June 25 Regina SK to Moose Mountain Provincial Park

Not a lot of travel today. We are taking a bit of a break over the weekend and take advantage of the lovely weather.

Our campsite on Echo Lake PP was on one of the 4 lakes in the Qu’Appelle Valley formed by the Qu’Appelle River. We just drove along the lakes enjoying the small towns. This is ‘cottage’ country out of Regina.

More family history: as it turned out, the road south towards our campground for the night was at the junction of Whitewood where my grandfather is buried. Our route east towards Whitewood on Hwy 1 took us through Broadview, SK where my great grandmother died. Broadview is the next stop along the CPR tracks west of Whitewood.

All this talk of towns built and / or supplied by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) has induced me to reread Pierre Burton’s book The Last Spike. Pierre Burton was a prolific author of non-fiction Canadian history. His book The Last Spike and the two others that go with it, detail the building of the CPR that took only 4 1/2 years instead of the presumed 10! Now that we have, or will have by the time we get through the Lake Superior route in Ontario this week, driven the length of the CPR from Ontario to British Columbia, the book will be easier to read as I now know where these places are.

We got into our campsite in Moose Mountain PP, another provincial park with similar topography to Cypress Hills, in time for lunch. The site had a view of the lake. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and reading. Dinner was a beautiful piece of Steelhead salmon and the fresh asparagus from the Hutterite market stand and popcorn with our campfire. Lovely way to spend a Sunday.