On September 3, we headed out for a day trip to Redvers, Saskatchewan. See: http://www.townofredvers.org/ and http://www.creda.sk.ca/redvers/index.htm Redvers is a small town of 917 people located in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan, 19 km west of the Manitoba border and 50 km north of the US border. Redvers is where my Dad was born and grew up.

This is the last grain elevator left standing in Redvers. It is currently in use but it is debatable how much longer that will be. The old wooden grain elevators of the past (like this one) have been torn down or sold in many Saskatchewan towns and have been replaced by larger concrete facilities referred to as grain terminals. All small towns in Saskatchewan used to be marked by their grain elevators sporting the name of the town. This is the farm that my Dad was born on and grew up on. This farm is still owned by a member of the family.

This farm is one of the Century Farms in Saskatchewan. A Century Farm Award is given to a family if members of the same family have farmed or ranched on the land continuously for 100 years or more. See: http://www.isc.ca/default.aspx?DN=1575,18,10,1,Documents
This is my Dad standing next to the sign that my cousin had erected to commemorate the farm being owned for 100 continuous years by members of my Dad’s family in 2001.
This is the Redvers Moccasin factory.
I wanted to bring this little Cinderella machine from, Naumann Sewing Machines, home with me.

In this building, moccasins hand made by a husband and wife team are sold in stores all across Canada. Of course we all purchased a pair of leather moccasins to take home with us as a souvenir.

These two pictures are taken in downtown Redvers. These scenes are pretty typical of “Small town Saskatchewan”. Things move at a less hurried pace than I am used to in B.C.
This is my cousin, Wanda. The farmer’s bad luck harvest wise was my good luck. Because it had been raining off and on for a few days, Wanda and her husband were forced to take a break from the harvesting. This break allowed Wanda to come into Redvers to meet with me and have a visit. We haven’t seen each other for years.
This is my Dad, my Mom, my cousin, Wanda, me, and my Aunt Avaline standing in front of my Aunt’s house.

Our destination for this holiday was my Aunt’s house in Saskatchewan.

This is a photo of the landscape in Saskatchewan taken through the window of the car. I love that sky! This is my Aunt’s house and our destination.

This is my Aunt and our hostess. My Aunt just added this new deck to the front of her house.

This is Misty. She also lives in this house.

On August 27, I headed out with my parents on a holiday. We were headed to Saskatchewan.

The first night we stopped in Osooyos, BC. Osooyos has Canada’s lowest annual precipitation, Canada’s warmest annual temperatures, and is home to Canada’s warmest fresh water lake.

The next morning we headed east on Highway 3–The Crowsnest Highway. The first three pictures were taken from the Anarchist Mountain Lookout.

You travel from 910 ft. to 4.045 ft. as you travel up the steep incline on the mountain.

This is a view of the Okanagan Valley with Osooyos in the centre.
The green spots are where people have irrigated their orchards. This area is Canada’s only desert–this area forms the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert which extends from Mexico to Canada.
This is a picture looking south to Oroville, Washington.

The next four pictures were taken near Pincher Creek, Alberta.

In 1868, a group of Montana prospectors camped along a creek north of the border. They left behind a pair of pincers–a farrier’s tool for trimming a horse’s hooves–in the creek when they rode out for the Kootenay gold fields. In 1874, The Northwest Mounted Police marched west from Manitoba to bring peace to Western Canada. On their patrols, they discovered the rusting pincers in the creek, and hence forth it became known as Pincher Creek.
The mountains in the background are the Rocky Mountains.
Pincher Creek is home to many wind turbines designed to harness the energy from the wind. A single wind turbine in an average year will produce 2,000 MWh of electricity, enough power for over 250 Canadian homes. Using wind to produce electricity rather than burning coal will leave 900,000 kilograms of coal in the ground and reduce 2,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, the same impact as taking 417 cars off the road or planing 10,000 trees. Impressive!