20070714 Saturday
210 miles from Great Falls MT, to Cypress Hills Inter-Provincial Park, at Elkwater, Alberta

Warm early, cooling after we crossed the Canadian border.

We got an early start to try to avoid some of the Montana heat. The route led us north & east, following the Missouri River (still) downstream to Fort Benton of early trading days fame. There, the road and river split. The road takes a fairly straight course to Havre, MT. We bought a few things (particularly envelopes, since we need to send a letter). Then north and west up MT-232 to the Canadian border.

The Customs & Immigration inspector asked several questions, but we passed and were allowed entry. The first Canadian sign said, "No services next 80km". Very true. The Montana land had been changing slowly as we went north from wheat to scrubby brush suitable only for grazing. Here, we found miles of grazing lands and very few cattle on them. Some antelope here and there.

Finally we ascended a gradual hill and popped out on top of a hill that runs east-west and is the highest thing around for miles. We turned into the town of Elkwater, and the community of Cypress Hills Inter-Provincial Park. Park of this large range lies east of here in Saskatchewan (we're quite close to their border). So our tours the next couple of days will be along or around this range. 

The Elkwater sign stated the altitude as 1,234 meters, about 4,000 feet. We're definitely out of the mountains and back in the plains. But Elkwater isn't at the top of the range - up there, it's 5,678'.

We unhooked and went back to the gas station to get diesel fuel. The diesel fuel pump is one of those ancient things with a glass bowl on top. A rocker-arm pump is attached. You push and pull the rocker arm to pump fuel up into the glass bowl. It has graduations on the side that indicate the number of gallons, the top being ten gallons. The young guy didn't look exactly eager to do it, but he put on his gloves and attacked the pump, getting a couple of cups each stroke. He filled the bowl, then used the ordinary hose handle. Gravity took the fuel down the hose into the tank. I haven't seen one of these pumps in 30 or 40 years.

The cost of diesel here, far from anything, was quite high - $5.25 a gallon.

We went to the little store to scout it out, then to the sandwich shop next door for lunch. Then to the visitors center to get some questions answered by a very nice worker there. We're still in Mountain Daylight time here. When we go next door to Saskatchewan, we will be in Central Standard time, which is the same as Mountain Daylight. In Manitoba, we'll be on Central Daylight again, as we are at home.

She also gave us directions and maps to several viewing points & interesting places.

Dolores got directions to the nearest Catholic church and found there was a service at 5:00pm today. So we drove to Medicine Hat, Alberta, for church, forty miles one way. We got cash from a machine en route and filled the diesel tank at a Murphy Canada station in front of Walmart. The cost there was CDN$0.905 per liter, which roughly converts to US$3.12, much better.

The church was new and huge. Projector screens showed the lyrics of whatever singing was taking place. Not many kids in attendance.

We drove back the forty miles to the campground without seeing much of interest.

Then we dropped into our chairs, rising after a bit to fix a small dinner. The temperature is dropping rapidly since the sun we behind the hill; now at 9pm it is 73*F.

After these computer chores, I'm going to read and Dolores has a video to watch.
 

20070715 Sunday
At Cypress Hills Inter-Provincial Park, at Elkwater, Alberta

Cloudy & 62*F early, up to 95*F in the afternoon, cooling in the evening.

Interesting day. We started a little late with a plan to drive some of the local roads in Cypress Hills. We drove to Horseshoe Canyon overlook, where a landslide years ago left an interesting view to the northwest. The folks here say you can see Medicine Hat's lights at night and sometimes Medicine Hat during the day. There was a trail which we walked because we'd been told orchids could be found there. There were flowers, but we'll have to look in the book to see if any were orchids. The mosquitos drove us out toward the road to go back to the truck, and that made us go through an old mini-museum of forestry.

The items on outdoor display that caught my eye were an early John Deere two-bottom plow, and an old, old, Case tractor. I took pictures of these, and an old road grader that was pulled by a D4 Cat tractor.

We went on, taking a road that swings around the west end of the park to the entrance on the north. Then back up onto the range and out along the top of it to the east. We passed Reesor Lake (nice little lake, a few fishermen) and got to the end of the gravel. A sign said something about Fort Walsh not being open on Monday or Teusday, so we reckoned we'd better do it today. Continuing on a clay, two-rut, road, we soon came to a sign that welcomed us to Saskatchewan and another that told us the road is impassible when wet. I believe it.

We rattled and banged on down the ruts which joined similar ruts and veered away from similar ruts. The signage was just enough to keep us from being lost. But we did reach Fort Walsh National Historic Site.

We walked in the door, paid our money and were told to hop in the bus. The bus took us down into a valley. Part-way down, the driver stopped and showed us where the old city of Fort Walsh was located when the fort was there. A little farther down the hill is a reproduction from photographs of old Fort Walsh. But we went on down into the valley to the bottom. 

Outside the bus, a guide gave us a tour of the area, including Farwell's trading post (repro) and Solomon's trading post (also a reproduction). The locations are exact, but the details may not be quite accurate. These were "whiskey-trading posts". We toured inside Farwell's and were shown what the indians would bring - furs of all sorts - and told what they'd trade for. After they'd traded for what they needed (rifles, arrowheads, metal goods), anything left would go into rot-gut whiskey. 

The traders would bring up from Fort Benton MT, the head of navigation on the Missouri, then up the Whoop-Up trail into the Cypress Hills, raw grain alchohol. They'd pour it from barrels into small casks and flavor it with any sort of thing they had around, including gunpowder and strychnine (sp?). It was said to be extremely intoxicating and left the victim with a terrible hangover.

We learned that a group of men killing wolves for their fur were in the area in 1873. They killed the wolves using poisoned animal carcasses, which of course also poisoned anything else that touched the poisoned carcass. The indians didn't like the wolfers because their dogs would get into the carcass and die, and dogs were inportant to the indians. The wolfers didn't like the traders because the traders were selling rifles to the indians and they were afraid the indians would come after them. The traders didn't much like the wolfers because they had a good thing going with the indians.

The whiskey traders would only operate in one site each year. They'd build a ramshackle post in early spring and be out of it in June to take the furs back to Fort Benton to sell to buyers from Saint Louis and east. They'd burn the post they left to prevent it becoming an asset to anyone else.

You can find better written history, but to make a story shorter, the wolfers were heading south and stopped at the posts. The post owners were about to head south with their furs. The wolfers came up missing some horses, which they blamed on the Assiniboines currently at the post. The post owners said it couldn't be, they were so weak from the prior winter their horse were starving - neither these indians nor their horses could have ridden out and stolen horses.

Since it was the last night of the posts, some of the indians made their last trades and bought whiskey and took it back across the creek. The wolfers and the post owners also got into the hooch because it couldn't be brought back into the USA. The wolfers were still resentful about the horses.

In the morning the whites had breakfast and whiskey. One of them decided to walk across the creek and take horses for ransom. He grabbed two and started walking back, when a friend persuaded him not to do it. Walking farther, he let go his frustration with a pistol shot into the indian dwellings. That did it. Not knowing who fired, the wolfers and traders let go several volleys into the indian community. Only when one young indian in hiding on the ground fired up into a passing wolfer, killing him, did the whites decide this was getting serious and pulled away.

Stories escalated the number of dead indians (23) to two and three hundred by the time the press reported it in Ottawa. There was much outrage that people from the United States could come into Canada and do such things. Something had to be done.

That led to the formation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the first battalion of which erected Fort Walsh at the scene of the Cypress Hills Massacre. These men, in place by 1875 played a large part in settling the area. They dealt with Sitting Bull after he came to Canada following the Custer battle, and persuaded the Sioux to return to the US. They maintained order and explained the new rules to the citizens and traders coming into the area. Their force spread and became *the* force, first in the west and later in all of Canada.

Fort Walsh lasted only until 1883. The railroad came across Canada north of Fort Walsh, and the fort's assets were relocated to the railroad line.

.... We went by bus back up to the reconstructed fort for a tour there, then to the Visitors Center for refreshment and into the truck back through the two-rut roads to home. 

It was still 90* at home, and D was tired, so we went to the local lodge for dinner. It was quite nice.

Back at the little house, we were told of a campfire this evening. We went to it and had a bunch of fun singing goofy songs, like "Ghost Chickens in the Sky". Lots of kids and bunch of adults with two rangers leading the singing. At the end of the singing, the marshmellows came out and all the kids had a chance to roast them. We left to get back to the trailer and clean up. But it was fun.
 

20070716 Monday
At Cypress Hills Inter-Provincial Park, at Elkwater, Alberta

Cloudy & 66*F early, up to 95*F in the afternoon, cooling in the evening.

This is a loafing day.

We stirred ourselves long enough to mail a deposit for a campground later, and to go to the visitors center. Mailed the letter, didn't get much at the center.

We toured to the only place we hadn't seen in the park, the Spruce Coulee lake. Nice little lake, with two loons fishing in it.

Then we went back to the Horseshoe Canyon overlook, but the haze prevented seeing any real distance.

Back, then to the little house. We'll do some needed backing up of the laptops to a portable hard disk we brought along. And we'll just sit around and read. Like the old man who was asked what he was doing replied, "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits".

So we sat until 8pm or so. Then we took a ride around the top of the ridge looking for animals. We saw the local ground squirrels, and quite a few deer but nothing exciting. We ending the trip at Horseshoe Canyon overlook, trying to photo the sunset. It was hazy and the sun just sort of went away as it approached the horizon.

We bumped into our neighbors - from BC - twice in the trip. They're nice people to talk with.

 In the car, we've been listening to CKUA, a nice station. Can't get it down in the campground. 

Back to the little house.