She Says: The Land of the Living Sky

Jul 31

Jul 31 She Says: The Land of the Living Sky

Saskatchewan, a rather spacious province, is known as the land of the living skies. In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the best place to test out our brand new tent. Spoiler Alert: we, and the tent, survived just fine.

There’s not much to say about our time in Prince Albert National Park, other than we kinda wish we’d stayed for 2 weeks. There was a lot we could have done… and had we been better prepared we might’ve enjoyed the back-country a bit more. As it was, we spent 4 days in the village of Waskesiu Lake, camping at the nearby Beaver Glen campground.

Apparently there was a family of bears hanging around the campsite - a female, male and two cubs. Upon arrival we had to sign a waiver stating that it’s not Parks Canada’s fault if we make a mess of the campsite and are mauled in the night by bears. Fair enough. I did observe campers being extra vigilant - and we did our bit too, making sure we had nothing in the tent other than our sleeping gear, and always sleeping in clean clothes so not to attract any unwanted guests.

Thankfully, we saw no bears.

It does ensure one is permanently in a state of unease while hiking, knowing there are bears in the area. We did a couple of short walks… and while the trails were beautiful, we were constantly on high alert. Hardly a relaxing few hours in the bush!

On our second night in the Park, there was an insane thunderstorm that lasted for 30 minutes. The sky lit up every few seconds with lightning, and the ground shook with thunder. I really can’t describe how awesome and terrifying it was at the same time, lying in a tent pretty much completely exposed to the elements. After about 10 minutes we bailed to the car - I was convinced the tent-fly was going to blow away… and didn’t fancy being squished by a falling tree, either. Our new tent survived, although I’m thankful we did an extra water-proofing spray. If it can handle that storm, I’m fairly confident it can handle anything!

Despite the weather, we had an amazing time at Prince Albert, and Waskesiu Lake.

The trails were great, and the local amenities even better. The disk golf and mini putt were fun, there was a decent ice cream shop in town… even yoga in the park! Like the other holiday-makers, we could have easily spent two weeks here. I guess we’ll just have to come back!