Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan, located in central Canada just east of Alberta, is one of the least visited provinces in Canada, having neither mountains or seacoast to draw visitors. Rather than a tourist destination, Saskatchewan, which is part of the great prairies, serves as the breadbasket of Canada producing 60% of its wheat.

The Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) and Highway 16 pass through the southern part of the province, which is the more populated part. The entire province, which is 5 times the size of New York State has only 1 million people living in it. The less populated northern part of the province is mostly forest and lakes and is considered a hunting and fishing paradise with other 30,000 square miles of lakes.

Prince Albert National Park, 150 miles north of Saskatoon, is the province’s only national park. In the forests and lakes of this pristine million-acre wilderness area, there is canoeing, swimming, hiking, and great wildlife viewing. There are 31 provincial parks in Saskatchewan as well.

We left the Rocky Mountains in Jasper and headed east across the prairies of central Canada on our long trek home, a little sad that the last of our planned highlights was over.

Not having much information on Saskatchewan, Herb and I stopped in a Visitor Center to see what recreational opportunities the province had to offer—biking, hiking, rafting, etc. To our surprise, the Visitor Center was manned by two old woman who had to be pushing ninety. Undaunted, I approached them and asked my planned question about recreational opportunities. They stared blankly at me. At this point, Herb started to crack up and had to walk away and bury himself in the pamphlet rack. “Sign the book!” one of the ladies responded quite emphatically. I glanced over to where she was pointing and saw that she wanted me to sign the guest log. I complied and asked my question once again to which the other one responded, “Where are you from?” “New Jersey,” I replied. “Oh, Saskatchewan,” she nodded and smiled. At that point, Herb could not control himself any longer and quickly left the Visitor Center. After a few more questions and random responses, I smiled politely at them and got out of there as quick as I could. Herb was still laughing when I got to the RV.

Still not having the slightest idea as to what to do in Saskatchewan, we drove about 10 hours to Saskatoon and stopped at a pretty campground overlooking a park and some ball fields. It was a lovely evening, so we sat in our beach chairs on the bluff watching the baseball games going on below. This was the first time the entire trip that I got homesick. Both our boys love baseball and if we hadn’t been traveling, this is what they would have been doing. Most of our stops prior to this one had been tourist destinations, but what we were seeing now were people living their normal daily lives. Traveling is great, but I like my normal life too. I guess it’s time to go home.