Made it to Saskatchewan

From Thunder Bay we drove via Fort Frances to Kenora, and since the road was going to be flatter and straighter entering Manitoba, we drove to the west side of Winnipeg before stopping for the night.  We had driven through to the next time zone after Thunder Bay and gained an hour.  The KOA campground west of Winnipeg,  close to St. Francois Xavier, was right in a bend of the Assiniboine River.

The next day we set out to Portage La Prairie on the TransCanada and then onto the Yellowhead Highway towards the Saskatchewan border.  What a change from North of Superior, the road is straight with an occasional bend, you can see for miles and there was a lot of water still lying in some of the fields, which are as yet too wet for the farmers to sow their crops.  Getting closer to Saskatchewan, there are more sloughs (ponds) in evidence in the fields, some are alkaline, and the countryside is more rolling hills and carved out river beds with steepish banks.  The Yellowhead passes through Russell in Manitoba, and then onto Langenburg, Yorkton, Foam Lake, Wynyard Saskatchewan (and through another time zone), after which we turned onto Highway 6 at Dafoe and Quill Lakes (where there were a lot of pelicans on one end of the lake), towards Melfort, Kinistino, Weldon, Birch Hills and Prince Albert - familiar stomping grounds for one of us.  We made it to the farm and have been here since Thursday, leaving tomorrow morning for Alberta.

New style grain elevator at Dafoe

Old style abandoned elevator at Weldon

View from the house - poplars are gone after last year's plow wind