We spent the entire day speeding across the prairies for an astounding 925 km of Westward progress, or almost one megameter in a single day! (That’s 3.03 million feet for readers who prefer customary US measurements, or 9.25 hours of driving at a typical 100 km/h.). We ended the day in the Saskatchewan / Alberta line.
The prairies may be (mostly) flat and we spent most of the day driving, but the day was by no means boring. First of all, the prairies get drier as you head west, with corresponding changes to ecosystems. Manitoba has plenty of farms and trees; whereas western Saskatchewan is grassland with almost no trees, and even some scrub brush growing among the grass. Makes me think of the song “Home on the Range.” The lack of trees did make it harder to find a place to sleep, but an official rest area is serving well (and I’m not the only one sleeping here).
There is also change in topography. Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan are mostly flat as a pancake. But here in the west its rolling hills, like straight out of “dances with wolves.”
And today I got to see the industrial scale agribusiness that supports enormous populations on the coasts (while feeding them enormous quantities of meat). The amount of land farmed is VAST, seemingly going on forever. Grain elevators big and small are everywhere, and somehow most of that material eventually makes it to coastal cities (metro regions), or else to feed lots for meat destined for those cities. We do not appreciate the industrial scale of this operation in our day to day lives, but here on the plains it is visible for all to see.
Not just endless fields but also the support infrastructure: agribusiness warehouses, enormous farm equipment, plenty of trucks carrying all sorts of stuff, trains pulling hundreds of cars, gigantic empty spools on flatbed trucks, crop dusters planes flying low over the fields and freeway… for better or for worse, this is the infrastructure that feeds us. The only reason it does not feel more hectic is because agriculture is so spread out.
What I did not see was farm houses dotting the fields. the system is highly mechanized: most likely people involved in the farming live in the towns and farm equipment is moved between fields as needed. Most areas of most fields, it’s doubtful how often any human actually walks there. Agriculture and mining seem to be two important pillars of the economy here.
Other interesting industrial facilities I saw included an ethanol plant and a sodium sulfate plant. The latter is interesting: near Chapin Saskatchewan is an endorheic (internally drained) basin, hence salt collects there. Similar to the great salt lake in Utah but MUCH smaller. These lakes are used by migrating birds, and also to mine sodium dominate, which looks like snow. Pretty cool!
Sorry for the lack of pictures, many of the things I saw are on my other camera, maybe I can fish pics from them tomorrow. The change in ecosystems east to west was truly fascinating.
Well, here are the pictures I do have. In Manitoba the prairie was interspersed with woods for various reasons. Here is a Beautiful little pine grove where we stopped for breakfast. This travel is not easy for Bella: instead of eating her breakfast she played with her food, covering it in dirt. Sigh…
Here’s where we entered Saskatchewan. It’s hard to capture the endless vistas and enormous sky on camera.
We visited this charming little town, the brick building looks like right out of a painting.
And we are lunch in a beautiful spot by the railroad tracks, in an other small town. A few people drive by and yes, they noticed us. But it was ok, one person waved. Sunday is quiet.
We ended the day at this beautiful truck stop on the Alberta line.
And the cool thing is, this guy is also sleeping here. He has walked and biked many tens of megameters around Canada and all the truckers recognize him. He was badly injured as a teenager, and the Canadian healthcare system put him back together and he’s been walking for healing and thanks ever since. He has so far done more than 8 megameters on his current walking journey, which he started in march 202; and yes he has been through Yukon4. That really puts things in perspective with my “big” journey of 7 megameters to Alaska. check out his blog: thefellowinyellow.ca
And I said it’s hard to get a sense of the scale of the vistas out here. But here is my puny attempt:
Maybe more pics tomorrow. As many interesting things that I saw, I have only scratched the surface of this place. It is full of history and peoples and unfortunate wars / massacres, explorers and visionaries, all of which contribute to make it what it is today. Flat yes, but never boring. I spent most of the day driving in silence to better appreciate what was around me., maybe someday I will get a chance to stay longer and explore deeper, away from the highway.
Till later!