Canada is big. Very big! Even though we are used to driving large distances on these trips, the last few days has felt like quite a slog. It has taken 3 days of travelling east from Elk Island National Park, about 1,300km, to our destination of Thompson, Manitoba from where we will catch the train to Churchill.
We have done long drives in Canada before, but in British Columbia, where the scenery is spectacular. Travelling east from Alberta, through Saskatchewan it is flat, very flat, that would give Norfolk a run for its money, and other than endless cereal fields and the odd lake, there's not a great deal to see. With no hills to go around, roads through here and neighbouring Manitoba are as straight as a ruler, as far as the eye can see, often 15km between bends in the road, and they have been largely empty of traffic too and cruise control has been a blessing. In Manitoba, the endless cereal fields of Saskatchewan are replaced by forest, which means that even large lakes showing on the sat nav next to the road are invisible behind the thick trees.
Being autumn, there has been some obvious migration of geese, and in Saskatchewan, some of the fields and lakes have attracted large numbers of Snow Geese in particular, with fewer White-fronted and Cackling Geese. Our first night we stopped in Shelbrooke, just west of Prince Albert, and just before we reached the town, a large lake along the roadside hosted several thousand Snow Geese and other wildfowl, that got spooked, presumably by a Northern Harrier that was hunting the shore, providing an amazing spectacle as the geese took to the air.
In the evening, we took a drive up into Prince Albert National Park where we found a Beaver on a small pond and as we returned down the gravel track, a Snowshoe Hare and a comical pair of Raccoons were added to the mammal list.
The drive from Shelbrooke to Creighton, which is on the border with Manitoba, and is a shift in the time zone was even less eventful. A stop at a picnic site by a lake for a snack was a signal for some Canada Jays to descend to see if we had anything to offer them, and pose for some photos, naturally.
The big problem with such long, boring, straight roads is keeping concentration. Back in Norfolk, I'm used to little Muntjac Deer feeding by the roadside and walking out, but here in Canada there's bigger deer, namely Moose, that have a habit of doing the same, with potentially serious implications if you don't watch out. As we drove a particularly long straight stretch, we noticed a large bull Moose standing on the edge of the trees on the verge by the road, and so started slowing down, just as we were overtaken by someone who hadn't noticed the Moose, until he got much nearer to it! Thankfully the Moose turned round and ran back into the trees, and so an accident was avoided.
Having checked in to our accommodation in Creighton, and found a flock of Ross's Geese on a playing field next to the hotel, we looked on a map and found a nice quiet-looking spot by a lake, from where we hoped the forecast Northern Lights would be visible. As we arrived, we saw 2 Mink bounding around a picnic site, a species that in the UK is an unwelcome non-native species, but here we enjoyed watching them without feeling any guilt!
Unfortunately, when picking our nice quiet spot on a map, we hadn't accounted for a camp nearby having a very loud wedding bash, and despite staying until after dark, the forecast Northern Lights didn't materialise. Oh well, hopefully we will have better luck another night, but apart from the noise, it was a lovely spot.
Today we have driven the final leg, and have now arrived in Thompson, and are quite looking forward to a few days of no long drives!! Tomorrow afternoon, we catch the slow-moving, overnight train north to Churchill where we hope to photograph Polar Bears, though the temperature here in Thompson is 17 degrees, and doesn't feel very wintry to be photographing such animals!
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