Bikely map

The winds continued to be strong headwinds, and I slogged out (mostly riding) the first 15-20km or so on gravel, but did get a neat picture of some alkali beds where some ponds have fairly recently dried up

as well as some indications that the ponds probably aren’t full terribly often, as this looks an awful lot like the vegetation you’d expect in an arid region

Anyhow, I made it in to Tompkins, and rode into the local campground looking to score a campsite and a shower, but the bathroom door announced that anyone had to register before using any facilities, and I couldn’t find the office, so I continued into town looking first for the office, but then for someone who might be able to tip me off on where I missed it (and see if I could find some lunch and internet connectivity while I was at it).

Getting into town, the Buffalo Bean Cafe looked to be open, so I dropped in for a bite, and started chatting with some of the locals. Now this being small-town Saskatchewan, everyone was really friendly, and willing to chat up the stranger from out of town, and being generally starved for human contact, I was also willing to chat up just about anyone who’d talk to me. So I sat around and did a lot of talking, and found out that a lot of farmers have been really needing the rain that this storm system was bringing (but were now complaining that their fields have gone from too dry to grown anything to too muddy to get out onto and actually work).

I also learned that Saskatchewan is sitting on top of stupid amounts of crude oil, and that people in the area routinely have problems when they try and drill a well for (drinking) water only to hit oil instead (or sometimes too, since the oil-contaminated water still isn’t potable). Also, since the provincial NDP government that had been blocking (or at least severely restricting) any new oilfield development in SK had been voted out and replaced with Tories in the last election, there’s been something of a run on local real estate. And to round out the interesting oil issues, there’s also been quite a shortage of cowboys and other farm/ranch labour for the past couple of years, since the development in the tar sands has been sucking most of them away to jobs in northern Alberta.

Now while there’s a good deal of concern about environmental and social issues arising from meat production, much of the land in Alberta and western Saskatchewan is barely adequately irrigated to support cattle at fairly low density, let alone grow cereals without requiring massive irrigation projects (that would almost certainly desertify more land than they would make arable), and ultimately beef feeds people in a way that petroleum just doesn’t, so I share some genuine concern for the growing cowboy shortage (and maintain my position that while growing ruminants for meat on land that is suitable for other crops is a poor value in terms of food produced for resources consumed, there’s a whole lot of land entirely unsuitable for vegetable agriculture but quite suitable for growing and harvesting ruminants, whether through ranching or hunting, and that eating meat grown on such land is no less ethical than eating plant-based foods–though I’ll readily concede the point that identifying meat as having been grown on such land can be difficult, and with plant-based foods such effort is largely unnecessary).

So small town Saskatchewan being what it is, I had a handful of offers of crash space in people’s homes long before I was anywhere close to ready to get up, go and set up camp. One of these offers was from the proprietor or the restaurant whose suite is in the back of the restaurant, and whose offer I ultimately took up. Needless to say, he impressed me as being an exceptionally decent person, and good restauranteur, and I’d heartily recommend a visit to anyone passing through the area.