Lanigan to Wynyard

We cycled back to the Golf Club for breakfast, as it was the only place open at 8:00 on a Sunday morning. We ate there last night on the advice of the proprietor of the motel, who said it was the best food in town (grilled cheese with Kraft singles?!) We overheard a conversation about a big hailstorm in Viscount yesterday, which had cars pulled over due to poor visibility. We had obviously just missed it!

Easterly winds again today, but lighter, so cycling was easier. We were riding towards rain, but managed to avoid it, again. We passed fields of wheat, barley and canola (and possibly other crops we couldn’t identify from our bikes). There is a lot of water around, so the bird life is plentiful (mosquitoes, too!),  particularly as we got closer to the Quill Lakes, where we saw many pelicans.

There is a whole book written about Saskatchewan place names. Today we passed Kandahar, which was named after a late 19th C British victory in Afganistan; strange, given today’s Canadian connection. We crossed the old Carelton Touchwood trail. At the south end of the trail is a village called Punnichy, which is on the so-called Alphabet Line of the CNR. Some of the communities have disappeared, but the sequences from A to Z are still obvious on a map! We also passed the signpost to Melfort and remembered our year there in 1985/86.

Wildlife Notes: American Goldfinch, Tree Swallows (at nesting boxes), Bonaparte’s Gulls, Double-breasted Cormorants, American White Pelicans (50+ circulating above), Castor canadensis – live and highway kill (Q: why did the beaver cross the road?).

We are now in the traditional territory of the Treaty 4 First Nations. The closest communities are the Kawacatoose and Day Star First Nations.