Sand dunes & other wonders
Road trip hits unusual spots to climb, float, dance and view unusual critters
To celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, we are devoting one issue to each province and territory. Today we explore Saskatchewan. Check back Nov. 4 for our New Brunswick issue.
NEAR SCEPTRE, SASK.— We fall in behind a couple of speeding trucks that look like they know where they’re going as we veer off Hwy. 32 at the “wildlife viewing area” sign and head south on a gravel road to the Great Sandhills. We already coughed up 50 cents to buy a rudimentary photocopied map from the Great Sandhills Museum & Interpretive Centre, but it’s fun to pretend we’re part of a convoy of offroading adventurers.
Precisely 9.6 kilometres later, we turn right at the large curve and soon hang a left at the small black-and-white “sand dunes” sign. With our vehicles spitting up clouds of dust, we cruise down the final 12.8 kilometres of gravel road until the terrain turns sandy and striking sand dunes suddenly jut out of the farmland.
This is private property, but the Sandhill Stockmen’s Association has put up a welcome sign that outlines the rules — no horses, ATVs, camping or fires, respect the environment, don’t drive beyond the parking lot or disturb the cattle or other wildlife.
All we’ve got is a couple of Crazy Carpets purchased at the museum and four water bottles, so we’re good for a short journey on foot.
Saskatchewan doesn’t brag, so that’s probably why I’d never heard of the sandhills until recently. They’re smaller but way more accessible than the province’s remote Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park. You can join guided ATV and sandboarding tours at other dunes — in places such as Namibia, Peru, Oregon and Colorado — but this low-key place is strictly DIY.
Here’s the catch, though. It’s obscenely hot and the Crazy Carpets stick to the sand, so we fail to toboggan the dunes. Maybe a plastic sled would work better. Everyone else is just hiking and taking pictures, so we lower our expectations, feel the hot sand between our fingers and toes, and admire a human-made grouping of 10 small sandcastles.
People come to the sandhills to bird watch, but we don’t luck into any rare burrowing owls. Nor do we see any Ord’s kangaroo rats since the endangered sand dune dweller that hops like a kangaroo but looks like a long-tailed mouse is nocturnal. Luckily, we stopped for photos of the owl and kangaroo rat sculptures in nearby Leader.
I climb a regular hill dotted with sage, grass and small trees for a closer look at cowboy boots artfully slung over a wooden archway. It’s the work of the late John Both, a rancher with “the gift of kindness” who cared for these fragile lands for 57 years.
“No one should judge another person until you’ve walked in his boots,” was one of Both’s favourite sayings.
“When my boots hit the ground, that’s the start of a great day,” was another.
The archway tops what’s affectionately known as “Boot Hill” and was Both’s cowboy way of showing his appreciation and love for life. Some of his ashes are buried beside the archway, according to a tribute sign posted by the Stockmen’s Association.
It’s easy to fall in love with dramatic, ever-changing land like this and to feel like you’ve been told a great Canadian secret.
Here’s another one — Saskatchewan quietly lays claim to “Canada’s Dead Sea.”
About four hours east of the sandhills in Manitou Beach is Little Manitou Lake, named by Indigenous medicine men to reference the Great Spirit and acknowledge its legendary healing powers. The small saltwater lake with high mineral content was formed by receding glaciers during the ice age and is fed by underground springs.
Global tourists are now drawn here to bathe in the therapeutic water in the lake or the three indoor pools at Manitou Springs Resort & Mineral Spa, which were heated to 34 C (“cold”), 38 C (warm) and 39 C (hot) when I was there.
I didn’t come to heal — I came to float.
This oddball water also has high salinity, more than the ocean and less than the Dead Sea in the Middle East, so it’s extra buoyant and supposedly impossible to drown in it.
It’s cold and windy when I fling myself into the lake for an effortless, albeit quick, float.
I do linger at the resort village’s other quirky draw — Danceland Ballroom, “home of the world famous dance floor built on horsehair.”
The enormous dance hall was built on the shores of Little Manitou Lake in 1930.
It boasts a 5,000-sq.-ft. maple tongue-and-groove dance floor that rests on two sub floors with rolls of horsetail wrapped in burlap and tightly wound with wire. The cushioning apparently helps the floor spring back up when dancers are on it.
“There is no comparison to any other dance floor when you see the dancers glide smoothly around the floor,” states the self-guided tour sheet. “The reputation of Danceland is that as soon as the music starts, the dance floor is full.”
I can’t verify this claim because I didn’t make it to a Friday or Saturday dance and I just missed the family dances that run on Tuesdays in the summer. But I do send my kids racing across the dance floor during a Tuesday buffet lunch.
Millie Strueby, who has owned Danceland with her husband Arnold since 2001, hands us a self-guided tour pamphlet after we feast on chicken-vegetable soup, potato salad, green salad with ranch dressing, and lemon squares.
Before leaving, I ponder the wisdom on a sign on the bulletin board: “There are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them. Keep dancing while you can.”
To that I would add, keep camping while you can, even if you’re not a camper like I’m not a camper, because you don’t even need a tent these days. About 41⁄ hours southwest of
2 Manitou Beach in Grasslands National Park we bypass the tempting Convent Inn (a gorgeous convent restored into a country inn) and glamp in a teepee.
We rent Parks Canada’s cots and lanterns for a nominal fee, bring pillows and sleeping bags, and somehow survive a chilly but memorable night.
This is bison and rattlesnake country, but we have both at our ranch in Alberta, so the next day, we visit the park’s black-tailed prairie dog “town,” mindful that their burrows could house fleas and black widow spiders and are off-limits.
These charismatic critters sound the alarm as we stroll the trails near their colony, but they can’t take their eyes off us and seem quite pleased we’ve come to visit Saskatchewan. Jennifer Bain was partially hosted by Tourism Saskatchewan, which did not review or approve this story.