We arrived in Riding Mountain Provincial Park on Monday 21^st July. It is in the province of Manitoba North West of Winnipeg. It is 1160 square miles of wilderness where we hoped to spot bison, which roam here.

We spent a night at the campground at Wasagaming (Clear Lake), which as the name suggest was on a lake! It was also walking distance to a little town, which was a novelty as most of the campsites we’ve been to are quite remote. If ever we ask about accessing nearby attractions or towns we are always told you need to drive. We don’t take any notice now as we were recently told you needed to drive to the beach when it took no more than 15 minutes to walk there!

In the centre of the park is a plateau covered by forests and lakes and at Lake Audy is the small herd of bison. They were introduced into the park in the 1930’s. Canada’s First Nations had farmed and hunted the bison and at one time there were over 60,000,000 bison across Canada. Once the Europeans arrived they hunted them till at the end of the 19^th Century there were only 100 left!!!

Anyway we were keen to see them so came off the main road through the park onto an unmade road and headed to Lake Audy. It said it was 18km. It was actually 18miles of some of the worst tracks we’ve ever been down. Bone shaking, teeth rattling stuff.

Took us almost an hour! However, it was worth it. We came across a herd of about 60 bison including lots of calves. They are crazy looking animals with their curly fur and little facial features, but truly magnificent nonetheless.

Just pass the bison we found a self-registration campground on the edge of the Lake. We stopped to have a look and the kids and John came face to face with a bear cub no higher than Charlie. They looked at each other for a minute then he ran off into the bushes. Brilliant.

We fell in love with the campground so having made the journey back down the dusty track we came back the next day and found a perfect spot.

We spent a day with our own private ‘beach’ on the lake, sunbathing and fishing. Both the boys caught pike, which they were very chuffed about.

There was no one nearby and so we felt truly isolated in this beautiful spot. A rather large pile of bear poo nearby reminded us that we were not alone!! Several deer wandered past us and a pair of loons fished on the lake right by us – their laugh like call is so distinctive.

Sadly our stay there was caught short by a small medical emergency. William came off his bike a couple of days before doing jumps and had badly grazed his knee. It was starting to look decidedly yucky so suspecting it was infected we headed out of the park on Thursday and headed to the town of Dauphin (named after the King of France’s eldest son by French explorer La Verendyre) to a walk in clinic.

On our way out of the park John screeched to a halt for another bear on the side of the road in the grass verge. This one had 3 babies with her, they were tiny and still brown so obviously quite young. This was our closest so far and we sat and watched them foraging in the grass for 5 minutes. They were totally oblivious to us. I’m not sure we will ever get over the excitement of seeing these wild animals up close so will probably continue to bore you with our latest sightings!!        

Dauphin was a small fairly unremarkable town except for the fact that suddenly all the road signs, signs in the hospital etc were in English and a totally unrecognisable language. Turns out Ukrainian immigrants arrived there in 1891 and their influence is everywhere still. Looking startlingly out of place was a huge onion shaped dome on top of their church.

$200 lighter we left Dauphin with antibiotics, ointment and an assortment of bandages!

Now headed west out of Manitoba and towards Saskatchewan. Driving through the plains past endless fields. Saskatchewan is called ‘Land of the Living Skies’ but all 3 of the Central Canadian Provinces are similar in this way. On each long straight road all you can see is sky, all around. Each little town along the way has a grain elevator on the rail tracks for moving the crops produced here across Canada to the waterways for shipping round the world.

The trains are another thing in this country that are mind bogglingly big!! We have counted one with over 100 carriages. Just today we drove up alongside one and spent over 10 minutes trying to overtake it with no sign of the engine for miles up ahead. When we took the Agawa Canyon train a couple of weeks back one of the train crew told us she’s worked on a train that was 5 miles long!

Long straight roads with not very much to look at – except the stunning skies of course.