Entering into our 7^th Canadian province we were undecided whether to head towards Regina, it’s capital or North towards Saskatoon. Saskatchewan is another Central Canadian Province and like Manitoba it covers an area of 251,00 sq miles with a population of only 1,108,000.

Regina (named for Queen Victoria by her daughter Princess Louise married to Governor General of Canada), which is home to the only training academy for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police may be it’s capital but Saskatoon is larger with a population of 284,000. Tempted though I was by the sight of all those men in uniform we decided to head towards Saskatoon.

I had read repeatedly about Canada’s Dead Sea so insisted we took a slight detour to visit it. Unique to North America and one of only three bodies of water like it on the entire planet in the heart of the prairies is Little Manitou Lake and it’s therapeutic waters.

So apparently 12 thousand years ago a receding glacier trapped a lake in the bottom of the valley here. The valley walls hemmed in water that was prevented from seeping away and thousands of years of evaporation resulted in a lake with water 3 times more salty than the sea and laced with all sorts of wonderful minerals.

Legend has it that tribes of Canadian First Nations first stumbled upon the healing properties of the lake. With the arrival of the European settlers came ‘foreign’ diseases such as small pox. The Cree people who populated Saskatchewan lost many of their people to small pox so moved away. They camped up on Manitou Lake when some of their braves became too ill to travel. Crawling into the lake they drank and submerged themselves in the water only to find that their symptoms were much improved by morning. And so was born the legend of the healing waters of Manitou Lake!

We arrived with a few aches and pains, William had his grazed knee and we all had a splattering of mosquito bites. We were looking forward to a days bathing and sunning ourselves on the shores of the lake. Sadly not. It was absolutely pouring with rain by the time we arrived and we’d all resorted to wearing jumpers on what must have been the coldest day of the trip so far!

Charlie assured us it would be warm once we were in. The lake was completely flooded and we drove up and down the shore looking for a spot to quietly wade into the waters without drawing too much attention to ourselves. We spotted a motel which was completely washed out, at least 2 pumps going trying to empty the ditches nearby and the ‘beach’ and the pavilion were almost completely submerged.

But we had come this far and we were not going to leave this washed out town without at least dipping a foot into the water. So we parked up, donned our swim wear and walked out onto the beach in the pouring rain past people in rain coats huddled under umbrellas and took to the water.

Ok so we didn’t exactly bathe long enough to ease all of our ailments but we did all have a float (except Charlie who somehow seemed to be too light to do it?!?) and screeched about how salty it was. Charlie was right, it was warmer in the water rather than out.

Not sure whether we feel ‘healed’ in any way, although Will’s knee did look a bit better, but it was certainly a novel way to spend a rainy afternoon.