Saskatchewan Trip - Day 1

We rented a small apartment in a town in south central Saskatchewan.  It was in an old building that once housed an implement dealership.  Interestingly enough, the other half of the building contained a portrait studio that was operated by a local photographer.  We chatted with him and got some pointers on places that we might visit.

I refer to June 13th as day one of our trip to Saskatchewan as it was the first day that we actually got out and did some exploring.  The trip actually began on June 12th, but that day was spent on the road, just getting to our base.

We headed out to the southwest and explored anything that we came across that was of interest.  There was no shortage of subject matter, but we did end up putting a lot of miles on the truck driving from place to place.  We put on at least 1800km just getting to and from our base, and then at least 2000km more driving around and exploring for the week.

Many small towns in Saskatchewan have signs honoring local hockey players that made it to the NHL.  We saw signs for Bryan Trottier, Mark Lamb, Gord Kluzak and Patrick Marleau.  Of course the great Gordie Howe was also from Saskatchewan, though we didn't visit his home town.

We were surprised to find that there were also still phone booths in many of the small towns.  I haven't seen a functional one back in Alberta for many years, but we ran across several in Saskatchewan and they were all operational.

At one point during our first day we stopped in at the Val Marie Hotel to scout it for the Beer Parlour Project.  Mostly it was a Chinese Canadian restaurant, but one side of it was a tavern.  At the time of our visit it was mostly tourists that were in attendance, presumably due to its proximity to Grasslands National Park.  We were not able to arrange a Beer Parlour session for this visit, but perhaps we will return at a later date.  Like many of the old hotels that we visited on our trip, this one was for sale.

Many people get a kick out of visiting the town of Climax as it has a sign on the highway as you leave that says "please come again".  There is also an old abandoned service station that was once called "Dick's Service".  Pretty amusing to say the least.

We left our apartment first thing in the morning after coffee and breakfast, and didn't return until around sunset.  This would be our routine for the entire week that we spent in the area.  By the end of it all we were pretty tired, but we came away with some great experiences and lots of wonderful photos.  Here is a selection of phone snapshots that I took during our first day out exploring.