Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 12

It is raining and warm and I can hear thunder off in the distance. I'm at the Dawson Trail - Chippewa campground in Quetico Provincial Park. The site is just across from the lake shore site that we stayed at on our bike ride in 2016. It has been a wonderful day of memories of that ride through this area. The gentle roll and of road as it makes its way through this wetland makes the drive as enjoyable as it was to ride.

Enjoyed making my cup of Americano in the morning. I bought some supplies at Walmart in Kenora in the morning. first time in a shop since I left Victoria - Yolanda had made sure I was well supplied for the journey. Prior to breaks in Fort Frances and Atikokan, I stopped at Nestor Falls to stretch my legs and was greeted by two groups of people - one was very curious about how the trailer worked and how it got bigger than it appeared because surely it was too small inside for me and the other was had just bought one like mine except a couple of years older that he got in  the summer to go see the recent eclipse from Oregon.

This was not a great day for wildlife photography although I did manage to see the usual suspects - Ring-billed Gulls (above), Mallards, King Fisher, Turkey Vultures, Mergansers, Red Winged Blackbirds, Northern Flickers, and Canada Geese.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 11

I'm going to miss the prairies. I had originally intended to have a short drive today and spend the night at Saint Ambroise Beach Provincial Park on the south shore of Lake Manitoba. It is one of the birding hot spots in the province. Instead I drove another 320 km to Kenora so I would not have to drive as far tomorrow. I have arrived in the dark and tested my skills at backing the trailer and car up in the dark. I am glad I have two flashlights so I could use them as beacons to light up the edges of the site. The self registration said free wifi but it did not work.

I drove to Lake Manitoba this morning and enjoyed the shoreline of this huge lake with its surrounding light scrub and open fields and marsh. Butterflies and large black dragonflies were still active here. Red Squirrel (below top), Vesper Sparrow, the seemingly ever present Northern Flicker, Franklins Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Plains Garter Snake (below middle), White Crowned Sparrow, Yellow Rumped Warbler, Barn Swallow, Semi Palmated Plover (below bottom), Western Grebe and Eared Grebe were present here - it was great. I could have stayed until morning but the place was pretty remote and no one else was camped there nor did it look like anyone had stayed there in a while.

Going by Winnipeg, I had to go to a mandatory watercraft inspection station - primarily they, like BC, AB, and SK are trying to stop the spread of Zebra Mussels into their provinces - I'm taking my Canoe to Zebra Mussel ground zero - we'll be getting the canoe, paddles and life jackets decontaminated when we come back through. Think we'll wear warm clothes that day.

Interesting that as I moved out of the plains and into the boreal forests of the Canadian Shield, Ravens were the dominant bird in groups in the fields.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 10

This is night 2 in Wasagaming. I’m in a new site but still at the same campground. My original intention was to spend tonight at Moon Lake which was further north and a more basic campground. When I went there, no one else was occupying it and it was more or less cut off because it was in the middle of a highway construction zone as they were resurfacing the highway. I was hoping to have a place at the lake shore but there was nothing suitable. I toured the park to the north and then headed back to Wasagaming. It is quite a beautiful park up in elevation, an escarpment above the prairie, wooded and not grassland. I had gotten spoiled by the open vista of the prairie where I had been able to spot things far off. Not so here. The pickings were slimmer than I had been used to.

This morning, while making breakfast, I figured out why my eggs had been breaking – there was a glass jar of jam in the cooler that was bashing into things while I was driving. The evidence was in the lid of my peanut butter that looked like someone had taken a small hammer to it. I also figured out a better way to support the canoe on the car so that the canoe would not shift.

It was a very pleasant morning on Clear Lake. I walked out to the end of a little island that has the marina on it and spent a little time out there and saw Ring-billed Gulls and Red-necked Grebe (below). I also went to the visitor centre (above top) and set up my own little make shift office in their theatre so I could update the blog and edit.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 09

There is a big electrical storm here in Wasagaming, Manitoba at Riding Mountain National Park. I just got soaked setting up the trailer. I arrived just at sundown, so with the rain and the darkness I decided to go into town to have dinner. Unfortunately being a tourist town, a little like Jasper, this is off season and places are closed except for a place on the boardwalk that sells burgers and hot dogs – I was cold, wet and hungry – it was great. I over heard a fellow say they are getting more rain than they had all summer. Bad day to wear jeans.

Rain this morning made for some treacherous driving. I found myself struggling on the roads both gravel and paved. The roads had driving ruts where standing water formed. I was hydroplaning. Worried about the trailer dust problem, I was glad I was no longer dealing with the now wet and lacking dust gravel road. Even when I hit the good pavement I drove through the heaviest rain ever. The problem magnified because with the Prairie winds and the moisture I found myself having to get out in the rain and adjust the canoe more than before. I had not mentioned it before but with the canoe and the Prairie winds when doing 110 km per hour and a big Semi goes by is quite unnerving - the canoe does move and the ratchet straps loosen.

The sky was full of migrating birds, in particular Canada Goose. I also got a chance to see Double Crested Cormorants, Hawks, Ross's Goose, and Snow Goose (above with four Ross's Goose-shorter bill).

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 08

Tonight I am at Rowan’s Ravine Provincial Park on Last Mountain Lake in Saskatchewan. Again, I arrived late and today I traveled lots of gravel road with fine dust that unfortunately covered everything in the trailer with a coat in both the sleeping quarters and the kitchen. Drag. Earlier as I headed north on a mission there was a brief delay. I was flagged down by a passing motorist letting me know the back hatch on my trailer was open. Amazingly nothing was amiss. Not even the barely placed tea towel on top of one of the tubs.

It was a fantastic day. I had breakfast with Rick and Maureen. The three of us had a little tour before check out and saw where my father's father had practiced dentistry from 1924 until 1937 (above top), before he moved to Victoria. In 1976 while hitchhiking across Canada, I visited Moose Jaw for the first time. I stayed with Forbes and Marion - Marion was the daughter of my father's paternal uncle Gordon. Forbes introduced me to the dentist who was still practicing and had taken over my grandfather's practice back. My father’s parents had rented next door (on left) to the office until they bought the house on Henleaze (above bottom) – next stop.

We also drove, just outside west of Moose Jaw, to Boharm, a little community that is mere shadow of its former self (above top). This was where my paternal great grandfather moved with his family from Staffa Ontario – he had the general store in Boharm. Again, Forbes had taken me to see the store in 1976 – he and Marion had run it until they closed it in 1974. After a couple of conversations with locals we found which building, now a home, had been the general store (above bottom). One of the locals had been there all of his life and remembered my great grandfathers family. At the stand of the great Moose, Rick and Maureen and I parted ways just after noon. They headed south to Grasslands eastblock.

I headed to the observation tower at the Last Mountain Lake Migratory Bird Sanctuary, a Moist Mixed–grass Prairie ecoregion within the Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area. On the way I saw American Avocet, Sandhill Cranes (below top), Canada Goose, Ross's Goose (below bottom), Greater White-fronted Goose all in the hundreds standing and landing in fields. I feel privileged and grateful for these opportunities. Most times I remember to thank the birds for posing. The observations at the tower were only lacking by what I had seen elsewhere on my travels this day. This was not the time of year for this spot to be at its prime. Note to self – come back in April.

I also figured out a new to me trick. My camera with its big lens lack geo-tagging. With my naturalist postings I like to note the location of the observation. I found that I can take a close to simultaneous tag photo of the overall location with my phone.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 07

I just had dinner with my brother, Rick, and sister inlaw, Maureen, at Original Joes on Main Street in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. I was famished as I did not have much of a lunch. And even though I had already had snacks in the motor home that they are touring about in, I ordered appetizers – I’m sure I saw Rick do a double take.

 In the morning I went back to the badlands and drove out to the red chair that had been placed further up the road from where I had wished to go last night. The weather was much better. No need for thermal underwear or rain gear. I passed a Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel at the Parks Canada farm house just before the badlands park entrance.

The view of the badlands today was fantastic and clearly these are lands that, at the time, are of little use except importantly to be an ecological reserve and to be part of the Dark Sky Preserve – this is an area where no artifical light is visible and there are active measures in place to educate and promote the reduction of light pollution. Grassland National Park is considered the darkest of Canada’s 14 Dark Sky Preserves.

I drove as far as I could which was all the way to the US/Canada border (above) where I saw Mule deer and a Richardson's Ground Squirrel (below).

I stopped in at the farmhouse to get a second chance at seeing the ground squirrel. Not this time, I would have to patiently wait to see it but I wanted to look around a little. What I did see was a Great Horned Owl - huge with a wing span of 44 inches. Caught on my camera but one can only see the wings and tail feathers, the head is obscured by leaves – good enough for a positive ID.

Just by chance, I messaged Rick and Maureen at noon to say I was headed north from Grasslands and would be stopping in Moose Jaw (the birthplace of my father) to do my laundry and to wash the car before I headed north. They are bringing my younger sister and her husband’s 20ft Class B Motorhome from Halifax back to the left coast. Rick and Maureen replied and said they were in Virden (the birthplace of my mother) having lunch. They had plans to stay in Moose Jaw overnight and asked if I would join them. Absolutely. I arrived at the Prairie Oasis a couple of hours before them so I had time to wash the car and trailer and to shower and do laundry.

On the way I got the chance to see a little more wild life including the American Avocet (above), more hawks and harriers, and Killdeer and other shore birds.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 06

I have arrived at Rock Creek Campground, Grasslands National Park, East Block, for the evening. Nestled in a coulee, the site is brand new – they have been open for one month with all of the neatly raked sites surrounded by dark brown earth waiting for plantings or to be filled in naturally from the surrounding grasslands.

This morning I had decided I had had enough of the overcast windy 8 degree weather and broke out my thermal underwear – a choice that paid off. A short hike from the Frenchman Valley campsite , at the crest of a lookout, Parks Canada has placed one of their Red Chairs. The Red chairs are paired, red, Adirondack chairs that are placed by Parks Canada where the vista is breathtaking. The view was incredible overlooking the valley below where yesterday I had seen a herd of bison. Saw a Brown Thrasher (below top), Yellow-headed Blackbird, Red-naped Sapsucker (juvenile below middle), and a Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel (below bottom).

As I was on my way out of the park I slowed down at the area where I had seen a Burrowing Owl last night and again, today, in lighting I saw more owl.

On the way to the east block I had to refuel and drove 60 km out of the way to Lafleche to get regular gas. The drive to Rock Creek and then later to see the badlands gave chance to see lots of hawks, sometimes a dozen standing spread out in a field - including Red-tailed hawk (below top) and Swainson's Hawk (immature below bottom). As well I saw many White-tailed deer and Sharp-tailed Grouse.

The badlands were in the southern most reach of the park and are areas that are comprised of dry grossly eroded sedimentary rock and clay soil with steep slopes and minimal vegetation. The weather was poor with rain coming at any moment and the road was just tracks in the clay soil in some places. I did not venture far for fear of getting the car stuck in a downpour.