We’re making swift interprovincial progress now
When Cody and I drove west to Victoria in 2020, we took the most direct option via the Trans Canada Highway. On that route, southwestern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan were straight, flat and quite boring after the initial excitement of finally entering a new province wore off. We also had an insane headwind that slowed our progress with the truck and U-Haul trailer.
Without doing any real research beyond our brief acquaintance with Saskatchewan and Manitoba six years earlier, I just assumed those provinces were mostly fields. Well, this time via very different roads and many stops along the way, I realized that the Prairies have much more to see than what I was led to believe from Highway 1. In fact, Saskatchewan is home to 7 per cent or 101 million acres of Canada’s boreal forest. And the Saskatchewan boreal is part of the world’s few remaining uninterrupted forests. We really enjoyed our peaceful venture through the Interior Plains!
Meadow Lake Provincial Park
We left Lac la Biche in Alberta and headed east through Saskatchewan. After pulling off the highway, we entered Meadow Lake Provincial Park, which sits at nearly the halfway point of the province, just north of the 54th parallel. The 20 kilometres of dirt road was densely lined with skinny spruce and tamaracks, until we found Matheson Lake Campground. This provincial park, one of Canada’s largest, spans over 1,600 square kilometres and features more than 20 lakes, rivers and streams.
The campground had mostly first-come first-serve sites and we were lucky enough to snag the one site with a lakefront view. The ground was very sandy but made an excellent beach along the pristine lakeshore. After getting unpacked, we headed out for a wee jog to shakeout the drive from our legs. We hopped on the Boreal Trail, which runs 135 kilometres throughout the provincial park. We started west, but only briefly due to down trees and a sign cautioning of an aggressive bear in the area – pass! So, we turned around and headed the other direction and found a smoother and less threatening length of trail. We got back, dipped in the lake and Cody made his famous homemade burgers.
The next day, we had a slow morning highlighted by apple cinnamon pancakes, summer temperatures and blue skies. It was lining up to be a perfect Saturday morning until I had to spend a frustrating hour troubleshooting my laptop’s slow processing speed and inability to charge. We didn’t solve the issue but thankfully were able to transfer my imminently due editorial projects and all-important blog posts to Cody’s computer, which I’ve now commandeered as my own!
After some lunch, we headed out for a Meadow Lake park exploration ride on the mountain bikes. We did a 35k loop that was flat and fast. The only real technical sections were sand pits, the odd mud hole and errant sticks that liked to fly up and hit the spokes or crank shafts. We had planned to do a little out and back section, but the bridge was out and we weren’t in the mood for hip wading through the cold creek. The ride was a fun and a beautiful way to check out the nearby lakes and off-road terrain.
After several weeks of cold weather, I had finally transitioned my weekly meal planning to warm fall foods. Of course, I had beef stew on the menu the day it reached 20oC. We had another stunning sunset and a jolly fire, with free firewood, to close out our time at Matheson Lake.
Candle Lake Provincial Park
We woke up to another beautiful day in Central Saskatchewan with blue and sunny skies. Before continuing our travels east, we dropped south slightly out of the forest. We weren’t on the road long before we started to see golden canola, wheat and oat fields along with dust flying from the rolling combines, mixed in with logging trucks and the odd pulp mill. With diesel reaching nearly $3 a litre in Vancouver that morning, I’m sure this will be one of the more expensive harvests in recent history. We saw a characteristic old grain mill as well as lots of wildlife on route – coyotes, a fox and an alarming number of snakes on the road.
We stopped at the Cowan Lake Campground, one of two parks that are part of Big River Regional Park for lunch. A scenic spot along the lake that thankfully had washrooms and picnic tables. We carried on to the Prince Albert Canadian Tire. After driving on remote two-lane highways for weeks, meeting six lanes of traffic, traffic lights, off ramps and people was a bit of a culture shock! Who knew Prince Albert was such a booming metropolis? After navigating our way through the big city, we got onto our much-preferred smaller roadways and eventually made it to our site at Candle Lake Provincial Park. We were one of two campers in our loop, making for a quiet and secluded paradise! Five hours behind the steering wheel meant Cody had enough driving time for the day and he suggested I park the trailer. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but under heavy instruction, I got the RV onto the flattest part of the site. We then walked along the beach, ate quesadillas and made a fire with more free wood (thanks Sask Parks)!
The next afternoon we did some fall cleaning of the truck and trailer. After many kilometres on gravel roads, everything was covered in a fine dust. We eventually got out the door for a short run down the Lakewood Trails. We passed through a cottage community and disc golf course along Candle Lake. They had lovely benches along the way to stop and take in the scenery. The rest of the day slipped away. We made beef curry for dinner and a fire.
Cranberry Portage
We set off for our next destination about 300 kilometres away in a new time zone. The roads were rough and the wind was gusty! The crosswind pushed us all over the place while we tried to find the smoothest route through the endless bumps, but they were unavoidable. We bounced along for a few hours until we reached Creighton, just before the Manitoba border. There, we saw a giant smelter at the nearby mine. We crossed over into Manitoba, through Flin Flon and towards Cranberry Portage. Cody was delighted to see all the rocks as we skirted the edge of the Canadian Shield – we must be getting closer to home! We arrived at a small community campground where the wind blew and the geese pooed. Today felt long; likely from the relentless bumps and loosing an hour.
The next morning, we were visited by a sweet small blond dog. She was friendly and desperately wanted inside the trailer. We had no idea where she came from because she didn’t have a collar and no one was around. She drank some water, followed us around the campsite and lounged in the sun until she left just as quickly as she’d arrived. I hope she went home to her family!
Then we headed to Flin Flon to get the truck serviced. While we were in town, we ran a 9k loop around Ross Lake. The trail had stairs to a lookout where we could see all the fall colours and the surrounding area. We quickly ran through downtown and then stopped at the large fish-looking monument on the trail. A plaque recounted Flin Flon’s origin story. The name came from a fictitious character in a dime-store paperback novel entitled “The Sunless City” by J.E. Preston-Muddock. The book told of how Josiah Flintbbatey Flonatin, a grocer turned explorer, journeyed in a submarine of his own design that looked like a fish. Apparently, Flin Flon is the only city in the world named after a science fiction character!
While we waited for the truck, we spent some more time reading. The local paper said that with the province adopting permanent daylight savings time, n December, the sun won’t rise until 10:15 A.M. Wild!! Further reading enlightened us about the fact that Flin Flon was built on an old volcanic belt, which results in a unique rocky landscape. Once the truck was finished, we bought gas and groceries. Now that the sun sets earlier and earlier, after tacos, we had lots of time to watch the nearly full moon and enjoy the warm fall evening.
Steep Rock
We packed up on a misty morning and headed due south, crossing over Manitoba’s “infamous” 53rd parallel demarcating the northern boundary of the province. We hoped the roads would be better, but Highway 60 narrowly beat out the Pacific Marine Road on Vancouver Island for the worst road yet on our trip. Deep troughs ran the width of the road where the pavement caved in, causing sharp and unavoidable jarring every 10 seconds. The truck rattled, the trailer bounced and our backs ached. To give you an idea – my Garmin step counter recorded some 7,000 steps even though I’d sat in the truck all day. But we eventually got to the end of the highway and turned onto a much smoother stretch of road! We had chosen that route hoping to see some of the lakes in the area, but the forest was so thick we barely knew there was water nearby. Farther south, the trees started to clear, and more grain fields appeared. We stopped for gas and then proceeded to Steep Rock Beach Park, which sits on the northeast shore of Lake Manitoba. This campground was HUGE and we occupied one of the two sites reserved for the duration of our stay. The beach was nice and offered a beautiful view of the sunset. Though, the park owner advised us to bring in our shoes overnight or the foxes would likely grab one of each. They’ve been known to stash a good number of Crocs, their favourite footwear. So much so, that the park has a stolen shoe bin at the office. I’m happy to report that we left with all pairs accounted for!
The next day we biked into the quaint village of Steep Rock to check out the renowned limestone cliffs along the lake. We then slipped on our running shoes and ran an 11k loop around the nearby quarry. A new gravel double track trail was recently constructed from the park to give visitors a way into town without being on the road. We greatly appreciated the purpose-built active transportation route for its smoothness and wind protection while meandering through the tree stands. A ghastly crosswind blew in the open spaces, so we threw in some 60 second surges to get around the quarry lake and back into the trees. But I cannot write about this run without mentioning the garter snakes. I think it’s safe to say the population is healthy and thriving because we could barely bike or run 10 metres without having to maneuver around one!
Whiteshell Provincial Park
We packed up our things and embarked on our first rainy day drive in some time. We stopped in Gimli for lunch, though we didn’t have any Crown Royal. We parked at the beach along the west side of Lake Winnipeg. It was very windy and rainy, but we needed to stretch our legs so huddled beside the closed cantina and did some strides up the beach side trail.
After our brief break, it was straight south again. The poor truck had to work against a stiff headwind all day. You can imagine how our fuel economy fared! We flirted with the outskirts of Winnipeg by passing through Selkirk and turning east. We then stopped at the longitudinal centre of Canada, landmarked by a beautiful corn field at this latitude.
We carried on through the persistent wind and rain to Whiteshell Provincial Park and the Otter Falls Campground. Southeastern Manitoba is in the Canadian Shield, so the flat grain fields had disappeared, and we were back in the dense boreal forest with some welcome granite rock outcrops and shorelines. After setting up beside the junction of Eleanor Lake and Margaret Lake, we headed out for a 30-minute shakeout on the Trans Canada Trail. We crossed some cool bridges, over creeks and swamps. These would be great trails to cross country ski on in the winter, and there are even huts available to warm up. We had leftover taco mix and of course, had to watch the Women’s UCI World Championship’s replay, which were hosted in Montreal this year.
We spent most of the next day watching the men’s race and after it was finished, we headed out on our own ride along the Trans Canada Trail. We rode out to Nutimik Lake to a suspension bridge. Unfortunately, the trail to Sturgeon Falls was closed for safety improvements, so we turned around. We enjoyed the full sunshine and beautiful sunset while also enjoying our homemade burgers.
It almost feels weird being so far south now! We greatly enjoyed our time traversing the western provinces on the most northerly route we dared. One more province to go, but Ontario is so wide and Northern Ontario is so beautiful, that it will still be two weeks before we arrive back home.
How did we get here? Check out our previous posts below!
