Indian Head to Grasslands National Park (Day 9)

We woke up to a warm, sunny day in Indian Head. After breakfast and a long chat with a very sweet lady RV traveller from Florida en route to Alaska, Dan and I went out in search of Indian Head's fame Round Barn. We did eventually find it, but to Dan's disappointment, it wasn't quite in the state we expected.

This was how the website said it was supposed to look:


but this is what we found:


Seems the barn was on the original homestead of Indian Head which has since been sold off and the current owners weren't too keen on having a tourist landmark in their yard. So, the barn has been removed and the town is currently trying to fundraiser to build it next door. Too bad.

We made our way along the TransCanada to Moose Jaw SK where we had another "Home of the World's Biggest..." spotting. Mac the Moose from Moose Jaw.

The salt deposits around Saskatchewan are crazy (left over from ancient oceans?!). I was starting to think we were back into snow when we came upon a big salt mine just outside of Chaplin SK.

From Swift Current, we headed south towards the sleepy village of Val Marie SK, our gateway to Grasslands National Park where we were planning to camp from the night.

The fields of grasslands in this park are so vast and so long that it makes the prairies we were seeing from the highway look like a metropolis.

There are resident herds of roaming bison (which we unfortunately didn't see) and quite a few active ranches still in the park. The ranches are so big, all you see is fields and fields and fields of farm land without a barn or house in sight. The grasslands also break up from time to time into these rolling buttes, which is a stark contrast to the prairies flatlands.


We drove the Ecotour Drive through the park, which included a drive past the only prairie dog colony outside of the northern United States.

The fields are crawling with prairie dogs darting from burrow to burrow. Heads pop up all over the place and it looks like a real-life version of Whack-a-Mole. The prairie dogs are neighboured by tonnes of Richardson's ground squirrels who look the same but just smaller. They are all over the place, in and out of the park. They sit in the ditches, or on the side of the road, or right on the yellow lines, and watch traffic whiz by. I thought for sure we would pancake a few of them, but they managed to leap out of the way just in time.


Our tent site for the night was at Belza's Ranch, an old ranch still standing in the park.

The ticks were apparently out, so Dan and I didn't venture too far into the grass. But even from our tent, the vastness of the surrounding fields is pretty overwhelming. It's crazy how small and alone you feel standing out there. It's eerie- pretty, but eerie.

Were could hear the coyotes tonight. We fell alseep to hear them crying far (I hope) off in the distance.

PS: I'm really, really hoping it doesn't rain tonight. The park warden warned us that the roads become impassable out here with just a bit of rain (they're clay and pretty primative). The park maps says "when rain begins, exit QUICKLY". Oh good.