I had a few minutes
before breakfast to look for birds around the farm yard of our B&B. A Baltimore Oriole posed with his
magnificent orange morning coat on.
We then headed out to
meet up with Trish our tour guide for the day. Cathy had arranged this tour and it turned out to be the
best value around. Trish is a
local rancher bursting with history of the area and access to spots behind
locked gates that encourage the average tourist to think twice about
trespassing.
This is a highly
recommended tour. If you ever get to this part of Saskatchewan be sure to sign
up. You get incredible views of
this massive land of sky and Butte.
Our first stop was to
view the massive dragline scooping coal to feed the ever hungry power plant
needed so I can write this blog.
On our way to Castle
Butte we slowed down to avoid hitting local tourists on the side of the
road. To my surprise it was a
woodturning friend, Rod Peterson and his wife Hazel, on a multi-week tour of
the area.
Climbing Castle Butte
was not as difficult as standing in the gale force winds on top of the Butte.
After leaving Castle
Butte we came across a fashion show where the hair-dos were done up to reflect
the pointy peaks of the local hills.
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| Photo by Cathy |
We drove on to The
Burgess Ranch where Tammy told us tale after tale of the history from the turn
of the century when this area was rife with horse thieves, extortion schemes
and cross boarder skullduggery. She had done a lot of research and filled in
the stories with charcoal sketches she had done of the many men involved. We
ate our boxed lunch as we listened to history come alive.
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| Tammy the story teller and Cathy |
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| On Tammy's gate |
On our way into the
Giles Ranch a family of Killdeer were urging us to leave their babies
alone. We spied four little ones
trying for all the world to look like the surrounding grass.
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| On Alert |
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| Time to fake an injury |
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| Young Killdeer just able to walk, stumbling on the grass. |
Passing through the
gate to the Giles Ranch we soon approached within a few hundred meters of the U.S. boarder
constantly on the lookout for horse thieves. The other side of this fence is
U.S. territory.
The high hill you see
here was a lookout post where theives could look at the progress of posses hunting
for them. The stories really made you believe in the concept of the “Wild
West”.
In former times the
thieves would hide out in “Sam Kelly’s Caves” and have horses in another cave
close by.
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| Cathy standing in the original 'Man Cave' where Sam Kelly and his cohorts hid from the law. |
We finished the tour
by viewing a number of native Effigy sites and headed back to Coronach.
As we reflected on the
day and the unrelenting wind a huge business opportunity seemed so obvious I
can’t understand why nobody has stepped in. The sale of Canadian Flags would be
a gold mine in this place.
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Flag up one hour
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Flag up two hours
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Flag up one day
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Back in Coronach we had a coffee at the local Mini Mart and discussed where to eat with the lady running the store. She recommended Charlie's as it was cleaner than the other restaurant. We had quite a nice 'Lasagna special' put on for Father's Day. A trip to the washroom soon explained why it was so clean.
You could turn on those taps and flush that urinal in a matter of seconds. A ball valve on a half inch, full bore pressurized copper pipe. Now that's cleaning.
We finished supper and headed back to our B&B. I had a few minutes to look for birds and had these to show for my efforts. This is a great place to go birding.
You could turn on those taps and flush that urinal in a matter of seconds. A ball valve on a half inch, full bore pressurized copper pipe. Now that's cleaning.
We finished supper and headed back to our B&B. I had a few minutes to look for birds and had these to show for my efforts. This is a great place to go birding.
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| Great Horned Owl with young (on right) |
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| Great Horned Owl Adult |
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| Great Horned Owl young. |
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| Common Grackle |
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| Wildon's Snipe |
