On Thursday we hit our 40000km on the road! We went to Saskatoon in search for a new Scala Rider communication system, as David’s one isn’t properly charging anymore. Unfortunately our search wasn’t successful, so we will go in silence 😊
Once we’ve left Saskatoon, the landscape changed from prairies into bushes when we were heading north. We drove via Prince Albert to Weirdale, where we slept on a weird campground… it was a community campground without any running water, washrooms, electricity, the Christmas lights were still into the trees and we didn’t see any living soul.
Friday morning was a chilly one, it was only 8°C and the more we went north, the colder it went ( 7-11°C). We drove from Weirdale to Smeaton and took Hwy 106 to Flin Flon where we entered a new Province Manitoba. The drive was amazingly beautiful, it reminded us to Alaska; lots of spruces and birch woods. The autumn is slowly arriving, especially visible in the many birch trees. Around noon we stopped for a hot coffee at Olga’s place. She and her husband were originally from Siberia and they live now in northern Saskatchewan because it reminded them of Siberia.
Arriving in Flin Flon, we learned that the funny name is based after Josiah Flintabratey Flonatin, the main character in ‘the sunless city’. A fiction novel found in 1914 by prospectors near the present site of the city.
It started raining in the evening and continued throughout Saturday.
We took a very lonely and desolate road, we were not only looking for a well-deserved hot coffee but also a gas station! We were lucky to have our spare fuel with us, otherwise we were not able to reach the first open gas station. We arrived with a reserve of 40kms in our tank. Happy to find fuel for Jaak and Mieke, but no hot coffee for us 😊. In our opinion, this part of Canada is the last frontier and not Alaska. Not only fuel and coffee were missing, but also a campground. So we decided to set-up our tent somewhere in the woods, despite the bear risk.
We woke up on a sunny Sunday and full energy we started the day. At the first fuek station we filled up, had a nice cup of coffee and had a good chat with a nice elderly couple, born and married (54yrs) in Gypsumville. At this moment, we felt spoiled, as the old lady had cancer and needed to drive at least 200km (one way) to get her treatment.
Sunday is also our laundry day, so we headed to a laundromat in Riverstoke. The laundromat was in the same building as the carwash and owned by Wilma and her husband Rob. A nice couple from whom we learned a lot on the aboriginals in Manitoba and the way of living in Riverstoke.
We ended the day at the Hnausa Beach Campground, at the border of Lake Winnipeg (the 6th biggest lake in Canada).
Today, we first visited Gimli; a settlement founded by Icelanders and still a ‘little Iceland’ in Canada. On the parking lot of the grocery shop, we met a guy who suggested to drive along highway 44 (historical hwy 1) instead of the highway 1. It turned out this advice was very useful . The scenery changed from prairies into bushes and the road from a straight 2-lane road into a small curvy road alongside scenic lakes. The scenery continued on highway 17 where we crossed the border with Ontario. Passing hundreds of lakes, made us stop at Crystal Lake where we’ve put up our tent and decided to write our blog.
