Beyond the Battlefords

It's no distance from Toon Town (thank you Cam Culham!) to the Battlefords (Fort B, B, and North B) and we headed out on Tuesday morning. We rolled into North Battleford at lunchtime expecting to visit Fort Battleford. The National Parks website said it would be open on September 4 and we organized our time to fit that statement. We showed up on site to find locked doors and a phone number to call for deliveries. Clearly not for us. I wasn't feeling my diplomatic best and gave "buddy" a bit of a hard time on the phone. He called me "young lady" several times not knowing I was about to reach through the phone and rip his throat out. Apparently NPC had not told Fort Battleford they were supposed to be open on the 4th and all the summer staff were gone. Buddy came to the door eventually, apologetic, but he was the maintenance man, not a ranger or interpreter.
Another carload of 6 people arrived on our heels to the same answer. I will be writing to NPC!

Luckily there is a Western Development Museum in North Battleford, one of 4 in the province. These museums are really well done and this one includes an outdoor village of 30 buildings, an elevator, and a train station. The contents aren't very different from the WDM in Saskatoon which is all indoors but the village setting gave context to the artifacts in a different way. Thirteen of the buildings are original and others were purpose built. So much in these museums was part of our normal childhood. It is amusing to see familiar items deemed to be historic but Saskatchewan is very young. For example, the school room is pretty much exactly what my elementary school looked like. NOT the hair curling contraption! Good grief!!!

It was windy which seems to be a theme.
On the way to Moose Jaw the next morning we stopped in Unity to look for a probably non-existent photo studio where our friend Don Rowlatt worked as a teenager. Mention Saskatchewan to any group of people and I can guarantee that someone has lived here at some point. At least in a western group. We stopped in a café and asked the server who asked her boss and a table of local women. Guess what? One of the women remembered Don's family and the location of the studio, now a realty office. So we took a picture of course. Keep in mind, this was 60 years ago - what were the chances? Apparently excellent! And the three women had a lovely time reminiscing about the old days.