The Generous Praries

 While everywhere I’ve been on the trip, people have been very nice to me, I think the people from the prairies are probably the most generous and friendly of them all. Anytime I interact with anyone, they’re always super friendly and some have even given me money already in my short time in the prairies. The drivers are by far the most generous of any I’ve come across. While earlier in the trip, I would get the occasional honk of support, prairie drivers don’t honk and instead wave to me and a lot of them too. I was probably getting about a hundred or so waves a day which is a lot. Even better than that was how they drove around me. Most drivers going past me would entirely drive on the other side of the road when passing and sometimes drivers going the other way would drive on the shoulder when going by, as if to make sure they’re giving me as much space as possible to be safe. This is a stark contrast to everywhere before, where I’d say about 50% of the drivers passing me drive as if I wasn’t there and the other half would cross the median to give me more space, but nothing near like the space prairie drivers were giving me. As fantastic and kind that the people from the prairies had been to me, they’d keep it up and maybe even surpass this as I continued passing through.

View over Horizon (ghost town)

The generosity would continue after my night at Rod and Sharon’s in Weyburn. In the morning, Sharon made breakfast for me and then I talked with both Rod and Sharon some more as well. I got to try saskatoon berries for the first time the prior evening, but they were frozen and I was hoping to get to try some fresh ones at some point. So Sharon recommended me to stop at a saskatoon berry farm in Trossachs, that I’d pass later in the day. Before leaving, Rod and Sharon even gave me $50, just like the other very kind people from the prairies had been doing as well.

View over the prairies

Around noon time I made it to the saskatoon berry farm in Trossachs that Sharon had recommended me. One of the owners of the place (Larissa), greeted me as I pulled up. She was quite surprised and curious why I was there as she told me that no one had ever come to their place before on a bike. When I told her I had been recommended her place for saskatoon berries, she lead me back to the saskatoon bushes and let me start picking, even encouraging me to snack on some as I picked. When I got done picking what I wanted and could carry with me (it was probably about 2lbs worth), I went back out front to find Larissa so I could pay for them. When I did though, Larissa told me I could keep what I picked for free. Not only that, but she even gave me a cold bottle of water (it was a very hot day) and a pack of freeze dried skittles to take too. We got talking and it turns out we both had mental health problems before and both gone through quite a bit to overcome them. She had found religion in doing so and believed that we were supposed to meet, that being part of the reason she let me have the berries (and she was also just incredibly nice).

My saskatoon berries

After the stop at Larissa’s saskatoon berry farm, I continued back to fighting the wind on the hot day. I’d make it to Ogema for the day, passing more ghost towns along the way. I didn’t know it at first, but turns out the route I was on (The Red Coat Trail), is also known as the ghost town highway. This being because there used to be a railway that ran roughly along the highway, that was largely used for transporting grain. Every town/village had large grain elevators along the still remaining tracks. Sometimes you would see the grain elevators in what seemed like the middle of nowhere as there used to be a village there. Some of the ghost towns are completely gone, with only a monument left behind as the buildings either burnt in a fire, got moved away or both. Others would still have some buildings, but not near as many as there would’ve been at the villages’ peaks. Usually a couple of them would still be lived in but the rest looked abandoned or fallen apart.

Leaving Ogema, there was nothing in between until Assiniboia, which would take me the day to get there. The land was starting to change now as it was no longer purely flat and instead I was now riding through rolling hills of fields. This meant that I started seeing some fields with cattle in them instead of just purely crop fields. It was yet another very hot day of fighting headwinds. To make it worse though (and maybe I just hadn’t been noticing it until now), was the added wind that the oncoming traffic was causing. Nearly every vehicle in the prairies is some form of truck. Could be an 18 wheeler, dump truck, oil truck or pickup truck, but almost always some form of truck. The thing about trucks with their bigger frames, is that they move a lot more air than a car. So every time I encountered a truck going opposite of me, it would hit me with a big gust of wind that would nearly kill my momentum and have to work back up to speed. Dealing with this was actually worse than the constant wind that I would otherwise have been dealing with as at least I’m not constantly having to basically start back up from not moving. From this day on, this was something that was constantly happening while I was still in the prairies, I just must have been ignorant of it earlier on. It wasn’t just me either, later on when Abraham (guy I rode with for a couple days in Ontario), made it to the prairies, he told me that he also had the same problem with the trucks making gusts of wind.

Rolling hills

After a hot day that felt like it took quite a bit out of me, I made it to Assiniboia and got a slushy to help cool down. I then found a park where I was going to stop and cook supper, when to my surprise, there was already another biker there. This was Brian who was riding from Vancouver to his hometown of Niagara. Brian had been living in Vancouver but was soon moving to New Zealand, so was now riding to Niagara before flying to New Zealand. Both of us were done riding for the day, so we ended up chatting for the rest of the day before we found a camp spot to setup our tents together. Unfortunately for Brian, his stomach wasn’t feeling well when I met him and it hadn’t improved over night. So when I ended up leaving him in the morning, he’d be staying in town and grabbed a motel for the day.

While Brian was left behind not having such a good day, I continued on having a pretty good day. The wind was with me and there wasn’t too much traffic this day, making the riding quite enjoyable. I even saw a couple of new animals along the way. I saw what I assume was a burrowing owl on the side of the road, with its wings fully extended out sunbathing them. As I went by it, it stayed there but rotated its head fully around to watch me go by. Later on when I stopped at an abandoned baseball field in a ghost town, I saw a jackrabbit hopping away. I made it to Cadillac to end the day where my timing was a little poor. The local fair was going on right when I arrived, making the village loud and full of people when I’m sure it otherwise would’ve been mostly empty and quiet with a free campground to use. Instead I found an abandoned school on the other side (which was like 3 streets) of the village to camp next to for a little shelter for the thunderstorms that rolled through in the night again. There were coyotes howling too and while I’ve heard them plenty of times, when combined with the thunderstorms, doesn’t lead to the best of easy sleeping.

Never ending road

Leaving Cadillac, the land went from rolling hills to proper hills and I had to give actual effort again to ride up them. Early in the day I met Scott from Saskatchewan who’s riding across his home province and had just started the day before. I also came across the most weird and probably most famous ghost town during my time in Saskatchewan in Scotsguard. The buildings there had been restored and look like new except they’re not used or lived in except for one household. I had another new animal sighting too, in getting to see my first pronghorn a little off the road in a field eating. I would end the day in Shaunovan, finding cover from more thunderstorms and also prepared to start seeing some new landscapes tomorrow.

Scotsguard monument

Earlier during my time in Saskatchewan, I had heard of Cypress Hills and decided I wanted to check them out. They’re the highest point between the Rockie Mountains and Labrador and also supposed to have excellent nighttime viewing of the stars. As I had been starting to near them, it probably makes sense that it was hilly now.

A while before I had made it to Shaunovan the previous day, I had started to see large hills out in the distance. While I’m not sure that they’re technically part of Cypress Hills or whatever that whole formation would be, I do know that they were definitely the hills that formed the Frenchman Valley. Before I started to enter the valley in Eastend, I started coming across these steep hills that were scattered about in every direction. They almost seemed like they wanted to be mountains towering over the area but just didn’t have the size. 

Hills entering Eastend

Before I could started exploring the valley, Eastend had its own attraction worth visiting, that being a fossil museum. The museum is technically free but they do ask for a donation. While Alberta is known as the main part of Canada for fossils, this part of Saskatchewan in the Frenchman Valley basically matches it. The main reason there’s a fossil museum in Eastend, which isn’t very large or near anything of size, is due to the fact that the largest T. rex ever found was found around here and now houses it too. While Scotty the T. rex was the main attraction, the museum did have other cool fossils too like a triceratops skull and a type of ancient North American rhino too.

Scotty the T. rex

Triceratops

Rhino

Leaving Eastend and its museum, I got to start exploring the valley. I’d been on the Redcoat Trail the whole time in Saskatchewan but now was leaving it for the gravel roads towards Cypress Hills that rarely had any traffic on them. I really didn’t know anything about the area I was about to ride into (or even that there was valley here, it’s purely coincidence I ended up here), but it ended up being one of the most stunning areas I’ll probably pass through on the whole trip. All of the land was still pasture land with some cows spread about here and there. While there was the occasional farm or similar buildings, I’m not sure anyone actually lived here and instead travel to their land when they need to. The fields extended up the hills that made up the valley, at least where vegetation could grow on the hills. The hills looked more like mountains and were striped with different colours fron the different periods of which the hills must have been formed. I’d watched a video of someone riding through pastureland in the Andes before and this truly reminded me of that.

Frenchman Valley

The climb near Ravenscrag (another ghost town) to get up the hills and out of the valley was a very steep and hard one but presented its own new landscape. I was now over 1000m elevation for the first time ever (not counting planes) and it seemed like it too. The air while not too different, could be noticed that it was slightly thinner. Again everything around me now was pastureland for cows to roam but it looked so different now. I’m not sure how entirely to describe them, but they also just had a look to them that they were at a higher elevation. The land here also gave a bit of an illusion that it was flat when it was not and rather was more like the rolling hills I encountered earlier in the province. Getting to ride the valley and now the hilly pastures with essentially no one around was incredibly fun for the day.

I would end up reaching the end of the wonderful area where it was just me and got back to a main road that was lived on again before reaching Cypress Hills. One final climb did get me up to Cypress Hills park soon after. Luckily I got my tent up shortly after getting there, as unsurprisingly at this point, thunderstorms started rolling in. After it got dark and there was a break in the thunderstorms, I went for a little walk. While there was no thunderstorm overhead at the moment, there were thunderstorms in every direction and it was quite the sight as I watched the clouds constantly light up. 

Foraging rewards

The storms would come back during the night but were done by the morning, which was good for my plans. I planned on spending another night here and exploring the park during the day and then getting a view of the stars at night. When making breakfast, I noticed a bird eating a berry off a nearby bush and decided to check it out. I ended finding quite a few wild raspberry bushes and some saskatoon ones too. I spent about an hour picking what I could find and had enough for my breakfast oatmeal both today and tomorrow. During the day I went for a hike to the high point in the park, where there and along the way, were some really nice look off spots. I was able to see the next town I’d cycle through (Maple Creek) about 30km away and in general could see very far (likely over 50km) from my view point. Apparently on clear days (it was a little smoky) you can see about 100km in the distance I think. I also had the high point to myself as you had hike out to it and no one seemed willing to put in effort to do anything. I was in a nature park where I would think people would want to go hike and explore and not one person hiked to see the views. A couple used e-bikes but everyone else drove their cars there which I think is just pathetic in all honestly. 

View from Cypress Hills

I try not to rant on the blog here much (there will be a very large one in the future when I get to BC) and keep it just to my experiences, but I have to say, the pure laziness of people that I’ve witnessed on this trip is truly astounding. The total lack of effort and pure want of ease that so many people seem to want in all aspects of their lives, truly is sad from my perspective.

Later in the day, after the hike when I was back at my tent, another camper (Rod) came by and invited me over to his spot later in the evening when he was making lamb burgers. I spent the evening over with Rod and had the burger plus he gave me a bubly and let me have some chips too. Rod was quite interesting. He was from Saskatchewan but has lived in Thailand for 35 years and done lots of travelling over the years. I got up around midnight to see the night sky but was left a little disappointed. The view was good but not really any better than what I’d see back home on the hill on our farm. What I really wanted to see was a more well defined Milky Way belt, which I didn’t get, but the view was still nice nonetheless.

My time passing through the Frenchman Valley and being in Cypress Hills had gotten me really excited to make it to the Rockies and start exploring the mountains.  With the wind supposed to be with me the next few days, I planned on fully taking advantage of it. I had enjoyed the prairies until now, but I was ready for a change of scenery and the flat prairie lands were starting to grow a little boring.

Since I had to do a bunch of climbing to make it to Cypress Hills, I was rewarded with a big descent when I left them. I got to drop over 500m of elevation down to Maple Creek on a road that was a steady descent down the whole way. Getting to fly down to Maple Creek was incredibly fun as I averaged over 31km/h for the near hour of descending. Not long after I passed Maple Creek, I reached the Alberta  border and entered another new province. Stopped at the rest area at the border, was another cyclist who I stopped to talk with. This was Nico from Germany, who had started in San Diego, rode up the Pacific coast and now was riding east to Toronto. A bit later on I came across my first long distance hiker. This was Rakesh who was walking from Vancouver to Toronto for mental health awareness. I made a lot of progress during the day like I hoped and would end the day in Medicine Hat.

Alberta border

Me and Rakesh

Leaving Medicine Hat, I was welcomed with more stinky oil fields and a hot 30+ degree day (at least I still had tailwind). I had done over 100km by the early afternoon. Since there was still plenty of day left, I kept pushing on but the longer distance from the previous day and what I had already done today made the rest of the day feel much more difficult. I would end the day in Bassano. 

While I was looking around for a place to eat and camp for the night, a car stopped and asked if I was looking for a camping spot (people from the prairies seemed to always know I was on a long distance bike trip). When I said yes, she (Connie) offered to let me stay at her place for the night. She was currently on her way to her friends place and invited me to come along, saying she’s invited people over to her friends before like this. I followed along and was welcomed by all of her fellow teacher friends. Not only did they all not mind me there, they also even invited me to join in the cooked supper they were all going to have (and encouraged me to have extras which I happily did). Before leaving to go to Connie’s place for the night, Les, the husband of the friends house, gave me some money to take with. I didn’t really look at what he gave me right away but it looked like a couple 20’s. Well, turns out when I pulled the bills out of my pocket later, he had actually given me more than I thought, as it was $100 worth of 20’s,which was insanely generous of him. When I got to Connie’s, I got to shower before getting to sleep on my first proper mattress since I last got a hotel room in Bathurst, New Brunswick.

Connie took me out to a diner for breakfast in the morning. I hadn’t really gotten the chance to properly talk one on one with her yet since it was late when we got to her place and we both went to bed almost immediately. Turns out Connie is actually taking a break from work and planning to travel for the next year. She’s actually moving out of her place and leaving to start travelling up to Yukon only a couple days after I met her, so I timing truly was amazing. She had most of the next year planned out already with plans to see South America, Central America, India and maybe even more.

I left Connie and Bassano to another really hot day with Calgary in sight now, which is where the transition from prairies to mountains starts to get closer. I was back on the highway the past couple days and while it had busy, as I grew closer to Calgary it kept getting even busier. After listening to the roar of cars all day and staring at the same fields I had been for the past couple weeks, I made it to Chestermere, which is basically on the edge of Calgary. In Chestermere, I got to cool down in a lake for the first time since I left Ontario which felt so good after another long hot day of sweating. 

Approaching Calgary

I ended up spending the weekend in Calgary, seeing the city some. I saw downtown including the island park and its walking streets. It also came another thunderstorm while I was there (it felt like my whole time in the prairies was full of nothing but thunderstorms). I got my chain swapped out and got new brake pads in anticipation I’d be wearing through my current ones much faster once I reached the mountains. When I made it to the western part of the city, I could see the peaks of the Rockie Mountains for the first time, which got me very excited. On my final evening there, I got to see my cousin Matt who had been out of the city until then. We went out to a restaurant together  and got to talk about our travel stories.

Rockie mountains outline

When I previewed the prairies, I talked about how people seemed to really like or dislike their time in the prairies, I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed my time there. It was very different from anywhere I’d been before and the people there were fantastic. Next up though is the mountains, which is the area I had most been looking forward to seeing in all of Canada. If the sneak peak I was seeing from Calgary was any indication, I was about to be in for a real treat.

Distance Biked: 986.4km

Total Distance Biked: 6879.1km