Saskatchewan And Crossing the Border

Day 36

After washing the RV, we headed east again to visit another Airedale owner in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, a town of about 2,400 about 8 kilometers south of Rte. 1. We found Dale and Halia's home with good directions that she had provided on Friday. They kindly treated us to a delicious bountiful lunch with scrumptious food prepared for a party planned for the evening. Dale is a surveying engineer and Halia is an IT person with expertise in GIS and AutoCad. They are both displaced easterners who had lost jobs and moved west. They are wonderful people with 'dales Ginger and Jasmine, sweet dispositioned and very calm compared to our two dogs.

Dale and Halia have extensively remodeled their home over the past two years and it is beautiful! After a short, but fun, visit with these hospitable folks, we headed east again, planning to be in Montana on Saturday night. Well the best laid plans...

At this moment we are sitting in the entrance road of a gas pipeline compressor station where we spent the night. Wal-Mart's it's not, but we are in the middle of the Saskatewan prairie stretching to the horizon in all directions waiting for the border to open at 0900.

Here's the rest of the story. We took what looked on the map to be the shortest route on what appeared to be main roads. Haha! We drove nearly 100 miles on these roads which were in terrible condition, crumbling pavement with gravel filled holes where the surface had been chewed up by heavy machinery, trucks and frost, I presume. What a mess. In the final 60 miles, we saw a total of 5 other vehicles!!

We were now in Monchy, SK. It turns out that Monchy is nothing but a border station and what appears to be an unoccupied dwelling. There was a fellow 100 meters away who motioned to us when we stopped at the gate. I went to talk with him. He lambasted me for being there yelling and telling me I was lucky I wasn't shot, to get back on the Canadian side of the border immediately. I explained to him that I thought he was signalling for me to come, so I did. He continued to rant and rave, telling me that there was a 24-hour border station 200 miles either east or west from here. Well, I was not about to drive back on these worthless roads in the dark, and that he, whoever he was, (he never identified himself as part of Homeland Security), but said that he would have to make '16 phone calls' because I had come across the border 100 meters (I can only presume he was full of crap, or that I had triggered some motion detectors.) I did not want to piss him off any more than he was, after all he may have been the customs agent and I wanted no trouble when we did cross the border in the morning. He was not to be reasoned with so I went back to Canada to spend the night.

So ends our quiet, peaceful night on the prairie in sight of the border and some distant farm buildings and grain bins and a few oil wells, only one of which is pumping. The day has dawned clear and we watched a herd of deer grazing in the gray stubble of last year's crop. The five deer, along with a red fox, many yellow bellied birds, a red fox and a couple of Canadian geese have been sharing the prairie with us this peaceful Sunday morning. So ends our 8 day Canadian adventure. Next stop, Malta, Montana, for some gas and a cup of coffee. Hopefully, Malta really is a town rather than a dot on the map with a label, like Monchy. And I pray for much better roads on Rte 191 until we reach U.S. Rte 2 which should be OK. (We met a total of 3 vehicles in the 55 miles from the border to Malta). We will head south then east and probably travel to Williston, ND for the night (We traveled to Dickinson, ND, instead...400 miles of prairie, and are staying the night.)

We have another hour to wait until the border opens on this beautiful May morning on the endless prairie.