Peaceful Beauty; Silver Lake Regional Park, Saskatchewan

Silver Lake Regional Park, our current location, is about halfway between Edmonton and Saskatoon and pretty remote. It’s over the border into Saskatchewan and we thought we’d be loosing an hour coming into Central Time. Not so. Saskatchewan is always on Standard Time, so though we’re in the Central Time Zone, it’s Central Standard Time and is the same as the Mountain Daylight Savings Time of Alberta. In fact, Alberta is on permanent Daylight Savings Time, so the two provinces are always at the same time.

We have a decent spot, made better because the trailers on either side of us are empty.

I’ve taken a few walks. This is Silver Lake.

Down across this footbridge…

is a bird viewing platform.

This park is in the Big Gully,

and the Big Gully is full of meandering waterways and ponds,

so it is a great place for birding.

I also saw signs of beaver, though I couldn’t spot a lodge and saw only one small dam.

There are bears here, that’s bear scat, and I saw deer prints, but what I see most often are squirrels and crows.

They have a little beach…

and a playground,

but the big draw here is golf. There is a nine hole course.

The first tee is just a few steps away from our campsite.

Bud and I played a game and I forgot my phone. The next day Bud played and I took pictures. It may be just nine holes but it was plenty challenging for us. It has undulating greens,

some elevation and plenty of water.

The course is well cared for.

It’s a little gem…

in the wide open prairie.

There seem to be a lot of seasonal campers here and every one has a golf cart.

Bud and I went about a half hour away and played disc golf. This, too, was a challenging course. That’s the entrance to the first hole.

There were lots of trees, but also some views.

The course was along the North Saskatchewan River.

We had fun…

and we were the only ones there.

We also drove out to the Pine Island Overlook. That island,actually covered in spruce, was the site of at least five different “forts” or “houses”, as the fur trading posts were called. They were there from 1786 to 1793 and during that time this was the most western active European settlement in Canada. Natives attacked and took one fort in 1793. Others were subsequently abandoned and the Indians then burned them all down.