Saskatchewan... 2nd Day, 2nd Visit

On Tuesday September 17th Margarit and I left the apartment after coffee and breakfast, and headed south to Grasslands National Park.  It was a beautiful sunny day, with Saskatchewan "Living Skies", and the temperature eventually peaked at 30C.

We took the driving tour of the West Block of Grasslands, and made all the tourist stops along the way.  We stopped and checked out a couple of the Black Tailed Prairie Dog colonies.  These rodents are endangered in Canada, and at the northern limit of their range.  They are about double the size of Richardsons Ground Squirrels.... our regular "gophers".  The are very vocal and bark a lot at each other, hence the name.  The ground in their colonies becomes devoid of vegetation and I suspect that eventually they move along to exploit new food sources.

Along the edges of a coulee we found a bunch of tipi rings, and I photographed these with the big view camera.

We continued our drive through the park and eventually exited at the north east corner.  This saw us travel for a number of miles on backroads in a community pasture, before we eventually made it back to the grid roads, and on to the town of Mankota.  Along the way we stopped and photographed an old school.

By this time a large thunderstorm was building, and the clouds looked pretty spectacular.  By the time we got back onto the Red Coat Trail and turned west to our apartment, it was raining heavily.  At one point our phones blared and warned us to take cover from a tornado.  There were hail and heavy rainfall warnings as well.  Fortunately we didn't experience any hail, but the rain was of biblical proportions.  We made it back to the apartment and it rained heavily all night.  Later when we spoke to some of the locals we learned that the town of Cadillac got a little over 5 inches.

Here is a short video I shot with my phone, after we got back to our rental apartment in Cadillac.  I can't recall the last time I have seen rain so severe.  In short little batches... yes.... but sustained rain, that resulted in over 5 inches of accumulation... NO.