Hey Folks,
Greetings from Kisbey Saskatchewan, about 90 K from the Manitoba border down on Highway 13.
It is sunset, I have a full belly, and I'm dodging mossies while I sit alone in an empty campground beneath a lopsided moon.
Today I peddled 165 K! Well, to tell the truth, the wind blew me 165 K, I was only peddling to keep warm. One hundred sixty five kilometers, that's over 100 miles, a personal record for me, surpassing my previous record by a good 10 K.
Of course, how I came to do 165 K down a windy prairie highway is the real story.
Last you all heard I was in Val Marie, debating whether or not to take a day off. I didn't! The mossies were just too bad, and with word coming from Winnipeg that they'd accepted my application to come work for the Winnipeg Folk Festival, I figured I'd best get moving.
That was a tough day. Once again, I found out Saskatchewan does in fact have hills. Steep bloody hills that go on for miles and miles, or do short humps straight over hills, one right after the other.
Apparently they never learned about running roads along the contours of the land here. If there's a hill, they just go right up and over it, and if there's another behind it, they go up and over that one too. The only time the roads run along the contours is when the hills are so steep they can't get up it no how.
That day would have been hellish, except for one thing, it was absolutely beautiful, and so were the hills, and the hills behind the hills. There were pronghorns and foxes, rivers and valleys, wavering grass as far as the eye could see.
Many hours after I set out I pulled into the sleepy berg of Wood Mountain. There wasn't much in the Wood, a few houses, a scrap metal yard, a grain elevator, and a town hall, all wedged together in a little valley. Heck, there wasn't even a campground! My guide book said there was, but the town manager explained, "that was maybe 30 years ago!"
The campground, as it turned out, was some 10 K south of town, in a setting of trees up on the high prairie. I was appalled that after all my hard riding that day, 80 some odd K, I had to now get back on Wheels and peddle up and over more hills, just to find a legitimate campsite.
I growled all the way up those hills until I reached the gate where I beheld a sign, with an arrow, that said: Sitting Bull Monument.
Turns out, much to my personal glee, the campground is located right next to the coulees and rolling hills where Sitting Bull and his Ogala Sioux camped for the four years they spent in Canada. It was from here that Crazy Horse took his warriors to explore the Frenchman Valley, and it was here that Sitting Bull first made contact with the North West Mounted Police, and it was here that he and his people began their long sad exodus back to the US.
Just to be in that place, where one of my personal heroes made some of the toughest decisions of his life, ended my grumbling. After dinner I climbed to his monument, picked some sage, and spent some time doing some sitting of my own.
Dinner was a another story.
Just after I'd arrived the fellow whose wife was taking care of the campground came by to check out my bike.
"Hi, how ya doin'," he asked, affably.
"I could use some protein," I said, sort of off the wall. "My legs are aching and I'm having trouble getting the tissue rebuilt. These hills are kicking my butt."
"I got a freezer full of steaks," he said, a glint in his eye. "Would you like one?"
"No, no, its okay," I replied, being civil (I wanted a bloody steak). "I've got some quinoa in my bag, its pure protein, I should cook that up."
"Hey, you can have steak, hamburger, whatever you like. I'll send my wife by with some for you. Just say the word."
I could tell the guy wasn't about to let me say no, and I didn't want to say no, so I said: "Oh, okay, steak or burger, whatever is easiest. Thanks."
An hour later I was sawing up a beautiful big T-Bone and mixing it in with my pasta sauce! It was some of the most tender, succulent, restorative meals I've ever eaten in my life! Every bite of the beast went to my legs and, by the end of dinner, I was ready to dance, but I climbed the hill to pay my respects to Sitting Bull instead.
From the hill one can see the treed coulee and slopes where the Ogala set up their semi-permanent camp. It is a high patch of prairie with a few mounded hills surrounding it. From the top of those hills one can look out over the prairie for miles and miles in every direction. It was a good place for a people on the run. Had the US army ever pursued them there, they would have seen them coming for days.
When the bugs grew too bad up the hill, I returned to my camp and caught an early night. As I went to bed that night I told myself, "if there's a south wind tomorrow I'm rolling, if not, I'm finally taking the day off."
It rained in the night, lightning cracked, thunder boomed, and I slept like a baby, dry and warm until the early prairie sun drove me from my tent and out into the mossie-mad fresh air.
Working quickly I packed up and cooked breakfast at the same time. I'm getting very good at that. I can put water on for coffee and completely fold up all the gear inside the tent in the time it takes for the water to boil. When the coffee is made I put on another pot of water to pour over my porridge. While it boils, I take the tent apart. On this day I needed to air it all out a bit because it was a mite damp.
Once the water is on the porridge, I put away the tent and its inards. Then I sit and write, whilst the porridge cools. By time I'm done writing, the porridge is cool and ready to eat. Once its eaten, I clean the pot, put it back with the other pot, and fold it into my BoB. When the pots go in the BoB, its time to go. Everything else is packed up. The last thing I do is put the pots in the BoB. Once BoB is loaded, I put on my lid and glasses, check the load, and away I go. The whole process usually lasts an hour or two, depending on my plans for the day. In cases of rain or inclemency, it can all come down in about 15 minutes.
Riding out of Wood Mountain that Saturday morning, in a firm south wind, my camp hosts, a very sweet pair, he owns the scrapyard in town, and she sits on all the town boards, came riding along the highway. They rolled down the window of their SUV and he hollered.
"I guess the steak worked eh!"
"Yeah, it worked great. THANK YOU!"
They rolled away, speeding up hills and over them in minutes. It would take me hours.
Although the day began with a firm south wind, it soon changed. I'd only gone about 15 K towards the village of Limerick, about 60 K away, when the wind did an about face and came at me from the front. It was deadly. For nearly four hours I struggled up the hills, yes folks, more Saskatchewan hills, in 25 to 30 K headwinds. By time I reached Limerick, in the middle of the afternoon, both my thighs felt like watermelons, big and hard and ready to burst.
At Limerick I checked the weather forcast. This was the day the tornadoes hit Manitoba, a few hundred K down the very road I was turning onto. The forcast was for severe thunderstorms, adverse wind, and ugly, ugly, ugly, weather.
I decided my best bet might be to get as far down the road as possible. I turned on my jets and faced even more headwinds dragging myself another 20 K up the road, to Assiniboia. If I didn't have watermelon thighs when I got to Limerick, by time I made Assiniboia my legs were ready to grow seeds. They were so big, and hot, and sore and tingly. Meanwhile, the wind was growing more and more adverse, coming straight out of the east, growing in velocity.
To make a long story short, I spent the next day and half between a bed and a bathtub, soaking my watermelons and catching up on some long lost sleep! It was expensive. It was extravagant. It was just what I needed!
When Monday morning rolled around I was ready to go again. Setting out in a headwind, howling and cursing it to no end, I made all right time, all things considered, until I reached the area around Willow Bunch Lake, where I encountered my last Saskatchewan hill (at least for now). It was tough grind but when I reached the top of that hill something truly remarkable happened. The heavy east wind turned right around and became a 30K west wind, a tail wind, the wind that makes cycling a truly enjoyable pasttime.
That wind blew me into the town of Ogema, 80 K from where my day had begun. I set up camp, had some laughs with my camp hostess, cooked dinner, and was about to call it a night, when in rolled a family of five on bikes. They were the Dodsworths of Nelson, BC. And guess where they were going! Yup, that's right, the Winnipeg Folk Festival!
So there I was, in a light prairie rain, with the wind blowing out of the west, with a family of five from my place of origin. We laughed, told stories, revelled in the syncronicity of it all, and caught an early night.
This morning I was up about 5:30 and ready to go. I waited for the Dodsworths to do the same until I could wait no more. By time I left at 8:30, only Daddy Dodsworth was up. I told him I'd probably see him and his mob in Weyburn that evening, and set out.
Four hours later I was in Weyburn, having already ridden the 80 K I thought would be my day. A stop at the library to check email, a trip to the grocery store, a talk with a girl smoking a cigarette outside the grocery store, and I was ready to make tracks again.
Five hours later I pulled into Kisbey, another 80 plus K up the road.
Now it is dark. The sky has cleared and the temperatures are falling. The mossies are still at me but they are slowing down.
Like I said before, my belly is full, my mess is clean, and my bed awaits me. As does a new adventure tomorrow.
Talk to you all soon. Hope you're well.
Will
Return to Travelog Mainpage
Return to Will's Homepage