Be Continued

---

Photos

Alberta backroad
Driving around west of Carstairs, AB. Looking towards the mountains, BC and home after a memorable trip

Cypress Hills Centre
Really nice facility. Even had a restaurant that sold cappuccinos. Bonus!

Observatory
Closed when we were there but it must be nice to have a facility like this where there is no ambient light.

They say Saskatchewan is flat.
But this viewpoint was at 1,200 metres. The view was great.

Lake trail
The walk around the lake was beautiful.

The Daily Grind.
That's the name of the coffee place in Maple Creek. Nice touch. Yes, the hoodie tells you it was pretty chilly, especially at night.

Downtown Maple Creek
A really nice main street

The road to Ft. Walsh
Ft. Walsh was a major RCMP outpost from 1875 to 1883 for combatting the illegal whisky trade. The setting is spectacular.

Reconstruction
The fort was rebuilt in the 1940s and used for breeding horses for the musical ride.

Inside
Well done. But I'm not sure I would have liked to live there. Pretty remote.

Fort from the hills across the river
And they say Saskatchewan is flat?

Evening at Writing-on-Stone Park
Dianne loves her sundown pictures.

Lots of hoodoo formations
Who doesn't love them?

Visitor centre
and hoodoos.

Sweet Grass Hills
The Milk River is a great tubing river.

We didn't see any.
Too bad.

Campground
Nice sites.

Kinbrook Island camping.
Spacious and lots of fall colors. But cold at night.