Virden to Maple Creek SK

 

After a nice quiet night at the Virden Lions campground (the trains did not blow whistles overnight), we got ready to head west again. First we took a short tour of Virden, a pleasant prairie town.

The Home Hardware where Mona works

An apparently free level 2 EV charger

Historical notes and some well-known people from Virden

Guess I should explain who Mona is. Mona's mother Anita is Donna's deceased husband Bob's youngest sister (ie Mona is Bob's niece). Donna is Cathie's sister.

Bob grew up on his family's farm in Sakatchewan, and Anita and Mona moved to Virden later on.

Virden was and is on a main Canadian rail line, and has current rail traffic and memories of yesteryear:

An nice stone ex-rail station, now used for community functions 

 

An example of a caboose, which used to be the last car on all trains

At a rest area that seemed to be part of a highway gas station, we found an exhibit using "relics" from a CBC TV series "Little Mosque on the Prairie", following a Muslim family on their adventures adapting to their new home Canada.   

A colourful Indian head statue

Larger than it first seemed

Some neat nesting "boxes" for swallows

   

 

A Buffalo Rubbing stone, and a Red River cart replica

 

 

Things are wet enough around here this year to find sloughs (small landlocked ponds) along the highway. Lots of insect and bird life around these ponds:

Some pictures, apparently snow, but really piles from mining and refining potash, which you may have heard referenced in recent Canada-US trade talks:

  

After looking at a couple of proper campgrounds that we didn't care for, we've ended up in the parking lot of a Saskatchewan Visitor Center near Maple Creek for the night. So far nice and quiet, just far enough off the highway. We're almost into Alberta now.

An animal viewing note: We (mostly Cathie) saw 4 moose, one at a time in various locations. Today we finally saw a group of 7 antelope here in Saskatchewan.  No pictures yet though.