Better late than never…

Here are some shots of our trip to Marilyn’s home town of Outlook, Saskatchewan. It’s about 60 mile SW of Saskatoon on the South Saskatchewan River. We visited her sister in town, and her brother who is still working the home farm. He has no irrigation so he depends heavily on the whims of the weather, at least more so than those with water…

We ran 6 kms twice while we were there on a weekend about a month ago. The weather was very hot and dry, punctuated by severe very localized downpours from small thunderstorms. The neat part was we got to run along the old train trestle which is about a kilometer long and has been converted by the army engineers into a walking bridge as part of the proposed Trans-Canada trail. Here is the sign:

The river valley in this area has been home to native american tribes for thousands of years and there are many archaeological areas of interest here. Farmers are constantly plowing up arrowheads, and even atl atl points, and some friends of mine actively look for teepee rings, and campsites. I have gone out with a small soil coring device with a local farming friend. He looks for charcoal in the soil plugs he samples, and he has found some. The charcoal often indicates aboriginal activities. I have quite a collection of buffalo bones and especially teeth. You can find the teeth most often in the river gravels as you walk the banks.

Here are some views from the trestle bridge of the river and its valley. The distant red bridge is the old highway bridge beside the new bridge. This bridge is closed to the public pending evaluation as a potential part of the river trail system. It was closed years ago after it was heavily damaged by a overly tall transport truck:

Here are two views taken from the old trestle bridge looking north toward Saskatoon, about 60 miles downstream. Is it right to call it a trestle bridge? I don’t know, it’s just a word I remember from reading about bridges when I was a kid and maybe it isn’t one - but that’s beside the point I guess :):

Finally, here are two views, one of the train bridge itself and one of Marilyn on the bridge running her 6 km with me:

And that was our trip to Outlook.