Week 9 Second Leg - Canada is dreamy

Hello! I am writing to you today from a gorgeous campground in the Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, Saskatchewan. It has been 9 weeks since we boarded the QM2 from Southampton-New York to begin the second leg of our adventure.

Dare I say it...... things are going pretty great! It feels a little bit alien not to write about troubles with the V A N (don't say it too loudly, we don't want to spook her). I'm sure now I've said that my next entry will include some sort of vanxiety.

parked up at The Bison Trail

When I last updated this blog, we were just beginning a glorious 2 week trip from Toronto to Winnipeg with my lovely mum. We had a great time! She enjoyed her first Pride parade in Toronto and we did a whistle stop tour across Ontario stopping at some lovely places along the way. We had a great evening by lake Nipissing; listening to a free live band and eating a burrito bowl, lots of ice cream by various harbours, singing along to a bit of everything in the van and wild swimming in Lake Superior. Lake Superior by the way; bloody freezing. Smaller lakes in Canada are much warmer! But after 2 weeks of fun we dropped her off at Winnipeg airport for her to catch her flight home, after a brief but busy few days in NYC with her friends.

And then it was just us again! It felt like a while since that was the case so we set off on our travels, a little sad after departing from all our family once again. Our first stop was a place called Hecla Island. This was a small island that is almost exclusively a National Park and sits on Lake Winnipeg. A couple of days there and enjoyed hiking, lunch at the harbour and visiting the lighthouse. We were also updating our list of spotted wildlife! We saw a reindeer, pelican and numerous birds.

One of the many Deer we have seen

Once our time in Hecla had come to an end we stayed in Riding Mountain for a few nights. This was a bit earlier than planned because of the numerous wildfires that have been affecting Northern Canada. Whilst we haven't directly been affected, it has meant that a) driving around some of Manitoba has been quite smoky and hazy b) at least one of our planned campsites has been affected by the fires and c) there was a likelihood that we may have to evacuate certain areas if the wildfires spread further; so we decided to shift things around so we avoided affected areas. Riding Mountain was beautiful, we had great weather, a great time and once again updated our wildlife list to include a grizzly mama bear and 2 baby cubs!!!! It was such a delight to see them in the wild and a bucket list item was ticked off for both of us. Zoom in or check Instagram for bear photos!

We have seen a lot of beautiful moths, butterflies and other insects on our travels so far - this is a White Admiral Butterfly

Once we left Riding Mountain we headed to our current destination in Buffalo Pound. It's pretty blissful here, the park itself is beautiful with rolling hills, farm animals and a large Bison enclosure where we finally managed to see Bison! This is something we have attempted a few times now so it was a treat to see them. We got an inside scoop that the Bison are being herded into a nearby pen tonight for some check overs so that we can see them all together in the morning! We have spent a few quiet days here enjoying the scenery, wrestling with the dogs on a blanket by the creek and drinking coffee under a nearby tree. I've had worse weeks!

For now, we are enjoying Saskatchewan and all it has to offer. We are heading to other sites and doing some stealth camping whilst we continue to head west. We are excited for what's to come!

Thanks for reading,

Cx