Two By Bike: Kate and Sandy's Epic Road Trip, Part One

Getting Out of Edmonton

Last Tuesday, we drove southwest of Edmonton to Mulhurst Bay with the objective to cycle around Pigeon Lake. It was a perfect day for an outing and we were enjoying a very pleasant ride. At exactly half way around, we noticed smoke moving in, enough that soon we could not see across the lake. With almost 600 wild fires burning in British Columbia, the smoke they generate has blanketed most of Alberta. Since the smoke moved in, the air quality in Edmonton has been between 4 and 10+ on a scale of 0 - 10. Needless to say, we don’t like riding our bikes in such conditions.

Smoke moving in at Pigeon Lake

With no relief in the forecast, the lingering smoky air curtailed our activity and in no time had the effect of making Sandy quite restless. When, on Wednesday morning, we awoke to an eery sky that was orange-yellow from smoke, with a red sun, she decided that was enough.

We had plans to leave for a month long road trip on the Labour Day weekend. With all the smoke, she suggested we leave earlier. When I agreed, I though maybe a week earlier. Mark my surprise when she announced she wanted to leave Friday. I managed to negotiate our departure to Saturday. That meant leaving in three days, not two weeks! With a lot of scrambling, and more than a bit of fretting on my behalf, we managed to get the dogs to camp, yard care organized, and Boxy prepped and stocked for departure on Saturday.

Is this the apocalypse?

So, what big road trip, you ask? Sandy has her 40th RCMP troop reunion this year in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Since it’s only a further six hour drive to Columbus, Ohio, we decided we will also tack on a side trip to visit her sister, Cathy, for a few days. What the heck, I have decided to call it our Epic Road Trip.

Troop 16 Grad. Check out back row, second from left

Kate and Sandy’s Epic Road

Day 1: Edmonton to Saskatoon

As I still had a few things to finish off Saturday morning, we didn’t depart our driveway until 12:01. Rats, 2 minutes earlier and I could have made the case that we still got away in the morning. Oh, well. Off we went with the objective to play tourist along the way as we now have an extra couple of weeks to kill before the reunion. Of course, our first tourist stop had to be at Vegreville, Alberta, to visit, once again, the world’s largest pysanka.

Kate and the world’s largest Easter egg

As we headed east, hoping to escape the smoke, we were frustrated to find how far it extended. All the way to the eastern border of Alberta, we were still in smoke.

Smoke throughout Alberta

If you aren’t from western Canada, you may not know that the city of Lloydminster straddles the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. This creates a number of administrative headaches. On the medical side of things, the clinic is on the Alberta side of town, the hospital on the Saskatchewan side. This means that most of the local docs have to be licensed to practice in both provinces. Most of them aren’t happy about that. Since licensing docs in Alberta was my responsibility while I was at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, that meant that about every other year I would be approached by the docs, town councillors, business people, members of the provincial legislature, you name it, to make an exception and waive the requirement for an Alberta license. I stuck to my regulatory guns, as did my Saskatchewan counterpart who would face the same onslaught the alternating years, requesting that the requirement for a Saskatchewan license be waived. It was always interesting.

Red pillars mark the border through town

Once passed the pillars, we were officially in Saskatchewan.

Welcome to Saskatchewan

At the end of the day, we checked in to the Campland RV Resort, about 10 km west of Saskatoon. Now in the flat part of Saskatchewan, this resort was wide open, unlike the campgrounds we are accustomed to in most of Alberta. Nonetheless, it made for a very nice, quiet place to spend our first night on the road.

Day 2:

This day saw us pass through the small town of Wynyard, SK. Back in my track and field days, the Wynyard Spirits track team was a force to be reckoned with. I am surprised they produced so many talented speedsters from this small community! On top of it all, the people seem to be the epitome of nice, as this warning sign might imply.

Just “may” not “will” be prosecuted”

Our next stop was at Churchbridge, SK. Finally, we were out of the smoke! Churchbridge is a very attractive little town with lovely murals on many of the main street buildings. The seniors’ club mural shows their sense of humour, and I just have to show you the one honoring an old time physician.

Churchbridge Evergreen Club and Seniors' Centre.
"We’re Only Old on the Outside"

Honouring a Respected Physician

Main Street traffic in Churchbridge

Our last stop in Saskatchewan was Esterhazy. Esterhazy is the potash capital of the world and the main hub of the potash industry in the province. We really played tourist here and spent time exploring the potash interpretive centre. That was a very interesting stop, indeed. The massive potash mines are more than 3100 feet underground and operated through the use of the most modern mining techniques, machines, and systems technology. There is even less percentage of these mines visible on the surface than is represented by the tip of an iceberg.

One of the surface operations sites.

Sandy with Potash Pete

Link: Info about potash

It is just a short hop from Esterhazy to the border with Manitoba. Once across that, we were in Sandy’s home province.

Friendly Manitoba beckons

Not long after crossing the border, we stopped for the night at Shoal Lake. The campground was at the site of one of the garrisons used by the North West Mounted Police during their March West. This photo is of a replica of one of the barracks from that time. It shows three types of accommodations: the barracks for the police, a bat house just below the peak, and on the right hand side of roof of the bat house there is a bird nest. Now that’s what I call a multi-family dwelling!