Crooked Lake Provincial Park, Grayson, Canada
At the showers this morning we met up with another couple that owned a Eurovan exactly like ours. Of course we struck up a conversation and found out they lived in British Columbia and were on a 6 week road trip as well. Nice to know there's other gypsy travelers out there.
Our destination today was a small Provincial Park in Saskatchewan. Looking at the map we knew we didn't want to take the usual route of Transcontinental Highway 1, so we found a couple of back road scenic highways and hoped for the best. Since we don't have any cell connections or GPS we relied solely on our Triple A map. For the most part the map was correct, but for the record there's some roads the map shows as drivable which are pretty rough. After a couple of wrong turns we ended up in a "town" called Spy Hill. I dare you to find it on the map! Anyway, imagine our surprise when we saw a sign along side a dirt road going into town saying "Home of Jeff Odgers 36 San Jose Sharks". Who knew?
It was a great day for a drive with lots of dramatic sky and cloud formations. I'd even say it looked like a Pixar animation, the clouds were so perfectly white and fluffy against the green hills. You can tell this area of Canada had a very late spring. The crops were just planted and were but a few inches high, nothing like the knee or waist deep crops we saw across the midwest and throughout Minnesota.
At one point on our drive, a bit late in the day, we drove past an interesting area that had restrictions signs posted, an out of place huge mountain called K2 and then a very tall looking under-construction concrete skyscraper that seemed completely incongruous in this vast prairie. Normally we have access to the internet so as we drive we are always investigating things that pique our curiosity. Absent this connection we were creating all kind of stories about the nefarious nature of this very ambitious looking project. As luck would have it, we soon entered the town of Esterhazy and Ned spotted a very charming looking building with a statue of Potash Pete out front. Turns out this was an interpretive center for the potash mining in the area. Ah ha! We had to go in a check it out.
We were greeted by a very charming gentlemen and immediately swept up in a tour he was giving to 3 other people. For the next hour or so, John Nightingale, gave us a very detailed and thorough talk on potash mining. We learned about how the shafts were built, the different kinds of potash mining, the infrastructure of the mining operation and how potash was processed and distributed. And yes, Saskatchewan really is the potash capital of the world. You could tell John was an engineer and took a great deal of pride in what he was showing us. After the tour Ned and I continued to talk with him and it turned out this very humble man, now retired, who began as a mechanical engineer in the mines during the 1960's, was at one time the President of the company! Turns out the mountain we saw was actually tailings and the incomplete concrete structure was the new head shaft called K3.
We finally did make it to Crooked Lake Provincial Park, which is basically in the middle of nowhere, but a beautiful little campground. We are enjoying our spot on the lake and equally enjoying being snug in our camper as the wind occasionally picks up and a downpour happens. Last night the sun didn't go down until 10ish and was up really early, maybe 5? Today we picked up an hour so even though it's only 8 now, it's still really bright out and I'm bushed. It's great being this far north in the summer, but I bet it's a different story in the winter.
