Month: October 2026

The weather turned bad this morning, being cold, rainy and windy. But we didn’t want to just sit in the cottage all day, so after eating some of the breakfast items that we had brought with us, we set off to do some “car birding”. There are roads that follow two shores of the lake, so we decided to drive both of them, getting to know the area while spotting birds out the windows or on short stops along the way.

As we drove out of the town of Waskesiu, we saw several elk on the mowed lawn of a park. We also saw a bull elk calmly chewing its cud while laying down next to a park beach. Evidently, elk are abundant here.

We first drove along Kingsmere Road that runs along the north side of the lake. Much of it is paved but the last 19 kilometers were dirt and rather muddy and slippery today. That didn’t deter Dave and so we drove the length of it, accumulating lots of mud on the back and sides of the rental car. Even though the day was gray and rainy, the yellow leaves of the aspen, cottonwood and tamarack trees brightened the drive.

We also drove The Narrows Road, which parallels the southern shore. During our car birding day, we saw a few new species of birds for the trip, including some Common Loons, many female or immature Common Mergansers, and quite a few Ruffed Grouse and one Spruce Grouse on the grassy shoulders of the roads.

It was nice to return to the wam, dry cottage where we rested and read for a couple of hours. For dinner, we went to the same restaurant that we had visited last night, Pete’s Terrace, one of the few remaining open places in town.

Tomorrow is the final day of the trip, in which we’ll drive south again to Saskatoon and fly from there to Vancouver, then to Seattle. We will be arriving late at night in Seattle. This is the last blog post for the trip.

Thursday started as a thickly overcast day in Saskatoon, a big contrast to the sunny days we had been enjoying. After another continental breakfast in the hotel, we packed up and drove out of the city, heading north. It is a two-hour drive to the town of Prince Albert and our destination for the day was beyond that, Waskesiu Lake. But we had a couple of stops planned for birding along the way.

The first stop was Duck Lake, about an hour outside of Saskatoon. It’s in the Willow Cree Indian Reserve and is a lake as well as a town. By the time we reached Duck Lake, we were in the sunshine again. We drove to the lake’s edge on a gravel road and saw a huge flock of Snow Geese on the water, but no other birds. Snow Geese have been so abundantly visible on this trip, we’ve probably seen tens of thousands of them.

Then we drove into the town of Duck Lake and stopped at a museum that had a very tall observation tower from which we had a nice view of the surrounding area. We enjoyed the view and learning about the local history from the museum.

Next we drove a few kilometers north and stopped at a forested area containing cross country skiing trails. The prairie birding book I had brought along indicated the Nisbet Forest could be a good birding location, so we wanted to take a look. By this time, it was around 11:30 a.m. and we found the forest to be beautiful but very quiet. We walked on the trails and heard a chickadee, a few squirrels, a distant Pileated Woodpecker, and finally a Ruffed Grouse that Dave saw but I only heard.

After a check of our heads and legs for ticks after walking on the trails (none found, thankfully) we continued driving north to the small city of Prince Albert. We stopped at a strip mall to eat lunch at a bar named Bugsy’s that was popular with the locals, and then walked next door to a Safeway store to pick up a few breakfast items for the next two days.

Driving further north for about 35 minutes, we arrived at Prince Albert National Park, where we paid for a 3-day pass, and then to Waskesiu Lake and the town of Waskesiu. We found it to be a very quiet, nearly empty place when we arrived, but undoubtedly it is popular and very busy in the summer. The lake is large and surrounded by forest that holds bear, elk, moose and birds. The staff person at the gate of the national park said that elk are especially numerous.

We drove into town and found the resort’s office inside a gift store. We’re staying in a two-bedroom cottage that has a small kitchen, gas fireplace, and two couches. It’s very nice.

While Dave relaxed in the cottage, I walked to the lakeshore and around part of the town. Many of the shops are closed for the season, but a couple of restaurants are open, as well as most of the cottages and inns. There aren’t many tourists here at this time of year.

We drove to one of the restaurants at about 5:30 for dinner and on the way we saw a big bull elk casually walking along the road near our cottage. I was glad we were in the car.

Dinner at Pete’s Terrace Restaurant was a very good pizza. Then we returned to the cottage so Dave could watch Thursday Night Football.

Today, Wednesday, was another sunny day in Saskatchewan, although the temperatures were cooler. After breakfast in the hotel, we drove southeast, the opposite direction from yesterday. Today our destination was the north end of Last Mountain Lake where there is a bird observatory in the regional park bordering the lake, as well as a wildlife refuge surrounding the lake’s north end.

It was a two-hour drive from Saskatoon into the direction of the sun, and the prairie offered no protection from the low angle of the sun’s rays coming at us. We stopped along the way at a full-service (!) gas station to fill up the Hyundai’s tank. There was a gas attendant sitting outside the station, in the 38 degree morning, waiting to fill our tank. An unexpected luxury.

We reached the Last Mountain Lake Bird Observatory in the regional park a few minutes after 10 a.m. and walked in to the building where bird banding takes place during spring and fall migrations. We got there just as the scientists were bringing in two Dark-eyed Juncos that had been caught in their mist nets that morning. We got to see them banding one of the juncos and then the scientist brought out the banded bird, held in his hand, to explain the banding to us. It was fun to see the banded bird up close and we were lucky to have arrived there at the perfect time to see the banding performed on the very last day they were doing it this migration season.

Then Dave and I walked out to an observation tower that the Canadian Wildlife Service had constructed for visitors to look out over the lake. It was windy and cool, but beautifully sunny. We saw a few grebes and American Coots on the whitecap-covered lake.

After coming down from the tower and returning to the car, we drove around to the top of the lake on gravel roads to reach the headquarters of the Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area. We stopped at the headquarters building to use the restrooms and get oriented. Inside, we found brochures and staff members who recommended the driving tour around the refuge, so Dave and I set out to do that. Along the route there were many ponds with ducks and herons, as well as grasslands with other birds. A few of the birds were new to us, like Horned Larks, Franklin’s Gull, and the Canvasback duck. We also saw many Western Meadowlarks flying away from the car, a Savannah Sparrow, and several other birds. But no Whooping Cranes nor Sandhill Cranes were seen in the refuge.

At the end of the driving tour route, we exited the refuge and started the drive back to our Saskatoon hotel. We made two stops along the way: one for a house that was being transported along the highway and took up both lanes, and the second stop was for a flock of Sandhill Cranes that we spotted in a field north of the highway. We were so happy to see our first cranes, even though they were the more abundant Sandhill Cranes, not the endangered Whooping Cranes we really wanted to spot. So that made our day!

After reaching the hotel, we ate dinner in the English pub downstairs. Dave’s cold symptoms had abated somewhat during the day, leaving him feeling good enough to eat a normal meal instead of takeout in the room. It was a good day.

This morning, Tuesday, we decided to look for Whooping Cranes and other birds at the locations the birding couple at Wanuskewin had told us about yesterday. It was another sunny morning in Saskatoon. So after breakfast we set out, driving about an hour north of the city, to the area around Blaine Lake, Marcelin, and Leask. Once we got off the highway, all the roads were well-maintained gravel. We saw several road graders at work during the day.

We drove many kilometers along those roads, looking in the fields, ponds and lakes for birds. And found lots of birds, but no cranes at all, neither Sand Hill nor Whooping Cranes. What we did see was thousands upon thousands of Snow Geese on the fields, ponds, and in the air.

We also saw large flocks of Canada Geese, a few types of ducks, several Common Ravens, Black-billed Magpies, plus a few crows and Bald Eagles. We gave the cranes ample opportunity to show up as we drove and drove over the prairie, but they didn’t oblige us.

Yesterday we had heard about the Crooked Bush grove too, which is in the same area, so we stopped by to see it. It’s a small grove of aspen trees that have defied their normal upright, straight growth habit and instead are twisted and gnarled. Nobody has figured out why.

Much of the area we traversed today was agricultural and some of the crop was recently cut or still standing. We figured out that lots of it is canola seed, ready to harvest. Many other fields have rolled hay.

During our hours driving through farmland, looking for birds, we saw a mosque, an Orthodox church, and a few small Protestant churches in very small towns. The racial and religious diversity of the people we’ve seen in Saskatoon and Vancouver has left us feeling like Canada is much more diverse than the US.

Dinner was takeout from a Vietnamese restaurant tonight, since Dave is still feeling crummy from his cold.

Monday started slowly, with me sleeping in a little to catch up on some of the sleep lost during the train ride. But the day dawned sunny and promised to be warm in Saskatoon. We went to the hotel’s little Vintage Room, a small room off the lobby, to take advantage of the complimentary cold breakfast items like muffins, yogurt, juice and tea, before going outside. Dave was still feeling the effects of his cold but was game to start the day’s activity anyway.

On the itinerary for today was a visit to Wanuskewin, an indigenous heritage site that includes a museum, art gallery, several loop trails around the grounds on the prairie, a restaurant, and a herd of plains bison. We drove about 20 minutes north of the city to reach it.

The young man who welcomed us at the admission desk gave us a short orientation about the site and then we took in the art exhibit and the museum pieces inside the building. Archeologists have found items from indigenous peoples at the site dating back roughly 6500 years, although those weren’t on display.

We were about to go out to walk on the trails when we overheard a couple talking to the admissions man about the Whooping Cranes they had seen and heard. I had to go talk to these fellow birders because seeing those endangered cranes was high on my priority list for the trip. The couple were very friendly and helpful Saskatchewan locals, giving us the locations where they had seen the cranes yesterday, plus other birding site recommendations. We were so happy to have met them and learned this valuable information!

Then we went outside to walk the trails and look for prairie birds on the grounds, including in a valley carved in the prairie by Opimihaw Creek. We saw several birds that included two new species for Dave and I: American Tree Sparrow and Swamp Sparrow.

After our walk on the trails we went into the restaurant for lunch. My lunch was a grilled brie cheese and saskatoon berry sandwich with green salad that was great.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a grocery store to buy a few things and in the store entrance there was a sign to help customers buy Canadian goods instead of tariffed items from the US. We were rather tickled by it.

I discovered that our hotel offered self-service laundry in the room next to mine, so I took advantage of that after we returned, changing a CAD$5 bill for 5 “loonies” ($ coins) to operate the washing machine. Dave threw in some of his clothes too, and with the resulting clean clothes, we’re ready for the remaining five days of the trip.

Dinner was takeout Indian food, which I brought back to the room to eat, since Dave didn’t feel like going out or eating much.