May 16th…
A long travel day made even longer with a time change. Agriculture was the predominant industry and many farmers were out in the fields seeding. Holy shoot the machines are big. Probably helps as the fields to be seeded are equally huge.
The granaries were numerous and of varied and assorted sizes. I had forgotten that potash was also a major industry and we passed several potash mines. Had to refresh my memory as to what potash was used for: soap, textile industry, glass etc. Did see a reference to the Jansen Project and discovered it is a proposed underground potash development project located in east-central Saskatchewan, approximately 140km east of Saskatoon. The mine will be one of the world’s largest potash mines, producing eight million tons of marketable potash annually at full capacity. Who knew!
Quill lakes, wetlands, were lovely and according to Wikipedia, of international importance (especially to the birds). One disappointment of the day was the cemeteries. I suppose I should explain. Mum used to have Margery (sister) and I count the animals out the window of the car when we were young and out on some driving event. It kept us entertained. The downside of the game was that you lost all your animals when you passed a cemetery. So today I had a few hundred animals and was clearly in the lead when I lost them all. It seemed that all the cemeteries were on my side of the road. I finally gave up in despair. I had not expected to see the hundreds upon hundreds of ducks and geese (including snow geese) and as equally a humungous number of gulls. We saw a fox, red wing blackbirds, hawks, and Greg saw a baby moose. Lots of sloughs.
Our goal today was MacGregor, Manitoba. A lovely town. In making our reservation for the Lions campground before we left Greg talked to a delightful man: didn’t need to leave a credit card number, just put the money in an envelope and put it in the box at the campground or leave it with the guy next door.
The campground wasn’t busy and was right beside a soccer field. There were several game of soccer going on though I am not sure I would have wanted to be playing as it was windy and a tad chilly. A quick walk around a few blocks of the town and we were done for the night.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Always love the drive across the prairies. Amazing bits every time if you look about you. Sorry about the cemeteries though. Bad luck that they are all on one side! Safe travels.
There is more to the prairies than one would think. We learned some lessons about observing the terrain in our past travels and you are so right about seeing different things every time you look around. We have since changed the rules of the games as there are no long huge numbers of livestock in this area. But Marion will talk about that in one of her next blogs.