Our adventure begins, The Canadian Western Provinces, The Abridged Version

We began our nine month adventure with a 5 hour drive up the Coquihalla Hwy to visit one of Art’s oldest friends, Dennis Sottana, his wife Sonia and their daughter DeLisa. It is magnificent location right on Shuswap lake and of course, as always, Dennis has every toy imaginable to have fun on the water. Dennis took us for a couple of rides in his beautiful boat and Heidi and I had our first wake surfing experience and pictures below will show the proof. It was much to short a visit, but we agreed that since they were the first stop on our cross-continent adventure, we should now plan to make their place the last stop next spring. I think that’s a smashing idea.

Leaving the Shuswap, we made our way up and into the Rockies, luckily avoiding the many wildfire burning in BC. The smoke was extremely thick up the Coquihalla and beyond Shuswap into the Rockies, but none of the fires impeded our route thankfully. We stopped in Golden and had a nice big dinner at a traditional roadside diner, which Art became VERY familiar with when driving around the western provinces as a travelling salesman early in his career. Initially we thought we would stay overnight at a rest stop at Kickinghorse pass for the night, but we were informed by one of the local construction crew working on the Hwy that wouldn’t be possible as we would be rousted in the night if we did. He was nice enough to point us in the direction of a free forestry campsite off the highway on Beaverfoot Road right on the river about 15 kms from the rest stop. As will be our habit for quick one night stands, we rolled in, got ourselves set up, crawled into bed and watched an episode of Netflix series before crashing. We woke up in the morning to a beautiful day perched on the edge of a river in the heart of the Rockies, not a bad way of life this vagabond life, if I do say so myself. As is typically of our luck, as we are sitting having our morning coffee, looking up at the beautiful Rocky Mountains, a trio of rafts came floating by and waved at us as we were relaxing by the river. Ho Hum, just another crappy day in paradise.

On our third day we whisked our way straight through the Rocky Mountains nonstop, given the three months we had spent in southern BC and the Rockies last fall. This didn’t diminish the beauty we witnessed as we drove through, what an amazing experience to see the Rockies, even from behind the wheel, we are truly lucky to have this in our backyard. Our next destination was dinosaur provincial park in southern Alberta, know as the badlands. It’s a very strange feeling driving for hours on the pool table flat prairies and then dropping into the river valley, descending into a different world, something looking more like the moon then the prairies. We have chosen a strategy for our trip that avoids multi day plans, so we are not locked into a schedule, but can go with the flow when we rise each morning. Because of this strategy we missed out booking one of the tours we most wanted to see. This tour was recommended by our friend’s Doug and Maureen Ward, which was the Centrosaurus bone-bed tour in the restricted part of the park. Because it was sold out, we instead took our own time and followed our own path and discovered the parts of the park that were available to us on foot. We were amazed by the landscape as we hiked the four or five kilometres through the park, which seemed much longer given it was 37 degrees Celsius in the valley. Not much water to be had, as the Red Deer River is very low due to the extremely warm weather this summer, so no swimming to for us. When we returned to our campsite, we saw we had mistakenly left our thermometer our in the sun and it registered 48 degrees, yikes.

After scorching ourselves in the Badlands, we thought it would make sense to find a campsite where we could relax and cool down for a day. Art’s cousin, Tony MacKinnon, had suggested that we stay at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. We’re glad we listened to Tony’s advice, for as we drove into the valley, it was so similar to the vista’s we witnessed driving into the Shuswap valley in BC, lush with trees and a welcoming cool lake. The landscape was striking, so different from what we had experienced at Dinosaur provincial park and driving across the prairies, we were astounded. The lake was busy with all kinds of watercraft and families gathered at the Lakeshore to cool down from the 37-degree temperatures we were enduring. We spent very little time in our actual campsite, deciding instead to park Klara next to the lake and relax near the cool water. Parking our little home on wheels lakeside was an excellent idea, like a waterfront condo with access to all the things we needed, a fridge full of food and drinks, change of clothes, book, game etc. After nearly 1500 kilometers of driving, it was a welcome respite.

Cooling off at Elkwater lake, Cypress Hills

Art had spent 18 months living in Regina, Saskatchewan in the early 80’s and some of his fondest memories were of the lakes in the Qu’Appelle valley, so we decided to return to the scene of the crime. On route we were going to stop off in Shaunavon Saskatchewan, the town where Art’s mother grew up. Google maps gave us two routes to choose from to get there and we decided to take the secondary highways rather than the boring Hwy One option. We came to regret this choice, as Google maps doesn’t delineate between paved and gravel roads, so after travelling 45 minutes south, we realized a secondary Hwy in the prairies doesn’t necessarily mean paved. Klara is 20 years old and our greatest fear is cracking the rear axel and not being able to find a replacement, so we avoid gravel whenever possible. This forced us to turn around a retrace our steps losing 90 minutes on our journey.

When we arrived in Shaunavon we found the family home without issue, its not that big a town. Art decided to knock on the door and the owners were kind enough to provide us with a tour. Dennis and Deb Aadland showed us the plans and finished product for the extensive renovations they had performed on the old place since taking ownership in 1998. You could still see the original wood windows and beams in the main living room, dining room and upstairs bedrooms. The old home had been through 3 owners before them, the initial one being the local nuns, as Art’s grandparents has donated the home to serve as a convent when they relocated to Regina with Art’s grandfather’s appointment to the Supreme Court. Once the house tour was complete the Aadland’s pointed us in the direction of the old courthouse, which now also doubled as the city hall. One of clerks gave us a tour of the building, including the current courthouse upstairs and the old jail downstairs. In its day the courthouse served the judicial needs of a much larger area, but todays circuit court judges move around more and today the courthouse is only used one week out of the month. Like many small town in the prairies, Shaunavon had seen better days but many businesses and government functions have been centralized and people have abandoned the small towns for bigger cities and the opportunities there.

The town and home Art’s mother grew up in and where his grandfather was the circuit court judge.

We headed east in the direction of the Qu’Appelle Valley passing swift Current, Moose Jaw and Regina along the way. We have decided that we will avoid the big cities on this trip, opting for the smaller towns along the way. We stayed for two nights on Echo Lake with a waterfront site and toured Fort Qu’Appelle on foot. We have decided that the people in the small towns of the prairies are some of the nicest people you will ever meet, so kind and generous. Fort Qu’Appelle is close enough to Regina that people swarm to the cool waters on the weekends, but mid week the place is deserted, as can be seen by the picture of Broadway at rush hour.

The only deadline for this section of our trip was to be in Winnipeg to catch our flight back to Vancouver for my sisters celebration of life. We made our way across the last stretch of prairie, appreciating the cooler weather that welcomed us in “The Peg”. Winnipeg has a rich history and boasts such firsts as, the first province in Canada to allow women to vote as well as the birth of the labor movement in Canada after the famous Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. Found at the crossroads of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, The Forks is a funky section of town with a large public market and many food, drink and entertainment options. Boaters join the fun accessing the area through a series of public wharfs, we really enjoyed people watching here. We also took in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, a magnificent building adjacent to The Forks that chronicles the ongoing struggle for human right, here at home, and abroad. I highly recommend this experience, it is both educational and emotionally moving. We made our way over to Assiniboine Park to enjoy the English Garden and the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden. We truly enjoyed this area of Winnipeg and were left with the impression that the people of Winnipeg are very fortunate with the variety and beauty of their public spaces.