Way Off the Beaten Track

There are about 250,000 kms of roads in Saskatchewan, not all of them wonderful and a lot of them gravel! Everyone seems to own a truck.
When she heard we were going to Saskatchewan, one of our neighbours gave us a 2010-ish Readers' Digest Atlas of Canada. Every double page has a flip-out with a smattering of what someone thought was an interesting spot in that area. I spent hours with that book and we've spent hours chasing down some of the oddities. Our GPS didn't recognize them but Google Maps did! Jim and Betsy were less excited about these weird and wonderfuls but humoured  me and we had lots of laughs in the search.

Crooked Trees according to Wikipedia, The trees, prominent in Saskatchewan folklore, are dramatically different from the un-twisted aspens just across the road. Explanations have been offered which include various paranormal factors. However, cuttings from these trees, propagated in Manitoba, exhibit the same pattern of twisted growth, suggesting that the cause is rooted in genetics, possibly the result of a mutation.The trees' unusual appearance was noticed in the 1940s and has attracted the attention of tourists for decades. Jim's reaction? "Aren't all trees crooked?" We were on our way from Saskatoon to North Battleford and we added about 2 hours to the trip by going via Hafford/Alticane to see the trees. For all the hype, the grove is small and yes, decidedly odd. But it had an outhouse! 

Great Wall of Saskatchewan, near Smiley. No, you can't see it from space. The wall was a 30 year project, finished in 1991, self supporting without mortar, and about a half kilometer long, built from rocks taken out of a farmer's fields. What isn't mentioned in the references is how gorgeous the rocks are. These are not our jagged gray BC rocks, rather beautiful pieces of pink granite with some stunning golden lichen growing on sections. That's a locust on the windshield!

The Great Sand Hills is a 1900 square kilometer desert/dune area about 25 km on more gravel roads, from Sceptre. The visitor centre was closed because now it's after Labour Day, but there was a detailed map and directions posted on the door. Betsy's master's thesis was about the ecology of salt water sand dunes so she was adsorbed in looking for marram grass or other familiar botanicals.

The car has taken a bit of a beating on the back roads and there is dust in every crevice. Jim hasn't figured out how to get the locust remains out of the grill though in North Battleford the car wash had an "insect removal" wand. We have a following of wasps wherever we go, feeding on the grill carnage. 

And many miles to go....

I forgot to mention that going off the beaten track has so many bonus surprises! A herd of bison, I assume meat herd because they looked well fed and tended, and an abandoned Ukrainian church.

Hafford