Edmonton to Battlefords

Edmonton to Battlefords Provincial Park

August 21, 2006

Edmonton is a comfortable city. We walked a trail along the Saskatchewan River that runs through the middle of town. Then we drove through the middle of town into China Town looking for a place to eat where we could park in the shade so Elmo could stay in the car; never found it. Discrimination against Elmos is rampant in Canada.

We ended up having lunch in Veagreville at Vitos about two blocks from the car wash where the Toyota (she needs a name) and my bike (he needs a name also) finally got the Top of the World mud washed away. Veagreville is a Ukrainian community just off Highway 16 (the Yellowhead Highway, also known as the Trans Canada Highway. Most of the older Ukrainians were in Vitos at 1:45 P.M. having coffee. The waitress filled the old Ukrainian’s coffee cups four times before filling my water glass. Across the street from Vitos was a flower Shop that specialized in Ukrainian arrangements and, for those people who took the by-pass of the Yellowhead Highway, Ukrainian gifts. Veagreville boasts the world’s largest Easter Egg (a Pyanka which depicts Ukrainian folk art), which was originally unveiled by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip on their 1978 trip to Canada. Really remarkable what you can be exposed to as a result of the inability to find a shaded parking place in China Town.

The Yellowhead Highway took us through an area of rolling hills decorated with geometric patterns resulting from human’s need for food; squares of wheat, rectangles of oats or barley, curved rows where hay had been cut, blobs and strings of spruce and birch in draws forming wind breaks between fields and around farm houses; light green, dark green, shades of yellow, and dirt brown where roads leaving the Yellowhead humped over the hills to the horizon.

At North Battleford we left the Yellowhead and turned north on Provincial Highway 4 to Battlefords Provincial Park, a great place to camp for the night; how quickly we escape civilization.