This morning we decided to squeeze in some sightseeing before heading out of Moose Jaw. We stopped at the local attraction “The Tunnels of Moose Jaw”. Right before the tour, we ran into Janet and Jack who Katherine speed-skated with back in Kingston, Ontario (Janet drove Katherine to the local rink for 3 years)! What a small world. We had a very nice chat and even ended up on the same tunnels tour.
The tunnels of Moose Jaw are actual underground tunnels that run below hotels and other buildings downtown. It was where liquor was made and smuggled to the US during the prohibition period. It was very fascinating and apparently the infamous Al Capone may have even been hiding for a time in Moose Jaw (there appears to be no exact proof but the tours try to convince you otherwise). Moose Jaw apparently used to be quite the sin city back in the day and has a very interesting history. It is very hard to be believe now, but it is ironic that the train station is now a liquor store. There was another tour about the Chinese immigrants who were brought to the town and forced to work building the rail road. It was a very dangerous job and many had perished. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to do both tours but it would be something we would like to check out for our next stop in town.
After the tunnels tour and saying good bye to Janet and Jake, we headed to the local bike shop to pick up some extra spare tubes. We had somehow gone through 3 just around Regina (when we had not gone through any all 5200km before).
After the bike shop we headed to the visitor centre where we took our obligatory photo with ‘Mac the Moose’. We had lunch inside then headed back onto the highway. It was a very windy day, more so than we had expected. Immediately getting on the highway we saw a truck with a massive load coming up the road. We got off the road and got a few pictures. Some days you never know what will come down the Trans-Canada highway.
We battled the wind and stopped in the town of Caronport, just 21km away from Moose Jaw. We took some shelter inside at the local cafe. It was here that we learned the winds were 52km/h gusts! We knew there wasn’t much point in going too much further, so we decided to head to the nearest campground another 10km or so down the highway.
Original post:
We are battling a headwind today. We have only made it 21km outside of Moose Jaw so far and are taking a little break in Caronport. We had a slow start to the day as we checked out the tunnels in Moose Jaw, loaded up on groceries and more cooking gas, and a visit to the tourist info center.
We were initially planning on getting to Chaplin today but I think we may stop before that.
Update from Katherine:
We decided to stop at the Besant Provincial Campground. Apparently, it was part of a networks established to “enhance enjoyment of TCH travel”. The staff were nice and we were impressed by the store selection but the showers and bathrooms left a lot to be desired!
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