Day 8: via a Little Town On The Prairie to the Lake Of The Woods

River valley in Saskatchewan

We witnessed an incident during our breakfast on 11th Street in Regina when a young aboriginal man walked in and started to help himself to the buffet. The house manager intervened, saying he was calling the police, but the miscreant was so hungry he wouldn't budge, telling everyone it was his country too, and that he'd had a terrible day yesterday as well as a terrible night, which I'm sure was true. Chris and I felt sorry for him and offered to pay for his meal; when the youth shuffled off with a pile of toast and coffee in a polystyrene mug, the hotel manager didn't charge it to our room, just shrugged his shoulders and told us this happens all the time. It's sad that the city centres in the midwest of Canada seem to belong to these dropout natives who give their compatriots such a bad reputation. Probably this is why regeneration of the downtown is not easy. I don't think that turning the elegant old CN train station into a Casino can help much, either.

It was perfect flying weather today, cooler at altitude than on the ground, with small cumulus, though this did begin to grow into towering cumuli over some river valleys with steep sides and flooded oxbow lakes. Then the clouds thinned out again.

Erickson: the road to the airport (PTN on the left)

The Viking ship at Erickson

We've had enough of flying west so have turned eastward and this morning's two hours in the air took us back into Manitoba, to an utterly peaceful little town or village called Erickson (settled by Vikings, to judge by the road signs) situated half way between Brandon and Dauphin, in the rolling fields. The runway cut through the middle of a hayfield. The airport building was a hut with lilies in bloom by the doorsteps, that was originally used as a one room schoolhouse, one of the last such schoolhouses to be built in all of Canada. Erickson's other claim to fame is that it's the highest town in Manitoba, at over 2000ft asl. We were greeted by a gentlemanly, softly spoken, distinctly Scandinavian looking person, and when we walked into town for lunch came across some others of his kind. The blonde waitress at the Nordic Inn greeted an elderly customer as Miss Something, asking her politely how she was. I'd lay a bet that she was once the schoolmistress in the one room hut. In the park by Otter Lake was a carved Viking ship with flowers round its prow and a sign by a disused railway track with the rails gone to say this is now part of the Trans-Canada Trail.

Leaving Erickson

Edge of Lake Manitoba

Red River, north of Winnipeg

I can imagine living here. I wouldn't mind it. We took off rather regretfully, having paid for our fuel by cheque, since there were no card readers, opening our flight plan to Kenora, just over the next provincial border in Ontario. This was another pleasing flight in fine weather all the way for two more hours, although we did see rain showers near our destination. One section was out across Lake Manitoba, crossing about 26NM of open water, a further distance than across the English Channel, we realised. But we were never more than 10 miles from the southernmost shore where the marshland is. We had a fine view of the (brown) Red River winding north of Winnipeg, too. Soon after that we were saying farewell to the prairies on the western edge of the forests. Kenora is surrounded by multitudinous lakes.

The last of the Prairie fields, near the Ontario border

Another crosswind landing!

Lake of the Woods on our approach to Kenora

Kenora airport is a long way outside town; the Shell office ordered a taxi for us to the Travelodge (motel) and the driver was a long haired native man with a large feather on the dashboard who was older and wiser than the young man stealing toast. This one spoke of the mistakes people had made when they tried to tame the flooded rivers with canals and dykes. When he was a child, he said, they'd let nature run her course and the flooded grasslands had quickly absorbed all the excess water with no harm done. If you leave nature alone, she balances things out in time. I told him I absolutely agree with that.

We walked to the main part of Kenora for an excellent Greek supper and sat on a bench by the lakeside boardwalk. Tomorrow we're staying on the ground for a rest.

Chris went to a lot of trouble to get the Internet connection working so that I could publish this post from the Travelodge. Thanks, Chris!

Day 7: another province, another time zone

We're flagging, so I ought to make this short! Chris fell asleep on the hotel bed just now, while I was nearly asleep in the bath. It's only 8:25pm, but that's the same as 10:25 Ontario time, so no wonder. We're in Regina, capital of Saskatchewan.

This morning, because the little cumulus clouds in the blue sky were so benign, we filed a VFR flight plan from CYBR to CYQR direct. Once again, we followed the flooded Assiniboine river that has lost its multiple meanders and turned into a line of muddy lakes. The canola fields, flax fields and grazing land are pitted with little ponds that remind me of the Australian billabongs. The white roads are long and straight. The fields aren't as vast as we'd expected from what we read long ago in our school geography books about Canada (perhaps those lie further south or west), but I did spot some archetypal silos (grain elevators) by railway tracks.

Prairie town with grain silos

It took us two hours to fly between Brandon and Regina, climbing for a while to 6500ft to give ourselves a respite from the thermals. Again, I'm glad we didn't have to drive a car all that way. On the radio we heard a couple of pilots in conversation who were overflying pipelines to check for damage, only 400ft above ground level.

Regina, over the city

Once in radio contact with Regina, we realised that one overworked air traffic controller was acting as ground control (taxiways) and tower control (active runways) combined, with many flights coming in. There was no "terminal" control (arrivals and departures in the airspace further out) so he was doing that too. He kept his cool and did a good job!

On the final approach to Regina, looking further west

This time, the landing wasn't scary. We came down onto runway 13 and taxied to the Shell Aerocentre where a marshaller gave us the thumbs-in signal meaning the chocks are in. After lunch in the passenger terminal, a taxi took us to the Holiday Inn Express in Regina's downtown core that we have spent the afternoon and evening exploring, finding a pedestrian area, Cornwall Street, the central park, Victoria Park, various monuments and glassy modern architecture, as well as the more ubiquitous turn of the 20th century buildings erected at the height of the wheat boom. People weren't gluten free in those days. We also found Chris a new pair of shoes in Regina's branch of The Running Room, to replace the ones he's worn out. Wearing the new shoes, he accompanied me to the big lakeside park--very pleasant--near Regina's Legislative building (under scaffolding) and university. People were rowing and canoeing, or riding on a river bus. On the bank, families of many different ethnic backgrounds were walking along, stepping round the geese.

Sculpture near our hotel, Regina

A sculpture paying tribute to immigrants

Riverside park in Regina

We walked back to the downtown on Broad Street. Supper was good tonight, at a popular, "authentic Thai" restaurant called Siam.

Picnic at Lemoine Point

We followed the Shore Trail,
walking back along Meadowlark Lane

Yesterday Chris flew me down to Kingston for a walk and a picnic near the airport, at Lemoine Point. The flying conditions were near perfect with no more than tiny clouds to contend with at 4500ft and marvellous visibility. We're so privileged to be able to fly this route, one of the most beautiful in Ontario, surely, following the line of the old Perth Road from above, over Westport or Portland where the many boats are moored and the locks between the lakes on the Rideau Canal. This time we had a tail wind from the north so the outbound journey took us less than an hour. As we landed at Kingston, we think we saw a young eagle sitting beside the taxiway. It was a huge and beautiful bird, anyhow, and the men at the FBO said some eagles had been seen nearby.

Walking conditions were good too; it was not too hot. The woods and wet meadows of Lemoine Point were full of flowers and dragonflies. I have never seen so many chipmunks at once; they were everywhere. In the farmland near the southern car park an adult goat had a following of little goats, bounding through the long grass, surely not all her own? A very tame squirrel made determined efforts to share our lunch at our picnic table.

Back in Ottawa, driving down the Rockcliffe Parkway to fetch Chris after he had lingered at the Flying Club before supper, a fox crossed the road ahead of me.