Bye bye Manitoba - Hello Saskatchewan!

With Donnie all packed and ready to go, we left Roseisle, and began our journey through the Prairies.

The first day of driving was completely uneventful, but we were once again dazzled by the kindness of strangers when the park managers, Brian and Louise in Ceylon provincial park, invited us to have dinner with them, and join them for breakfast the next morning! We graciously accepted and were warmed by their hospitality.

The next day, Donnie informed us he needed an oil change, so we swung by moose jaw to change our oil and just so happened to pass by a giant moose, with whom we had to get our pictures taken.

Once we got back on the road we pushed on westwards. We were hoping to visit the 'Old man on his back prairie' which is a nature conservancy of Canada heritage site which is home to a herd of plains bison. Back in Toronto I fundraised for the NCC and specifically told people about this heritage site as a success story of protecting endangered species in Canada. We almost turned back because the road to get there was pretty muddy but I'm so glad we pushed on because it was so rewarding and fascinating to see the place in person!

We walked 10 or so minutes to the top of a hill where we could see the entire horizon for as far as you can imagine. We sighted three bison just on the other side of the hill and holy shit are they massive! They trotted and jumped around the land, grazing as they went. It was wonderful to see them in their natural environment and to see this place that I was working towards in the flesh!

We learnt a lot from the land manager who we were lucky enough to drive past and gave us a tour of the visitors centre. The ranchers in the 1900's had brought a lot of invasive grass species over and it was only with lots of work that the next generation of ranchers were able to revert the damage done and return wild prairie grass to the land and eventually, a herd of bison.

Thank you Nature Conservancy of Canada for protecting this land and before that, to all the ranchers and land managers who worked to bring wild prairie grass species and bison back to it.

- HillisLæs mere