Booking Across the Prairies and Stopping For Gas

We left Calgary on Monday and since then, in three days of travel, we've gone through the three prairie provinces of southern Canada. Over 900 miles of driving. There really isn't much to see (we made one sight-seeing stop), and we really wanted to get to our next destination, Lake Superior. So, on Monday, as reported in the last post, we made it all the way to Swift Current, Saskatchewan. I forgot to mention: Swift Current, which you've probably never heard of, is the fifth largest city in the province. At 16,000 inhabitants, it's about the size of a small American town.

On Tuesday, we drove to Virden, Manitoba, with one important stop along the way. We changed drivers in the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Moose Jaw. It's twice the size of Swift Current, and has a bit of tourist cachet, something (perhaps apocryphal) having to do with Al Capone and the Prohibition Era whiskey trade.

Downtown Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

We continued moving east. As we went, more and more of the vast flat fields were covered in yellow alfalfa, something we don't see so much of in Pennsylvania. We made our most important stop in the Canadian prairie in the small town of Rouleau, population 453. We had to go out of our way about 20 miles or so to get there. 

Miles and miles of yellow alfalfa

Water tower in Rouleau, SK. It used to have a different town's name painted on it.

What's in Rouleau? It was the site one of the most popular Canadian sitcoms of all time, and one of my favorite TV shows, Corner Gas. The show ran from 2004 to 2009, and was followed by a feature movie and and animated series. It can be thought of as Seinfeld transported to the Canadian prairie, a show about nothing, mostly dealing with the oddball characters that inhabit the town and hang out at a small independent gas station with an adjoining cafe. I've written about it before on my Facebook feed. In the series, Rouleau became Dog River, and the gas station and cafe were purpose-built sets, but otherwise, most of the show was shot at actual places in town. Most of the show's landmark spots are commemorated with plaques.

Site of the Corner Gas and Ruby's Diner set on the outskirts of Rouleau, SK

One of many plaques commemorating Corner Gas in Rouleau, SK

Several years after the show ended, the gas station and cafe sets had to be torn down. And the iconic grain elevator across the road burned to the ground in a huge conflagration that actually threatened the town. But the site of the Corner Gas set is still hallowed ground. The Dog River Hotel is still there, under the new ownership of a young Chinese-Canadian woman who was just opening the place up when we stopped by. We ordered a coke while she explained how she came to own the place and how tourists continue to stop by, if not in droves, then enough to help the town recover from Covid. We wanted to get some postcards postmarked "Dog River, SK", which the post office does, but despite trying during office hours, they were closed when we tried the door. After that, on to our next stop.

The Dog River Hotel is guarded by a cat these days

Inside the Dog River Hotel Bar

Oscar and Emma's House needs a facelift

As Saskatchewan transitions to Manitoba, the landscape changes a little. The absolute flatness cedes to some rolling, though relatively treeless hills. Manitoba, except for the immediate environs of its largest city Winnipeg, is even less populous than Saskatchewan. We spent the night at an RV campground in Virden. They had a pool, and lots of families and kids. These people came to an RV park in the middle of nowhere to essentially form a small town probably bigger (and more closely packed) than where they live most of the year. A pleasant enough place, but just a spot to stay the night.

On Wednesday we were up and out early. Got some miles in before breakfast. We stopped at MacGregor, MB, looking for a breakfast spot. Drove down the entire main drag (about a quarter mile) without finding a place that was open, but just as we were about to get back on Highway 1, we saw a golf course clubhouse that had a restaurant. It was the strangest place. It's not really on Google as a place where tourists can stop for breakfast. Most of the people there were senior citizen golfers, not local farmers (I came away thinking that the entire town is actually senior citizen golfers.) We weren't members, but nobody questioned these two obvious out-of-towners as we ordered breakfast. It seems like they cater to golfers and the (very) occasional drop-ins. The lady who took our order (and cooked it) was a middle aged woman from a small town a few hours from Guadalajara, Mexico (!). She has been summering in Canada. It's not just the National Parks that attract workers from way out of town! We also had some conversation with a curious local woman who wanted to know about our travels. But nothing was as odd, to us, as the the fact that we were here, in the middle of a vast sea of nothing, in a postcard sized town, sitting in a cafe that was probably the local hotspot for many square miles, and talking to a woman from Guadalajara who summered there!

We continued on across Manitoba. The Winnipeg bypass was a bit congested, but nothing like around larger American cities. After Winnipeg, the landscape changed. More woods interspersed the prairie, until we were completely in the woods. Mostly coniferous trees with a few deciduous mixed in. More small lakes visible as we went. Then we entered Ontario. The road became hillier, and wound a bit more to weave its way by many more small lakes. You can think of this part of Ontario as "Minnesota North", on steroids. More woods, more (many more) lakes, and outside the resort towns, much more remote. We finally arrived in Kenora, a small resort city on the Lake of the Woods. "LOTW", as it's known, is a huge lake, the largest lake (after the Great Lakes) at least partly in the US. LOTW's southern shores border on Minnesota. The lake has thousands of islands and tens of thousands of miles of shoreline. It's a very popular spot for Canadians and Americans to come to go fishing and boating in the summer, and also has many winter attractions. Our campground is in town, and in a small provincial park right on the lake. Despite how big the lake is, it's very shallow and its shoreline has been affected by the very rainy year much of Canada has experienced. The beach is much smaller because the lake level has gone up enough so that the shore has covered most of it. It's a pleasant place to spend the night before we head to Thunder Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior.

A peek through the woods at the Lake of the Woods