Northern Skatch

There's internet up here! That was shocking, and we decided to make use of it since it's around.
So we are in Saskatchewan now, and yet again way back up north. We went to the Provincial Information booth like we did in Manitoba, but the guy at this one was much less helpful and truthfully looked like he wished we would just go away. So we went to Duck Mountain Provincial Park, which was uneventful and incredibly rainy. In the morning we left to a park only about 2.5 hours away (our shortest drive yet between parks) - Greenwater Lake Provincial Park. In the provincial parks booklet we had read it sounded like an amazing place, so we decided to check it out on our way up north. Maybe it is nice, but not when we got there. It had obviously rained a ton and there was no drainage to speak of, so the sites were completely saturated and everywhere we stepped the gravel ground sunk below us and our feet got soaked. Also, the campsite fire pits in Saskatchewan were not too promising; the ones in Duck Mountain were raised up to chest level on poles, and the ones in Greenwater were old garbage bins with holes in them . Not much warmth there, and to get to the one in Greenwater we had to get too wet to enjoy it! We weren't too excited about this prairie province, especially because they also charged lots more than Manitoba and added $6.00 a site if you were from another province. Mental!
However, things looked up when we went up north the next day to Narrow Hills Provincial Park, where the wildlife was everywhere and the landscape was beautiful. (Although it must be noted that we first passed a town called Tisdale, whose welcome sign boasted: "Tisdale, Land of Rape and Honey". No kidding. That was the sign.) We found out that Narrow Hills offered "wilderness camping" in three areas (which meant it was free - but also that there were no flush toilets or people checking that you survived the night in the middle of nowhere), so we decided to check those out. We found an amazing site right on one of tons of lakes in the Gem Lake Region, and the lakes were rightfully named after their amazing and ever-changing colours. The interesting thing about this site was that you couldn't drive right up to it, so we had to park the car and walk our stuff down about 100 metres. That really isn't much of a walk, but it made us think more than usual about what we needed to make dinner and set up camp since our stuff wasn't 10 feet away like usual. We had leftover pasta for dinner and brought all of our food related stuff (and basically everything we didn't need for the sleep) back to the car. It rained for about an hour, but after that it cleared up completely and was unbelievably calm and quiet. We had a fire and read and relaxed, watching the lake change colours as the sun set, and then we started hearing the cries of a bear about 100-150 metres away. It kept making noise, and so we could hear where it was traveling as the sound carried through the still air. We went to bed, and Katie was pretty nervous, but Chris kept her calm. It truly was incredible how still the night was - there was not a single frog or bug noise and the absolute still air kept the leaves in the trees from rustling. At one point in the night we heard the footsteps of something huge plodding down the hill towards the site, and when we woke up in the morning we found the tracks of either a moose or an elk. They were enormous!
We packed up and left to Lac La Ronge Provincial Park, which is the most north we can go in Saskatchewan for camping. It was really beautiful there (except for the stupid waist high fire pit!), and we spent the night playing scrabble by the fire and woke in the morning to coffees on their boat dock in a bright hot sun (Finally!). The best part about that place was their weather forecast ... the Environment Canada weather site had a picture of a smokey fire instead of the usual little icon of sun or rain. The "current condition" was "smoke", and the forecast for the morning was "local smoke". We thought it was so funny ... apparently it was like that because there were 37 fires in the area and 6 were out of control .... but nobody seemed concerned about it so it must not have been that rare.
Now we are on day two at Prince Albert National Park, which is the best yet in Saskatchewan. It is a huge park and has an actual ground level fire pit (and the one we got is brand new), and we are surrounded by incredibly tall pines (which bent like crazy in the wind and sounded like massive creaking doors!). They have a major bear warning out right now, and two massive bear traps set up, because apparently a mama and two cubs are wandering through all the sites. The traps will just relocate them, not hurt them, and we have yet to run into any. We always clean our site after eating and before going to bed, so there is no real reason for them to come see us. The cool thing about this park is that there are deer everywhere and they are not really scared of humans. one hung out with us last night in the campsite next to us while we brushed out teeth and got ready for bed, and it wasn't the least bit scared of closing car doors or our voices. Today we spent hours laying on the beach, which was awesome, and many deer came cruising by us along the forest line totally unconcerned about our presence.
Tomorrow we are onwards again ..... to Meadow Lake Provincial Park and then back south to check out the bottom half.