Rob-n-Hild, oot and aboot eh? Sorry - 2022

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Calgary - Maple Creek (464 km. 5 hours 44 minutes. Max elevation 1,444)

Not such an early start today as Rob had a meeting at 12 and we figured that a stop in Medicine Hat at that time would work well. So, we were up and packed and on our way just before 8.30 with Hild driving as we were using the same road as yesterday and Rob drove then.

Route 1 is such a nice road out of Calgary that we got to Medicine Hat in time to have lunch before the meeting, which Rob took in the parking area for Tim Horton's. Then it was off to Fort Walsh in Saskatchewan just over the border from Alberta.

What we hadn't realized was that there is a pretty decent range to get over - something we imagined we had left behind in the Rockies. The thing is in the prairies, you don't really notice how high you get as the hills rise slowly and there isn't a noticeable skyline. But there were some very nice views - and a lot of cows! The high prairies are clearly s big pasture area with most of the fields fenced and "Texas gates" on the road (cattle grids to the rest of us).

At one stage we came up to small cattle drive as a herd of 2-300 cows and calves were being moved into a field by two cowboys on horseback -each with a dog to help! We didn't mind the 5-minute wait while they got them all safely into the field and the cows were all pretty calm abut it all.

It had been fun seeing all the cows right next to the road. And then as we came into Fort Walsh a small herd of wild horses crossed the road in front of us - lots of mares with foals skipping around.

So then we were at Fort Walsh - a historic site of one of the first North West Mounted Police outposts in what was then the North West Territory of Canada (then being 1870 or so). This has a lot of history about various First Nations and European settlers.

The big reason we came here was to repeat the photo the Olav took when he had been here in 1999. We have previously followed in Hild's dad's footsteps in Selkirk and Riding Mountain and Fort Walsh is another place where he had visited and done some work restoring the old buildings at the Fort. We worked out from Olav's report which building he had worked on and found some inserts in the timbers and we recreated the photo of Olav in 1999.

Click to read about Olav's trip in 1999

We asked the guide if there was anyone at the site that remembered the restoration work. Well, 10 minutes later the young guide turned up with an older guide who was working here in 1999 and remembers the people visiting to do the restoration work! Amazing!

So we spent more time chit-chatting than we did looking around the Fort - although by then we had gone through most of the buildings, but all in all a really special visit on both a personal and a cultural level.

We saw: the non-commissioned officers' quarters and common room / kitchen.

... the workshop, smithy, woodshop....

... the stables with a not so very ambulatory horse...

... the bath house, the Commissioner's residence including the fur of a raccoon, a lynx and the now-extinct prairie grizzly ...

Now we are holed up in the Willowbend Hotel in Maple Creek. This is a small town, conveniently placed (from our point of view) between Fort Walsh and our next stop - Grasslands National Park where we are off to tomorrow.

Of peculiar items seen during today's evening stroll:

Their system of listing businesses on the signpost for each street.
A fun stop sign with a cowgirl on it.
Below just one example of many decorated front gardens - this one with a miniature staircase for the little gnomes living in the tree.

May/June 2022

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