Prairie Highways, Harvests, and Headaches- Postcards from Canada

Well, it’s almost the end of January, 2026, and I am finally getting back to writing some posts from my 2025 cross-Canada road trip. As my loyal readers know, posts from that trip were few and far between because I was mostly camping, with limited access to power and wifi, and because of technical issues with WordPress. The “Headaches” referenced in the title above are still on-going, months later, but various medical assessments have been made and treatment options are being explored. Despite those headaches, which began in Nova Scotia and worsened as I began my journey homeward, I continued to make the most of my travels and to appreciate all that I saw and experienced. I’m not quite sure how to best organize upcoming posts, but I have to start somewhere so I will begin with heading west, homeward, from my last post written in Winnipeg. We’ll see how it goes after that!

Heading West – From Manitoba into Saskatchewan

My last post was written in Winnipeg where I had  decided stay in the same excellent airbnb that I had stayed in on my way east.  It was late August and I had been suffering from daily headaches for about a month. They had worsened in severity as I travelled across northern Ontario, and I was at the point where I felt that I might need medical attention.  I had the entire peaceful and quiet main floor of a small house to myself so I rested a lot, did laundry, downloaded photos, worked on my blog post, and rested some more.   The following morning, feeling somewhat refreshed, I decided to carry on with my journey so I quickly made my way out of the city and onto wonderfully quiet secondary highways that were as straight as an arrow.

I could drive with speed, and yet look all around at fields that stretched far to the horizon, including this immense field of sunflowers! What an expanse!

I walked a short way into that field,

and it was a bit freaky because there were so many large grasshoppers flying about, as well as literally hundreds and hundreds of black beetles on the ground, moving very quickly every which way all around my feet, and they could jump forward at least eight inches!  I’ve never seen anything like it!  I dragged my focus away from those bizarre beetles, up to the large nodding sunflower heads that were heavy with seed, and I was charmed to find one late bloomer that was doing things in its own way and on its own time.

Continuing westwards, I passed fields and fields of ripe wheat, and of corn that was taller than me.

I also stopped often to photograph the built environment of grain storage elevators, some historic, tall and angular, clad in faded wood, and others newer, round, metallic, and grouped in clusters. Whether old or new, they act as vertical punctuation marks on this horizontal landscape, and they proclaim modern human dominion over the prairie.

I made a stop at the small St. Paul’s Anglican Church (1910) in Baie St. Paul and admired the peaceful lines of its interior architecture. These small prairie churches are almost always unlocked and well cared for, and they evoke the hopes, labours, and community connections of generations past.

After a morning of quiet roads, the Google Lady directed me to the Trans Canada Highway for a (thankfully) short part of the drive, and then I was back on secondary highways again, heading roughly northwest, with the roads now losing their arrow-straightness as they began to curve and rise and fall around small hills on the approach to Riding Mountain National Park.  It was a beautiful drive, but the park itself and the campground were a little underwhelming.  It was still early in the day, but I was already feeling tired, and a headache was growing. I took a slow easy walk along the lakefront, read for a bit, and had a quiet dinner in camp. I retired early, but my headache was growing to massive proportions and I had a rough night.

The following morning, just as I was leaving Riding Mountain, I got a “How are you doing?” call from a kind friend and I immediately and tearfully blurted out my worries about my ongoing headaches. She got in touch with a nurse practitioner and urged me to visit an ER for a CT and bloodwork. I decided that it was past time to finally seek some medical help so rather than continuing northwest, I decided to head southwest to Regina to visit a hospital. I was still determined, though, to enjoy the beautiful prairie landscapes as I travelled. It was a gorgeous morning, and I enjoyed the quiet highway that curved up and over low hills, past golden wheat fields, and beside many ponds and small lakes that were edged with deep green.

Here, I felt lucky to see a beaver swimming across a placid pond that reflected the bright morning sky.

Sandy Lake looked like a great little town,

and I loved the curving lines of shorn wheat on this field.

I continued to stop often for postcard photos as I made my way west and crossed into Saskatchewan. The fields of canola that had been in bright yellow bloom when I travelled east in June were now a mottled mix of green and pale burgundy, with long pods filled with seed,

and in some fields purple-tinged clover filled the air with sweet scent.

By early afternoon I was driving along on the very straight Highway 22, past the huge mine buildings and tailings of the world’s largest potash mine near Esterhazy,

and about 80 km later I stopped for a much-needed lunch break in a small shaded Lions park at the far end of the tiny town of Neudorf. A large RV with B.C. plates was parked there and a couple sat at one of the picnic tables. They noticed my B.C. plates and struck up a conversation, and we were soon aware of an amazing coincidence. I had met this couple, Jack and Stella, briefly, on a trail in Manitoba’s Spruce Woods Provincial Park exactly two months prior and here we were together in a small park beside a little-travelled highway in the-middle-of-nowhere-Saskatchewan. Even more amazing is that when I first met them I had been walking the last section of trail with a couple from Winnipeg, Jill and Ralf, who had later visited me in my campsite, and afterwards they had also visited with Jack and Stella! My call on this very morning from “a kind friend” had been from Jill, who was following my travels via my blog and texts, with Ralf beside her! So, in the huge expanse that is Canada, what are the odds that five people who met one day on a trail in Manitoba, should somehow connect together on one day a full two months later? Not very likely at all! When we realized the connection, Jack and Stella and I called Jill and Ralf to say hello and texted them a selfie. It truly was an amazing coincidence!

I continued on the drive west and enjoyed the sweeping swoosh of the descent into the beautiful Qu’Appelle River valley.

In Fort Qu’Appelle, I visited its museum which features one of the oldest buildings on the Canadian prairies – an original building from the Hudsons Bay Company trading post that was built here in 1864.

I didn’t stay long at the museum, as the day was now very warm and I was beginning to tire, but I did take time to admire the beautiful artistry of colourful Métis beadwork, and of a buffalo hide painting, done in a traditional style, by Wayne Goodwill, a former chief of the Standing Buffalo Dakota First Nation. Chief Goodwill’s ancestors had arrived in Canada in 1867 with Sitting Bull who was his great-great-grand uncle.

I drove down Fort Qu’Appelle’s main street and stopped to photograph the Hudsons Bay Company Store which was built here of brick and stone in 1897. It is is oldest surviving retail HBC store building in Canada. There, I ran into Jack and Stella again, and they urged me to visit a wonderful bakery down the street. Full of locals who were seated at the front of the cafe, and owned by Brad, the butter tarts and saskatoon berry tarts were delicious!

Reluctantly, I soon made my way onto busier roads and then Highway 1 into Regina where I visited a very crowded ER. Four hours later, the waiting room was just as full as when I had arrived, with new people constantly arriving that looked worse off than me. I was tired, and I had a headache (!) so I decided to leave. It was early evening, and I considered camping stealth in a residential district close to the hospital, but I was feeling anxious in the city so I decided to head some sixty kilometres south to the small town of Milestone to camp in their municipal campground. En-route, I stopped to photograph an old red barn that was bathed in the golden light of the lowering sun,

while directly across the highway, to the west, that light filtered through the dust raised by a pickup truck as it drove fast along a gravel road.

And, as I arrived in Milestone, that setting sun cast a rose-gold light onto railroad tracks that stretched toward the horizon.

I had a better night in Milestone, woke early, cooked up a breakfast, and then continued westward for a great morning of prairie driving. The road stretched ahead of me, with endless views all around, and I stopped often, including here,

where I was curious about something. On the left side of the highway, for many miles, were acres and acres of golden wheat, ready for harvest,

and on the other side was a rusty-coloured crop that I didn’t recognize so I walked a short way into the field to discover Saskatchewan lentils!

I have written before that the prairies are certainly not boring! I loved the rolling terrain of this expansive hay field, recently shorn,

and prairie machinery often caught my eye.

There were windmills, and transport trucks,

isolated farmhouses,

and reminders of days gone by. Here, all was silent as I walked through tall grasses to explore an old homestead.

I stopped in the town of Assiniboia to photograph railway tracks and cars,

and I was inordinately thrilled to get a free soft serve cone with a 30 L fill up at the Co-op. Bonus! Such simple pleasures to be had on the road! I continued, westward on Highway 13,

until I reached Ponteix, a great little Saskatchewan town that I had stopped in on my way east. Their historic grain elevator is so striking!

I made my way to their excellent municipal campground, which is green and nicely shaded, to have a healthy lunch, a bit of a rest, and a shower. Luckily, their outdoor public pool was open so I had a refreshing and very happy swim while kids played around me and their seated moms chatted with each other. Feeling like a new person after my swim, I continued west, with a quick stop in Cadillac to photograph yet another beautiful grain elevator. I had stopped here too when heading east, and had camped in Cadillac’s municipal campground. I really do like small town Saskatchewan!

I passed quite a few oil derricks, small dinosaurs feeding on dinosaurs,

and at this stop to photograph another, I again found a new type of crop that I hadn’t previously noticed.

I guessed from the size of the pod, and the leaf shape that is particular to legumes, that maybe they were chick peas, and I was right!

I continued westward and was excited to finally approach the familiar and well-remembered territory of the hills and range lands of the Frenchman River valley, and the town of Eastend where I planned to camp. I’ve stayed in the municipal campground here twice before, on previous prairie road trips, and had made friends in town with a group of seniors who sit together and chat on a Main Street front porch. The seniors weren’t sitting out today so after choosing my campsite I decided to make the short trip to visit Chimney Coulee, some six kilometres out of town along a curving gravel road that took me up out of the valley, with sweeping views down and back,

and views to the west,

and far distant views to the east.

Chimney Coulee was once, briefly, a Hudsons Bay Company trading post. It was established in 1871, but was abandoned after only a few years because of frequent skirmishes in the area between parties of Blackfoot and Assiniboine and Cree warriors. Later in the decade, some sixty families of Métis settled in the area, and in 1877 a Northwest Mounted Police detachment of three men was established here as a stopover between the larger Fort Walsh and Wood Mountain detachments. A principal task of the detachment was to run patrols and to keep an eye on Sitting Bull and his thousands of Sioux followers who were camped south of Chimney Coulee, near present-day Eastend. The NWMP detachment closed in 1887, and over time the Metis left the area, leaving behind their house foundations and stone chimneys for which the coulee is named. The last chimney collapsed in 1915, and there is very little to see today, beyond several information boards. Trees and grasses have overtaken the site, but it was still a beautiful and worthwhile stop.

I decided to continue a ways further beyond Chimney Coulee, and the road rose higher and up to a gorgeous and beckoning expanse of rolling prairie grassland. The photo below, sadly, does not even begin to do justice to how beautiful that place was, and how enticing the road ahead.

The road whispered, “keep going”, and I wanted to say yes, but my decision and strong conviction was, “I’ll come here again.”

I turned my Toyota around and enjoyed the return journey, still exulting in the views. I made a last stop here,

for a view across to the deep green band of cottonwoods that line both sides of the Frenchman River in its valley. The town of Eastend is hidden beyond the trees, but its old wooden grain elevator can be seen to the left, between the trees and the hills behind. My campsite was down there somewhere, positioned right beside and above the river, and I now knew that Sitting Bull and his people had also camped somewhere in the near vicinity!

I made dinner, and then took an evening walk through the campground and alongside the river to the town. It was a peaceful way to end another day on the road, full of harvest-ready prairie vistas, from Milestone Manitoba to Eastend Saskatchewan.

P.S. A fond hello to Jill and Ralf, Jack and Stella! 🙂

P.P.S. Apologies for the excessive length of this post! I’ll aim for shorter posts going forward. 🙂