The weather for the week ending May looked excellent so Charlotte and I loaded the “Igloo” and headed north to the Narrows in Prince Albert National Park. Of all the campgrounds in the National Park this one has the least services including sketchy cell service. Washrooms with cold water are the only luxury, but the secluded campsites for some make it worthwhile. The marina has boat launching and a few amenities but with covid even that has been reduced. Boat and canoe/kayak rentals are available as well. While we had young children, we found Beaver Glen near the main beach, playground, shopping and ice cream stores made that site our go to as it was much easier to keep them occupied and maintain some sanity. The Narrows is a quieter place for those not requiring services to entertain themselves or children so it is now our go to place for over 35 years, at least once a month for days or months.
Playground of the NOFS, an elite group formed by summer resident Johnny consists mainly of, to put it nicely, experienced campers and regulars to the Narrows for many years. (See previous article on the NOFS.) For those of us who appreciate the beauty and quiet of these campsites we guard the privilege of being there and keeping it as pristine as possible. We are proud to be members of this group and this trip allowed us to reconnect with many camping friends and met a few more.
It was hard to get anywhere in the campground as visiting was breaking out all over and appeared contagious as we shared our locked up experiences of last year. It was great to see Donna and Jim, Jan and Norm, Denise and Ernest, marina Jim and of course Mr. Narrows our leader John. As we were early in the season some regulars were not up yet and I know I missed some. We also met a fine young lady Cara and her daughter. Cara just recently took early retirement and left her sticks and bricks dwelling for the free life living in her neat little Class C camper. She plans on travelling where the weather is good and where ever the road leads her, doing what many of us nomads dream of full time. We hope to see them again down the road perhaps in Arizona this winter or on the coast.
We also met Kathy (I think I got that right) and Blaine who, like us, spend a great deal of their year in their Northern Lite Truck camper and Ford F350 6.2 gas. We had much in common and had a chance to compare many notes, upgrades and problem areas but both agreed we were totally happy with our choices of travel and living accommodations and would not change a thing. Both of us have had every RV imaginable except a Class A rig. We like the truck camper as we park anywhere a vehicle can and with 4×4 go where we feel like when we want to, our only restriction sometimes is height but nothing is perfect.
A great week, warm weather not too windy, lots of canoeing, hiking, visiting and photography all in the company of experienced campers and RVers. Generator rules were followed with minimum of use, no garbage and food left around to attract bears who live there and the quiet as campfires died around 9 pm at most sites.
Unfortunately one of the regulars, Morton the Fox was not present this year, we noticed signs everywhere with his photo asking us not to feed the wild life. I hope the park did not have to put him down or relocate him because some fool camper fed him and may have been bitten. When around us they become fairly unafraid of humans (we are thought to be the intelligent ones) and they feed them, but wild is wild and if they feel threatened they will defend themselves. Please do not feed wild life or leave you junk food around so wild animals and birds can get into it, they are no different than us and are always looking for a free easy meal. God gave them a natural diet on which to survive and they do not do well on our processed junk food. Want to kill a wild animal feed it what you eat, so please use your head and allow our wild life to be wild life.
I do this site mainly to share the beauty of nature and light that God has given us to enjoy if we stop to see it as well as interesting places to see. I try my best to capture this beauty in a photograph without retouching any of them but quite frankly nothing beats seeing it in real time. I even took the time to use my Hasselblad medium format film camera and a light meter used by my father to try and capture the moment and will have to share those results later, as the film is out for processing…yep have to wait for it and hope I remembered what photography is all about, light and timing and setting the camera manually to capture what I see. Hopefully you will enjoy some of the images and subscribe. It’s free and your address is not shared, but it’s what keeps me wanting to do this. You can feel good that you have kept a senior off the streets and out in nature taking photographs.
Hope we see you down the road. Look for studiowest.ca and the igloo. Would like to meet you – until then love one another, be kind to each other and respect our natural resources and wild animals.
Next week I will share our photos from our trip in northern Saskatchewan.
As always you can reach me at gerry@studiowest.ca
thank you for sharing i have been to a lot of the places you have posted but am not a good photographer my mod of transpotation is a 2015 ford 3.5 twin tubo ecoboost pulling a 35 foot trailer a few years ago toured N.W.T. yukon alaska and northern B.C. was gone for seven weeks also padelled up to gray owls cabin and then hiked in two days up and two days back
Glad you enjoyed the images yes we have been too many of the same places. We have run out of highways in Saskatchewan so leaving for a year travels Plan A: leaving January for Arizona then to northern BC Alaska, NWT and Yukon. Plan B: leaving April for northern BC and NWT, Yukon and Alaska ending up in Arizona. these day it all depends on boarders restrictions etc. Will be posting mor Northern images shortly.Thanks for reading…Gerry
thank you for responding i hope you continue to post those great pictures and we may even met with you some place on the road, as we hope to get away this summer also …..one place we have been and hope to revist is grasslands nationl park it is our provincial grand canon rented hoarses a few years back and went way into the park and found a old N.W.M.P. half way post [from wood mountain to fort walsh] it was over 100 years old this is a great province with some real neat history………..wayne in regina
Wayne yes the grasslands are special actually I did a week long cattle drive on a ranch in Mankota we camped under the stars and traveled with a chuckwagon kitchen. so those hills hold some memories. Also one of the longest running Rodeo’s is in the Wood Mountain Regional Park you can google it under CCA rodeos I think it’s in July. They cover the grandstand with willow branches a tradition that has been going on 100 years. This is even better than the Calgary Stampede and I have been to many rodeos as a rodeo photographer would highly recommend as it is not far from that NWMP post…..Gerry
thank you again for replying …my wife {ruth} and i are trying to make up our minds if we want to trade our 2015 ford and 35 ft trailer on either a motorhome or a new truck and a truckcamper like yours….. all the different seneoroes have their pros and cons
Wayne we have owned them all this is our 5th truck camper we keep coming back to the TC. We love the fact that we can park on our kids driveway’s when visiting and be at home. the ability to camp just about anywhere is worth staying small. Our 4×4 has locking diffs and a winch so we go just about anywhere we can get clearance which is a bit of a problem. Our friends have a 34 foot motor home and are totally restricted. We would possibly consider a van if I could afford one with 4×4. The van allows you to access your living area without going outside this is the only downfall to the TC. However we have more room than the van. We had an Artic Fox with a slide and due to the increased weight and slide maintenance sold it for our NL. We have found the smaller the footprint the more options are open but everyone is different. Over the years we have found less is better…..Gerry
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