Lac La Ronge
Saskatchewan
Travels to my back deck
Now more than a year without so much as a glance at airline seat sales, let alone the feeling of waking up jetlagged in a foreign country, there are early glimmers of hope for traveling in 2021. It is likely that traveling for me, this year, will be about reuniting with family out east, some western Canadian road trip adventures, and maybe, just maybe, a flight to a Canadian city later this year for some big city fun (eating in restaurants! going to bars!). Something holding me over until safer days ahead, and something that helped me hold it together in 2020, was the simple pleasure of hanging out on my back deck.
In the early pandemic days of 2020, my deck became a bit of an escape…an oasis really. A place for my wife and I to separate from our suddenly home office-focused work weeks.
A staycation in five parts
This past October, I took a needed week off of work, but due to rising pandemic case counts, my travel options were severely limited. I’m normally the type of person who wouldn’t dream of spending a handful of vacation days in my own city. I’ve always felt that a proper vacation needs a hotel and a plane ticket (or at worst, a very, very long road trip). 2020 threw up a lot of constraints for planning a proper week off, so I embraced the idea of a staycation to shake me out of the doldrums of what was a year of too much sameness for my restless spirit. So here’s my Saskatoon (and extended area) staycation in five parts.
Part 1 – An afternoon of mural exploration
I drove downtown, parked the car, and armed with nothing more than a list of interesting murals on my phone, wandered around my city as I might do when visiting a new place. This simple act made for a lovely afternoon and helped me see parts of Saskatoon through a fresh lens. I spent most of my afternoon wandering around the Riversdale neighbourhood where there is a wealth of vibrant public art in the form of murals. Here’s a small selection of what I explored.
Patio lanterns
Saskatchewan Summer: Farm Dinner
A late August Sunday night on the prairies meant you could already feel the seasons changing as we drove about a half hour west to Farm One Forty in Vanscoy, SK. As a result of the pandemic, my wife and I had not had a meal in a restaurant in over five months and we were looking forward to an outdoor farm dinner prepared by a favourite restaurant in Saskatoon, Odla.
Saskatchewan Summer: Sand Dunes
Most people know the prairie stereotype of Saskatchewan and imagine farmers fields stretching to the horizon and beyond. There’s a lot of that here, but there is also a significant diversity of landscapes if you go looking for it. On a Friday vacation day in August, I took off on a road trip ninety minutes south of Saskatoon and headed for a hike on sand dunes in Douglas Provincial Park. You heard me correctly… sand dunes.
Before there could be sand dunes there was a hike from the trailhead through a typical prairie landscape.
Saskatchewan Summer: Humboldt
On a Sunday afternoon in August, the idea of driving to Humboldt for some McDonalds fries seemed like a perfectly acceptable premise for a road trip. We piled into the car as a full family (also know as: taking the dog along for the ride) for the one hour drive east for our first visit to Humboldt since moving to Saskatchewan more than four years ago.
Saskatchewan Summer: Manitou Beach
2020 is shaping up as the first year in my life I won’t get to stand on the shore of an ocean, dip my feet in, and gaze out over the water. Living on the prairies, I’ve cut it a bit close in the previous four years, but there has always been an ocean somewhere in my travels. Landlocked in Saskatchewan, I felt the need to improvise this year, and luckily the mighty shores of Manitou Beach are renowned for their salt water. That’s right, a salt water lake in Saskatchewan.
2020 has been a year of making the best of things, but honestly, standing at the water’s edge, I was simply just happy to be looking out over a body of water.
Saskatchewan summer: Nokomis
In the grips of a global pandemic, as spring turned to summer, it became obvious that the only way I’d feel comfortable scratching my travel itch was to get behind the wheel of my car for some good old fashioned local exploring. And while I’ve lived in Saskatchewan for a bit over four years and owing to my province’s immense size and my proclivity to wander in foreign lands over my own backyard, I’ve seen precious little of my home province. I made a list of places relatively close to Saskatoon, booked off a few Friday vacation days, and have set off on some prairie road trips.
First up was the town of Nokomis, population 436. Located an hour and a half drive away, the attraction for me was one of my favourite craft breweries in Saskatchewan – Nokomis Craft Ales. On the drive south and east to Nokomis, I had the sunroof open and the stereo up loud listing to the new July Talk album, “Pray For It”. The open road, never-ending prairie skies and some great tunes had me feeling like this was a true vacation day and an escape from the pandemic-induced feeling like no day was different from all of the others.
Under the threat of a severe thunderstorm, I arrived in Nokomis to have my first beer on a patio other than my own back deck since November.
Family on the prairies
When Jodi’s parents visited us this past summer, there was one place they were itching to get to… the West Edmonton Mall. While the idea of visiting a mall normally induces dread akin to an upcoming visit to the dentist, the idea of a prairie road trip with family to a city that’s really grown on me sounded like a great way to spend a weekend. Another plus for me? You can’t really road trip in Canada without pulling over somewhere beside a roadside attraction, so on the way to Edmonton, here we are in Vegreville in front of their famous pysanka. Unbelieveably, at three and a half stories high and more than 5,500 pounds, it is only the second largest pysanka in the world due to some deft one-upmanship from Kolomyia, Ukraine.
Bluenose Traveler 