Outlook, SK (or as Peter calls it "Look Out!")

I don’t know how many of you have ever been to Saskatchewan (again - Sas-KATCH-ewan, not Saska-CHEW-an), but Peter told me years ago that we would never, ever go. Not even to cross it off "the list".

This is because his grandparents were from there, and they had had to drive that long, straight, road, back and forth, back and forth, to visit. And, while I’m completely entertained by long straight stretches with nothing in them but grass and the occasional cloud, it’s probably much more boring to 3 little boys, trapped in the car.

But then! Friends moved there - and not to the thriving metropolis of Saskatoon, but to a little town an hour or so south, called Outlook (Google map http://goo.gl/maps/DtyrQ). So, despite the "never, ever going", we’ve been there now - let me see - this time was our third time! (once to Saskatoon, and twice, so far, to Outlook.)

  

Outlook is a comfortable, friendly little town, where they keep a list beside the till at the local grocery store so you can sign up to attend the latest wedding shower, of the latest someone that everyone knows!

Instead of car dealerships, mainstreet is packed with farm equipment dealerships, and it’s not unusual to share the road with (or more accurately - to be run off the road by) massive combiner or the machines that haul the irrigation sprinklers...

It’s ok, though, to be run off the road in Saskatchewan. Except for the rolling hills, here and there, it’s completely and totally flat. (Apparently, the highest point in Saskatchewan is 1467 feet and the lowest is 699 feet...)
 

THIS is a picture of (or was it from?) one of the highest points in Saskatchewan.

Really! I’m not kidding!

 There’s lots to see and do in Outlook and we actually ran out of time, but one of the things is walking the Skytrail Bridge. It's an old railway bridge, converted to a pedestrian bridge, that goes over the South Saskatchewan River, and is over ½ mile long.

 http://town.outlook.sk.ca/skytrail/skytrail-1.html

The River is a beautiful, lazy (at least at this point) river, and the weirdest thing about it is that it’s running North - my brain really wanted it to be running South and had a hard time wrapping itself around the northern flow.

It turns out that

"Saskatchewan"

is taken from a Cree word for

"Swift Flowing River".

I don’t get it - I guess there’s probably rapids somewhere...? (Probably someone who’s been there more than 3 times,

or someone who lives there, could answer that...?)

Below the bridge is a nice, full hook-up campground with a public pool, at the Outlook & District Regional Park (just in case you decide to visit and don’t know anyone). http://www.outlookregpark.ca/campground1.html

And, if all of that doesn’t entice you, THERE ARE FIREFLIES!!!

(See you Sunday - we'll be enroute to North Dakota.)