(Pre)History And Hiking

Today, I'm writing about the rest of our Saskatchewan road trip. You can read the first part here.

The second day we woke up and went to Eastend, where the largest and oldest T Rex in the world (to date) was discovered. Scotty was first found in the mid-90s, is assumed to have been about 28 years old when he (or she -- the experts think Scotty may have been female) died, and weighed 8,870 kilograms (almost 20,000 pounds).

On the left is actual dinosaur bone marrow and on the right is Scotty. Now Scotty's actual bones are in a vault somewhere so these are all recreations. And the bones which were a different colour were the only ones which were actually found, as Scotty wasn't a complete skeleton. What I found most interesting is that, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Saskatchewan was as tropical as Florida is today.

The discovery centre was an interesting mix of fun things to do and facts about dinosaurs and Scotty.

After the Discovery Centre, we took a short hike in the area. Definitely no longer a tropical oasis, this was through prairie grasslands. And we had to be careful not to step on the small cacti scattered throughout.

I thought it was so beautiful and stark.

The next day we drove into Cypress Hills Provincial Park (the East Block) to visit Fort Walsh. Fort Walsh is where the RCMP (our national police force) based themselves as the seat of government in the west in the late 1880s. For me it was an interesting mix of "rah rah RCMP" and being aware that we were hearing only one side of a complicated story.

These are all pictures from the fort. I found it very interesting that there were no women in the fort. Also, in the picture on the right, those blue bottles were used as fire extinguishers. They were in every building and we were all trying to figure out what they were. I also found it interesting to see all the tools which various RCMP trades (carpenter, blacksmith, etc) used to perform their tasks.

On the left, are some wild roses which were growing on the path to the fort. To the right, is a view of the hills from the visitor centre on the way to the fort. This day was very smoky which is why the view isn't very clear.

After we left Fort Walsh, we drove to the Centre Block of Cypress Hills Park and hiked in the forest for about an hour. It was so gorgeous. A thunderstorm came through so the last part of our hike was a little rushed as we attempted to make it back to the van before the rain hit. We were (mostly!) successful :)

After we finished with our hike, we drove further into the park to check out the view. On a clear day you can supposedly see for about 100km (60 miles) but this was not a clear day. The view was still gorgeous though.

We got a huge kick out of all the times we had to avoid cows on the road. My dad, who was driving, may not have been as thrilled with the cow traffic but Rachel, Dave, and I loved it! On this afternoon, they really wanted to drink from the puddles of rain on the road.

The next day was our last day and we had thought about doing more hiking, but it was just too smoky, so we headed home instead.

It's hard to see in this picture but the flax was blooming blue and I was trying to get a picture of it. I didn't really succeed but you can kind of see the blue on the field.

 

This was such a fun road trip. I loved seeing parts of Saskatchewan I hadn't seen in a long time and parts which I had never experienced. And Dave and the kids had never been to this area of the province. It was a lovely little mini vacation in the midst of our larger vacation in Saskatchewan. Next time, I think we'll have to experience Northern Saskatchewan because it is gorgeous in a very different way.