August 1-3, 2009

August 1-3, 2009

After another long driving day we completed the Alaska Highway in record time. We made brief stops at Muncho Lake Provincial Park for its scenic lake view and its Folded Mountain that illustrates the rock contortions mountain building entails.

Our Canadian journey however is far from over. It takes us another two long days of driving thru Alberta and Saskatchewan before we cross the border into Montana. Our only tourist stop is in Battleford, SK. It was an early capital of the Northwest Territories and has a giant statue of a “Mountie”, the police force that patroled this wild and remote frontier.

For the most part Alberta and Saskatchewan are flat endless farm fields. If they grew corn, we would feel at home. The scenery is a patchwork of fields alternating between haystacks and fields of canola. The canola flower is a bright yellow that glows iridescent when hit with rays of sunshine. For variety a few fields of green grass and blue rapeseed are thrown in for color contrast.

Interestingly the only wildlife we have seen has been road kill, including two dead moose and a half dozen porcupines. To make the drive seem quicker we are listening to CDs of a couple Great Courses classes. My favorite has been the History of Language. It is interesting to learn how all languages change over time. Witness how different English was when Shakespeare wrote his plays just a few hundred years ago. Juliet’s “Wherefore art thou Romeo” doesn’t mean what you think it does. Going back even farther, at one time English had a word that sounded like “bow” that meant “many times”. The remnant can be seen in the word endings of “dribble” (that meant “drip many times”), and nibble (nip) and dabble (dab).