Saskatchewan (15. 6. 2010)

Tour through Saskatchewan

Again a new Province with the size of France but only 1/60ies of the inhabitants. Firstly it es flat as a pancake (southern part) but than rising to 1.000m with unlimited prairie landscape. No trees and no bushes, only gras and huge cattle and horse herds. Above  all this the endless lively sky. A land which suggest peace and tanquility. You are mainly alone on the road - except .... Which try to cross the road alive - quite often not succesfull.

Drive to Coronach:

We stood overnight at a small but nice Campground in Coronach (N 49° 467‘  /  W 105° 31.220‘).

A small but very sympatic village with everything you need - supermarket, gas station, golf club and a saloon. Where we have been invited to a poker party but we prevered to stay with ourt biere and watch the scene.

Next morning we were interviewed by the local newspaper about our journey and our special RV. She told us that we are already after few hours the talk of the town.

Now we proceed to the „Grasslands National Park to see Bisons and rattle snakes and ....

Grasslands National Park:

The drive along the US border is flat and long. The more we were surprised when we came near the area of „The Big Muddy“ and suddenly hills grow from the prairie. Beautiful round and green mountains - and we were in the meantime 1.000 m high.

At the eastern part of the park we saw a herd of pronghorn antilopes. In no time they disappeared. And they are very very fast (80 km/h max. and 48 km/h constant velocity). Fantastic to see their muscles when they run. They have 2 white spots at the rear. Dring escape they can move the hairs in order to reflect sun light. And this is warning signals to others as an alarm and can be seen up to a distance of 4 km.

On our way to the west part of the park we saw mainly cattle farms and our first cowboys (and cow girls) - see pictures.

Also we saw a cojote. This animal was (and is) very much hunted by humans but still not endangered. It is intelligent and very adaptive and eats everything. But you see them rather rarely - today was our lucky day.

The west part of the park is very hilly (even rocks). You can stay overnight in the park (which we planned and payed for). The drive is beautiful. And there are wild bisons (150 nowadays). This time the males are seperated from the herd because of the calfs. We saw three of them but far away.

The park is full of Prairie Dogs. They live in colonies and you here their funny calls. They are very good for the paririe - firstly as prey for other animals and secondly they eat the long grass and keep it short and this supports the growth of a large vatiety of prairie grass.

While driving through the park we oversighted the camp ground and suddenly found us again outside the gate. We drove to the west gate and stood overnight here. I had a chance to make a hike on top of the hill and saw a beautiful landscape and many flowers (even flowering cactus).

The night was extremely quite - wonderful. Unfortunately heavy rain started. Next morning a ranger knocked and warned us about the difficult road conditions (I smiled thinking about this worried Canadians). Unfortunately he was completely right - without four wheel drive and differential locks we would have had troubles.

Luckely we missed the camp ground in the park (lying in a valley). Would have been impossible to come out.

Drive to Cypress Hills Prov. Park:

It rained continiously and we still used gravel roads. Near Robsart the road turned muddy (and real clay) and only with four wheel drive and differential lock we slowly advanced. But the fuel consumption was exorbitant high. We returned and used the highway 13. The vehicle was so dirty nothing could be touched anymore. In Maple Creek we saw a truck wash station. But unfortunately in Canada this means: you get the equipment and you have to do yourself. And to wash of clay means heavy work. It took me one full hour. Every muscle was paining and I couldn´t lift may arms anymore. And than you have to pay additionaly 60.-$

Here we took Hwy.1 towards Alberta

Continuation of travel report please refer "Alberta"