HOME ON THE RANGE
An old grain truck offers quaint sleeping quarters at Ghostown Blues,
MAPLE CREEK, SASK.— Tonight, we’ll sleep in an old sheep wagon and a converted grain truck at Ghostown Blues, but they’ve been retrofitted with beds, electricity and Wi-Fi, so we’re not exactly roughing it. The truck, dubbed the Cowgirl Deluxe, even has air conditioning, along with a display of battered licence plates and a longhorn cow skull. The quilts, blankets and wooden furniture are pure old-timey western, but there’s nothing kitschy about this unique bed and breakfast. Ghostown Blues, on a quiet piece of land on the outskirts of Maple Creek, is a living love letter to the Old West.
It’s stinking hot in southwestern Saskatchewan and most of our fellow guests are sitting on their decks watching the resident dogs Molly and Brewer romp and the sun set.
“Please join us in welcoming friends and neighbours,” reads a sign outside the office that lists the names of the people booked into the three wagons, four cabins and one truck. It’s unnerving at first to see your first and last name made public in these anonymous times, but we aren’t running from the law, so we roll with it and make small talk. My husband grew up on a sheep farm about three hours away in Alberta, so lays claim to the tiny sheep wagon, sharing the double bed with our 4-year-old son. Our 9-year-old daughter and I spread out in the truck, me on the double bed and her in the single “bunkhouse” over the cab of the truck. She’s young enough to giggle at the sign that warns “no spurs in bed.”
We could have booked a cabin and all slept together, but how many people get to say they’ve slept in a sheep wagon or grain truck? We can’t use the fire pit (the whole area’s under a fire ban), but there’s a communal barbecue and outdoor kitchen and breakfast the next morning is inside the main lodge, a converted church that doubles as a music venue.
On the lodge walls are posters for the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, a Montana event that we love, and Ghostown Blues reminds us of our honeymoon at the Shack Up Inn, a collection of restored sharecropper cabins near Clarksdale, Miss.
We promise to join the ranks of Ghostown regulars who keep coming back until they’ve stayed in all eight “rooms.”
Maybe it’s because I get enough of the big city in Toronto, but when I travel, I gravitate to small towns, looking for just enough places to eat, drink and explore without crowds or lineups.
Maple Creek, population 2,000, is perfect. We had excellent old-school Chinese food at BC Café ( just beating a lunchtime lineup), lattes and warm biscuits at the Daily Grind, a swim at the town pool and a shopping trip along the main street.
We daytripped to Fort Walsh, a National Historic Site and former North-West Mounted Police fort. The T.rex Discovery Centre in Eastend was fun and Jack’s Café is a picture-perfect small town gathering place. There’s never enough time to do everything, so we missed out on the area’s biggest draw — Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, with a lake, resort, mini golf and ziplines.
What we did prioritize was goat yoga at Grotto Gardens Country Market. The trend of combining physical therapy (yoga) and “goat therapy” may sound odd, but it’s sweeping North America.
We gathered in the goat barn to lay out yoga mats on a bed of straw, got a handful of goat treats, then invited the goats in to meet us. We valiantly attempted to do yoga as the goats wandered around, nuzzling us, chewing on our hair and pooping on the straw. Mostly, we took pictures and patted the goats and waited to see if they’d climb on us (they didn’t).
“If you’d rather sit here and pet the goats, that’s perfectly OK,” instructor Lou-Ellen Murray told us. She’s from Sun Dog Yoga and was joined by Ceara Caton.
The goats made all kinds of distracting sounds. “It’s fine to laugh,” Murray told us. “Goats make explosions. I don’t know if it’s a burp or from the other end, but they all make rude sounds.”
As the class ended, the goats got anxious, knowing it was time for another handful of treats. We fed them and then decamped to the log cabin café for Saskatoon pie and Saskatoon berry lemonade. Jennifer Bain was partially hosted by Tourism Saskatchewan, which didn’t review or approve this story.