Asessippi and Saskatoon
Leaving Winnipeg we headed to Asessippi, Manitoba for one night. A couple of hours outside of Winnipeg, we had to take a quick right to make sure we had seen what we had thought we had seen next to the road. And yes, there in Gladstone, Manitoba is a statue of a Happy Rock……… he’s a glad stone.
Driving through the flat prairie landscape towards Asessippi, we were confused by the billboards talking about skiing, until the road suddenly descended into a beautiful river valley. The hills surrounding the valley were reminiscent of the Qu'Appelle Valley. Since it was still early in the season, we were the only people staying in our area of the Asessippi Campground. It was a lovely site, right next to a river.
We were surprised to discover that they had a Disc Golf Course in and around the campground, so we played a round of that. We also drove to the nearby town of Inglis to see their historic grain elevators.
From the plaques on the site, we learned that while the rail companies built huge terminal elevators in places like Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Thunder Bay, smaller firms and farmer-owned cooperatives built and operated the country elevators that served the farming communities, such as Inglis. The elevators at Inglis are typical of those that were built in the 1920's and 40's and were restored between 2014 and 2021.
The next morning, we drove to Saskatoon. There has been a bit of a water theme to our trip so far. At our first stop in Sudbury, the water wasn't working yet. In Wawa, due to construction, all the sites were without water for one day. When we arrived at the Gordon Howe Campground we were surprised to see a large fountain at the entrance.
Upon closer look, we realized that the water was streaming across the sidewalk and was flowing into the office, so it was not a water fountain. It turns out that twenty minutes before we had arrived, a water main had exploded (no one was injured). The city came and the water was turned off to all the camp sites, but at least they were able to keep the water on in the main washroom, shower and laundry buildings.
It was over a decade since I had last been to Saskatoon. I had forgotten how lovely it was with its series of bridges over the river. Our campsite was slightly treed, so Starlink was dropping out occasionally. Since I had a remote conference presentation to do, several job interviews and stakeholder interviews for a client, I spent sometime reaching out to a few of the different co-working spaces. We ended up getting a one week pass for the Broadway Collective, and it was fantastic.
Being in the Central Time Zone, but working mainly with people in the Eastern Time Zone results in some early morning meetings, but with our fob we had 24-hr access to the space, access to phone booths and meeting rooms, and reliable internet.
On our wanders around Saskatoon I loved seeing all the murals and public art installations.
The campground was next to the Gordon Howe recreation complex, so one night we went to see a Saskatoon Berries baseball game. The fruit puns came in a steady stream from the commentator, and we were amused to see their mascot Barry Pie, wears a jersey with 3.14 on the back.
We were also excited to find out that our favourite band, The Sadies, were playing the night before we were leaving Saskatoon, so of course we had to go and see them. They were fantastic, as always, albeit a bit quieter than we were used to because of the limitations of the sound system in the venue, The Capitol Music Club.
Earlier in the week we had gone to the store (The FEZ [The Fan Experience Zone]) that sells the merchandise for the local lacrosse, baseball and hockey teams to pick up some Saskatoon Berry merchandise. The person working there suggested that we try Brunch at Joe's if we were looking for a breakfast spot close to the campground. So we walked over on our last morning there to fuel ourselves up for the drive, and it did not disappoint.
Other places we frequented while we were there were: Gather (a market building with vendors selling locally produced goods); Prism (a yummy coffee shop); The Two Twenty (another yummy coffee shop that also had a coworking space attached to it, but they didn’t offer weekly rates); Junior Café (another coffee place that was next door to the Broadway Collective and thankfully opens up at 7:30am); Museo Coffee Roasters (which had better coffee than Junior Café but didn’t open until 10:00am); and the Bulk Cheese Warehouse (which is a full butcher and an amazing cheese shop across the street from the Broadway Collective).
It was a lovely week in Saskatoon, and after our breakfast, we hit the road for Vegreville, Alberta.