Our Canadian Gravel Back Roads Adventure

We came this far north to Prince Albert to see a part of Canada that many probably pass up.

Ya betcha dey grow big wheat,eh?

We have been visiting many of the American national parks, so we thought it would be interesting to see some of the Canadian counterparts. Prince Albert National Park was about an hour’s drive north of the town of Prince Albert, so we thought it deserved to be checked out.We headed up and thought we would first go to the park headquarters thinking  we would see some exhibits about the park.

Northern forest birch stand

We looked on the map and figured out how to get to where we wanted to go. However, Canadian roads are not well marked by our standards (maybe the Canadians are just smarter), and we missed a turnoff to the headquarters. Instead, we drove about 20 miles further north to another entrance that we found after stopping and asking a First Nation native Canadian how to get there.

We thought that we could drive a loop through the park that would bring us out to a road that would start to take us toward Edmonton, Alberta, our next planned stop.

Pretty little town

We had very coarse maps of the park, so we asked the agent at the entrance for specific directions when we entered.

Wakesiu business district

Unfortunately for us, he seemed unaware that the park had a southern entrance that was clearly marked on our maps. We paid our fees and entered the park, and the adventure began. We followed the park maps which did show the route we wanted to follow, but the roads were so poorly marked that we got lost. After realizing that we were lost and reassessing our situation, Capt. Larry started to follow the compass and map to get us to Lake Wakesiu. This is a community that is located within the park, complete with businesses and a host of cabins and lodging facilities that we assumed are used as vacation or second homes by nearby Canadians.

Deer droppings everywhere

It was a beautiful area and someplace we thought would be worth future visits. We left Lake Wakesiu and the real fun (translation- Jane's angst) began.

A doe and fawn by the road

We followed a road that we assumed would take us to the park’s southern entrance. Along the way we saw some deer grazing by the road. We stopped the car and were within 10 yards of them.

OK, I'll pose for you

They just kept on with their business so Capt. Larry guessed that there was no deer hunting in the park. But the highlight of the day was when we spotted a black bear along the road. We stopped and tried to get a picture, but the bear sensed something was up and headed off into the woods before we could capture the moment. Gotta learn the new camera better.

We finally made our way to the southern entrance and the park’s headquarters. Shortly after exiting the park we came to an unmarked fork in the road. We went left following the road back to Prince Albert. But we were 50 miles from where we started, and wanted to head west of where we’d been.

Beautiful Wakesiu Lake

After thinking about this, we realized that the other fork would save us substantial travel time. We turned around and took the other fork which immediately put us on a gravel road. With the GPS and roadmaps we were given, we followed a route that we thought would take us to the main roads headed for Edmonton, AL.

Artistic marker

We were doing OK until we came to unmarked crossroads along the route where we had no idea as to where we were. At this point, Capt. Larry realized that we had map detail that would indicate where we were on either the park maps or the GPS, so once again he decided to start following the compass. We picked a southern direction and followed that for a considerable distance. Jane was beside herself and almost hysterical. We came to several crossroads and at one point stayed on the compass bearing at a bend in the road. After about a half a mile on a deteriorating roadbed we decided to go back. We had to turn the car around on a very narrow road that had no berm and standing water and mud at the very edge. Jane was now cursing (and not to herself). Capt. Larry kept reassuring that we weren't lost (after all we navigated the Loop) and all of these country roads would eventually come out to a main one. It's how the farmers go into town for shopping. We followed our compass bearings and, after traveling over some of worst gravel road we’d ever been on, we found the major highway for Edmonton and were out of our hellish maze. We estimated that the "shortcut" didn't save either any time or distance, but it was an  adventure and one that a relaxed Jane started posting on Facebook as soon as we had wireless service.

  Once on the highway, we proceeded toward Edmonton, but experienced some road construction delays.

Tall boundary marker

We had lost a lot of time throughout the day and realized that making it all the way to Edmonton was going to be impossible. So we landed at the town of Lloydminster, SK. Lloydminster is interesting as it sits right on the Saskatchewan/Alberta border which appears to divided the town right down the middle with half of the town in each province. We checked into a motel and settled in for the night. It was a hell of a day!

We've been shopping at the faux one

The next day we arose late thinking that when we went to the other side of town we would gain an hour due to a time zone change. Turns out we went into the Mountain Time Zone about 40 miles east of where we were. So we were behind schedule.

The road sign did show just one table

We decided to not stop in Edmonton as we originally planned, but instead drive down to Calgary and get ready to see the Canadian Rockies. Calgary is Alberta's largest city (about 1.1 million) and there are lots of attractions, but we could only stay one night if we wanted to spend time in the Canadian Rockies and still stay on a schedule that would get us to Alaska in time for our tour (it's a really long distance up there). So far we have logged about 4,500 miles since we left Louisiana on May 15. Jane is starting to complain about the pace, so we will try and slow down as we can.

Hang your clothes up here