The Great Annual Saskatchewan Pedal 06 Shamrock Tour Journal by Don Wilson

Saturday, July 22 Come 1220 hours on Saturday afternoon, the big, white van was cruising past the weighscale on Hwy 11 just out of Regina. Wheelin’ was Ron who was instrumental in organizing the tour, and for the next 8 days would be the cycling group’s support driver.

Flying as navigator was Don, with Delee and Ted relaxing in the passenger section. Before the hour was out Ron had turned off 11 and was driving us due north past Watrous, and Wakaw, over the strange St. Louis bridge and up into the belly of Prince Albert. After dropping Ted and Delee at the Travelodge on the “south hill”, Ron and Don headed for the Mary Nisbet Campground on the north end of town to scope out the situation. As they were setting up camp around the illmaintained cookhouse, Brenda and Gord arrived in their truck. Isy and Therese reported by phone that they were experiencing some equipment problems and would likely be late for the participants’ meeting scheduled for 2000 hrs. With camp established, Brenda, Gord, Ron and Don repaired downtown for a Chinese meal and a quick stop by the old roundhouse and its tiny collection of salvaged Carlton Trail R/W “Geeps”. Back at camp, Jim had arrived, and it was learned that Isy and Therese were successfully underway from Regina. Ron convened the meeting at the appointed time, handing out his Participants’ Meeting Information Sheet along with a ‘Help’ card with his cell phone number on it. Attending were Delee, Ted and Ted’s sister-in-law, Carol, who had just arrived from her home in Calgary, Amund, a Wascana Freewheeler-at-large from Shellbrook, Jim, Brenda, Gord, and Don. The meeting was cordially brief, and after making loose arrangements to meet the others on the road in the morning, the Freewheelers crammed into the downtown “DQ” with everyone else in PA. Returned to the campground as night was falling, we were happy to find Therese and Isy arrived and to see them off to a hotel, it being too late to struggle with an alien tent in the dark.

Sunday, July 23rd Crack of dawn sunbeams lancing thru the skinny lodgepoles found the campers’ tents around 0545. Up and breakfasted and camp broken, the vanguard, led by Amund, cycled a few hundred metres south on dirty Highway 2, peeled off to the right on the 3/55 interchange and away’d westward thru the boreal forest which reaches down for the North Saskatchewan River. The crowd from the hotel, Carol, Isy, Therese, Delee, and Ted, had beat the campers to the highway, and we were now comfortably spread out Ron had stowed all the baggage from the hotels and the campground in the big Ford, had filled the big water jug, had loaded up on juice boxes and treats, and met us for a pitstop just outside Holbein where the Sheik of Shellbrook [aka Don] momentarily incarnated. Around Holbein the forest gives way to farm land and the north wind that had been screened by the trees began wafting the scent of canola flowers and ditch clover, purging the air over the highway of diesel fumes and road dust. Was delightful. We rolled into Frodo’s Resto in Shellbrook. Lunched and way, guided by the map on Ron’s carefully prepared trip-sheet, we pushed the veering breeze westward some 3 K. on Hwy. 3 to its intersection with Hwy. 40 where we turned left and followed the Carleton Trail Railway south-west past the giant lilies at Parkside. As the wind picked up strength out of the 3 o’clock position, and the afternoon heated up hellaciously to around 4 million degrees centigrade, some of us who had this season only ridden as far as Moose Jaw with the wind at our backs were beginning to feel the strain. Painted gooey white with SPD 900 sunscreen, cowering in the shade of infrequently spaced groves of cottonwoods, guzzling water by the tonne, we gratefully wilted into the cooler comfort of the Leask Cafeteria. Finally, as the afternoon was approaching the dinner hour, the last of us straggled into the Blaine Lake campground, fell like desert island castaways upon the cans of pilsner so thoughtfully corralled by Ron, and congratulated ourselves on surviving 108 klix on a record-hot day. Anticipating even a cold shower in the reccentre to sluice off the sweat-salt, we were momentarily chagrined when Ron discovered that the facility was closed. No matter: he hied himself directly to The Country Girls Inn where he procured the essential and shuttled us over. That the motel’s hot water heater’s capacity was only about an imperial pint was disappointing and a little shivery for those not first in. (Sworry, guys. If I’da even suspected that the hot water was so severely limited, I wouldn’a let ‘er run free like I did. Sigh.) Supper gathered us in Ciona’s for a big feed, bread pudding included. The hotelers repaired to their rooms and the campers off’d to their hot beds; those without earplugs attentive to the traffic either prowling around the camp, or roaring off down Hwy 40 towards The Battlefords. The toilet facilities at the campground ensured that most of the tenters were back at Ciona’s for breakfast.

Fortified with the knowledge that this was to be but 62 kms, many lingered over coffee, re-establishing old acquaintanceships and eyeing the overcast thru Ciona’s big windows. Heading south on nasty-narrow Hwy. 12 into a 2 o’clock breeze, some of us donned yellow jackets. Isy attacked the shoulder gravel with her right calf in fit of pique over her toe-clip’s intransigence. A little blood was spilled, but no other injury to either Isy or the gravel occurred. Traffic on the hwy was heavy; we even had to pull over to let a house drive by, heading to Fort MacMurry, it’s said. Going the other way we met Glen and Cale from Saskatoon. Out visiting relatives in Rosthern, they thought that they’d race over to meet us and stretch their legs a bit before they joined us for the weekend portion of our ride. By the time Ted, Delee and Carol flew across the Petrovka Bridge over the North Saskatchewan, the day was begging to brighten. Cranking up the escarpment on the other side, on a highway greatly improved with smooth, wide shoulders, we came to the 50’s Blacktop Diner and curio emporium: closed. After lounging on the veranda for awhile, tummy grumblings inspired us to move on south a couple of K. on Hwy. 1,2 and hard left East onto the Waldheim Access Road. The breeze was now coming in on our right shoulders. The ditches were exploding with flora and herbage, and the grain fields on either side of the roadway looked lush and thick and clean. Hope they get their harvest off, those families, and that the prices they get make it worth their while to try again next year. Into lovely Waldheim we pedalled past a faerie’s cabin festooned with whirligigs and cartoon characters and rolled up to the Tea Garden Restaurant on main street. A very fine luncheon was served us, to the sorrow of several locals who came in, saw with alarm how many tables the bikies took up, pursed their lips in regret and headed out the door to the second-best place in town. The afternoon sun found us drifting wind-atour- backs down the rust-pocked Hwy. 312. About half way to Rosthern, the entire Ride gathered about the van for an extended, relaxed rest-stop on the carefully manicured grounds of the Eigenheim Mennonite Church Rosthern, under ominous skies, was perhaps half-observing a tradition of Monday closing, as the downtown was mighty sleepy. Faced with closed signs in the restaurant windows, some riders went shopping and the campers then congregated at the excellent Rosthern Regional Park campgrounds to set up under the trees. Refreshed in the neat, scrupulouslymaintained shower-house and with the laundry hanging to dry, the matter of supper was addressed. Whilst Gord, Brenda, Isy and Therese opted to cook in camp, the rest of the campers piled into the van and headed downtown to Mackie’s Oriental Grill for the noted triple-salted wonton soup buffet. A search for a post-prandial ice-cream led some to the clubhouse at the regional park where popsicles had to satisfy desire for cold sweet.

Tuesday, July 25th Again, those with earplugs slept reasonably soundly; traffic on Hwy. 11, maybe 40 metres away thru the trees, roared steadily until the wee hours, and began its workday soon after. The night was cooler than the previous, and dew had settled on the fabrics of the camp. The denizens fixed a lazy breakfast, packed up, grabbed Trip Sheet #3 from Ron, and filled their water bottles with the excellent Rosthern water. By 0800 hrs. all were on Hwy. 11 prepared for either an 82 km run into P.A., or a mad 20 K. dash for sustenance in Dork, … I mean Duck, Lake. The campers presumed that the hotelling triumvirate - Carol, Delee and Ted - would quickly overtake them, but were fooled: the speedy 3 had already streaked away against the slight 11 o’clock airs and were seen not again until McDowell. Under breaking light overcast, the breakfast seekers cruised past the still-closed Scrimshaw gallery at the south entrance to Duck Lake, and rolled along main to the only café in town for coffee and a bite of jammed bannock. The restaurant imports its water. The sun came out as we passed the interpretative centre at the north end of Duck Lake. We were heading back into bush country, and it was pretty, the occasional bright yellow canola field accentuating the greens of forest and glade. On the far side of the flower-choked eastern ditch, Saskatchewan’s longest hubcap collection presented itself fence post by fence post. I’m pretty sure I spotted one that I needed for a ’61 Strato Chief in the Long Ago. On we rode, the pavement’s gaping expansion cracks rhythmically pounding the argument for front suspension into our rotator cuffs. Ron, his water and fuel-food supplies replenished, met us at the McDowell turn-off. Most ventured down into picturesque McDowell, while others ground it on, abandoning one member who had been enticed from the Hwy and ensnared by the Antique Power collection a few miles from the Hwy 11’s intersection with Hwy. 2. Much digital camera battery power had to be there expended before the Therese Stecyk and Isy Azzopardi at 405 km Double Edition: June & August 2006 Freewheelin’ page 11 truant traveller could ransom his soul and escape into PA, the last one in, at a quarter to three. After setting up camp or checking into their rooms, the riders dispersed on various errands throughout the town. Isy and Therese still maintain that they were NOT thrown out of the laundromat with sopping wet clothes for rowdy behaviour. Uh-huh. Whatever. Morning revealed their car looking like a Napolese tenement alley on washday. Pressed, Therese will admit that they did track down the red wine that they had missed with the meal of campground pasta that they had made themselves the evening before.

Wednesday, July 26th The camp is astir about 0600 on a calm, cool, mercifully overcast morning. Did I mention that periodically over the course of the previous 3 days, heavy-duty sunscreen would actually reach the point of spontaneous combustion on the arms and noses of The Participants? It was HOT and Sol stared, seemingly amazed, or perhaps just bemused, by the temerity of our adventurous spirits, out under the blaring sky when even mad dogs have found shelter. Gord really doesn’t look so good this morning. He’s feeling ugly, too, after two nights of no sleep and congestion a-building in his chest. He croaks like a terminal three-packs-a-dayer when he speaks. He and Brenda had only signed up for the five-day tour as they were booked on a flight out of Saskatoon on Friday to attend a favoured nephew’s nuptials on The Coast. Anticipating the exertions of the upcoming weekend, Brenda and Gord regretfully decide to put away their bikes and accompany us by truck as far as Waskesiu, before heading to ToonTown for 36 hours of recuperation before their flight. Away from the Mary Nisbet, Hwy. 2 is one long garbage dump decorated with busted bottles and road debris. The expansion cracks are beginning to really irritate some riders, but avoiding them by riding on the driving surface is out of the question. Traffic is heavy. A Ronstop at Spruce Home and the good wishes for a swell trip from Gord and Brenda fortify us for the sprint to North End and its roadside diner. Trip Sheet #4 advises that it is the only place to eat between PA and “The Junction” of highways 2 and 264 just 15 K. from Waskesiu. It suffices, and provides a telephone connection to the Lakeview Motel in Waskesiu to enable Therese and Isy to book a room. (oh how I wish I could work “bear-icade” into the previous sentence.) Under increasingly dark skies the Ride rendezvous’d at The Junction. The quicker are fed and gone to set up tents on Beaver Glen or occupy their hotel rooms. The last of us, Isy, Therese, and Don, linger until the clouds have fully concentrated their umbrage over the 264. Soaked thru they arrived at Waskesiu; Isy and Therese to their room; Don to wander in damp glumness, unwilling to set up camp in the wet, until, with kind assistance, he secures the last room in Waskesiu. And for under $50, too! There was no general gathering of the clan this evening with some eating in camp, others savouring the Village’s vintages in warmly-lit restaurants, others smashing trinkets in the souvenir shops. Pete’s pizza was great, with the cold ones easing the 87 kms of fatigue beaten into our bones today.

Thursday, July 27th Periodically and heavily it rained overnight, and I’m sure that those hotellers that heard the racket spared a supportive thought for those toughing it out in tents. The midmorning sun, picketing the pavement with the shadows of road-side conifers, oversees the progress of the Ride, strung out for miles along old Hwy. 2 by 1000 hrs. The varying length and substance of individual breakfasts accounted for much of this length, as well as Isy Azzopardi with bikes at Waskesiu Lake Double Edition: June & August 2006 Freewheelin’ page 12 (Continued from page 11) some minor mechanical problems which Ron summarily dealt with. Thanx, guy. Somewhere south of Sandy Lake, Ron established the first refreshment stop of the day, enabling most of us to power past the roadside art shops and up the hills to lunch in the Lake Country Trading Post at Emma Lake corners. In a land littered with bears and sundry wild mammalia, we saw nothing but chipmunks, one or two birds each, and a few dumb elk that Tourism Waskesiu people pay to hang around the Village and pose for pix for the folks back home in Seoul and Switzerland. Away from Emma Lake, 50 K. covered and 47 to go, we were back in agricultural lands, and a bit of the ol’ up ‘n’ down past Christopher Lake got us to new Highway 2 and a straight, mostly joint jolting ride down to PA. Galleries are visited and the campers arrive at the Mary Nisbet later in the afternoon to find hundreds of pilgrims from St. Anne’s in northern Alberta encamped on the green and taxing the facilities to the max. Isy and Therese do not have to erect their barn dance-sized tent, having decided that a working Monday after a weekend of continued exertion would not be possible. They are heading home, as is Jim. That evening at 8:00, Ron conducted another Participants’ Meeting at the campground cookhouse to welcome those 10 folks - Carla from Regina, Chris from Meadow Lake, Phyllis and Mirian, Wayne and Brenda, Sally and Ian, Glen and Cale, all from Saskatoon - who have arrived to join Amund, Carol, Delee, Ted, and Don for the final 3 days. Bob, the chair of SCA’s Recreation & Transportation committee, has arrived in his Grande Marquis to aid Ron as a second “sag waggon.” If Thursday’s ride is indicative of Friday’s, there will be folks ranged out along Highway 55 for townships. Just at dark Marion and Murray arrived to camp with us on their way north to paddle away an extended weekend.

Friday, July 28th Friday dawns pleasingly overcast and calm in the campground. The last rider is on the road by 0830 facing a 142 km ride to Nipawin against a whimsical zepher that never really did make up its mind what it was going to do that day. Cousins of the same old expansion cracks that punished our shoulders all week are on the Hwy. 55 occasionally obliterated by patches of fresh pavement. Out by Meath Park, Mirian collected a 3 cm-long spike the bad way. Went thru both sides of the tube. Double puncture: very rare. What luck, huh? Ron rescued the tube and restored it to utility. Carla announced that she had never before ridden so far all at once, and she was some pleased about that, and we were all tickled. Under the impression that there was not a resto open between PA and Choiceland, 98 K. away, we Ron and Bob-stopped past Wierdale and Foxford and Shipman and on to the outskirts of Smeaton when it was discovered that Crystal had opened her Café. We rewarded Crystal and her Québécoise helper well for their industry, enjoyed a bit of shady relief from the horseflies, and pushed on. Snowden, Choiceland with its big grain elevator indicating the end of the CP rail line reaching up from Tisdale and Nipawin, Garrick, Love (see the video at http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=GS_td5mlOyg), White Fox, and the final 12 K. down into the Saskatchewan River valley and up into Nipawin. Glen and Cale smoked out 10 K. to the Dam Vista Viewpoint and back for their ‘centuries’ - 100 miles. Good goin’, guys. With water every bit as good as Rosthern’s famous elixir, the Nipawin Regional Park boasts a truly excellent camp ground. The keyed shower house doors protect a new, well maintained and supplied facility; the shaded tenting grounds appear fairly level and debris-free to the almost-Centurions grateful for any horizontal piece of real estate upon which they could lay down and unlax. A wide belt of natural evergreens stifled the noise of traffic on 55. Most campers went uptown with Ron in the Van for pasta and wild boar. T’was good, and everyone passed a restful night, the rumble of thunder and the patter of rain muted by tired ears, the white flash of the lightening through the tent’s roof unseen by well-sanded eyes.

Saturday, July 29th A bit wet this morning are the tent flies, and campers are looking for sunbeams in which to spread them. While some breakfast on carried provisions, others strike for town or drift with Ron down to the Marina on the River for a classic country spread. With only a 64 klix down Hwy. 35 to Tisdale and west another 36 on Hwy. 3 to Melfort, people seemed reluctant to start, straggling out of town like refugees. An 11 o’clock breeze threatened to freshen and the sun skirmished with a malevolent-looking bank of clouds gathering in the west. At Nicklen, now but a deserted gas station on the highway near Armley, the CN line from Melfort crosses our path. We Ron-and-Bob-hopped across rolling green countryside down to Tisdale and fell upon the first open restaurant en route; the stragglers arriving around 1:30. Repast’d, we flung ourselves out onto Hwy. 3 and, back to the frisky wind, beat it 20 K. down to the Star City access road where Ron surrendered the sag duties to Bob and went on the last 20 K. into Melfort to drop off the baggage and scope the burg. Heading on into Melfort, who do we meet pedalling bravely against the wind to make the Star City turn-around? Velda, prez of the Freewheelers, come up especially to help Bob and Ron prepare the riders’ final breakfast on the morrow and to ride into PA with us to celebrate the end of the ordeal. (Ordeal?) (Well. Yeah. Talk to the butt, Bill. I coulda used a rest day half way thru, U know, take a break from having my tail kicked by about 174 mean expansion cracks for every one of those 800 K. we rode, eh? Not that I wouldn’t do it again in a heart-beat, mind. It was fun, U know? Never mind the, ah, corporal insults. I’m gonna get me one of those fancy split saddles and maybe a sprung seat-post.) Again Chris was among the first to be waiting for her camping gear when she arrived in the Melfort Campground. Our gypsy tent camp began setting up around 1530 with fly sheets draped over sunny bushes and laundry lines appearing. The doors on the nearby showerhouse were electronically locked and the place was somewhat spartan, but neat. When everything was snugged to satisfaction, many of us piled in the van and hied ourselves to the resto in the Travelodge where we scarfed good, some finishing the evening with a DQ.

Sunday, July 30th For the campers, the night was spectacular. Chris was wrong when she postulated that the looming banks of black clouds would pass to the north. About 0200 the heavens wrent like Armageddon and the siege of Moscow rolled into one. Spiteful Æolus loosed his charges into the treetops setting weakened cottonwood limbs to creaking ominously overhead. Rain and more rain sought out every unsealed stitch in camp, re-rinsing the laundry and soaking towels forgotten in the dark. Before the crack of dawn Velda, Bob and Ron were gone, only a dry patch of grass attested to V’s erstwhile presence. (Continued on page 14) The hotel people, Ted Quade, Carol Chester, Delee Cameron wave before setting out. Double Edition: June & August 2006 Freewheelin’ page 14 Over at the electrified cooking shelter in the Tourist Office civic park, coffee was soon perking and ham spitting in the pan. Juice had been opened, utensils laid out and the eggs lined up ready to hit the hot pan at 0630. The cooks waited, and waited more, turned off the gas on the Coleman and waited some more for the first riders to roll up to the log walls and proclaim the advanced state of their starvation. Again, as individuals or in small groups, the Riders head out on the last leg of their journey, 98 kilometres to the PA city limits and then up to the Mary Nisbet to reclaim our baggage from The Van. Though overcast, u.v. rays find unscreened skin and begin to burn. A brisk 5 o’clock wind boosts our speeds with a corresponding reduction in effort. Cruisin’. Kinistino, 28 K. along, is essentially closed this Sunday morning, as is Birch Hills. A rest stop has been arranged near Birch Hills and a local has assured us that the resto on the Muskoday First Nation is a good place. The road heads across the wind for a few K. and then down and out of the shallow South Saskatchewan River’s valley. At the top of the grade is the Muskoday Resto, closed for the pow-wow that is taking place under huge tents to the south of the highway. We brace ourselves to the best of our abilities for the final 15 or so K. into PA. The overcast has blown off as we pedal thru the city’s pleasant eastern ‘burbs’ and across the North Saskatchewan for the last time this trip. Ron has arrived at the Mary Nesbit and is distributing bag and baggage as the riders arrive. We snap a few farewell pix, drink a toast or two with cold Kokanees courtesy Carol, and head our separate ways wondering where we’ll congregate next year. Bob took Velda back to her car in Melfort and they returned to Regina via highway 6. With the same passengers he had brought up eight days earlier, Ron retraced his route so Don could foto the St. Louis bridge and lose a bet on where the miles and miles of grain cars had been parked on the CN line north of (? Wakaw? Nope, Watrous. No way. Bet? Ye-ah.) The Van arrived back in Regina at about 8:30. Except for wrapping up organizational details GASP 2006, the Shamrock Tour, was history.

GASP 2006, The Shamrock Tour Regina, Saskatchewan

Calling all cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts! Join the Saskatchewan Cycling Association (SCA) for its annual GASP (Great Annual Saskatchewan Pedal) Tour from July 23 to July 30, 2006.

GASP 2006 will begin and end in Prince Albert and make three loops, forming the shape of a shamrock.

Two itineraries are available for cyclists: a full 8-day (786 km) tour and an abridged 3-day version (334 km). Baggage and assistance vehicles will support both. Participants will have a choice of camping or hotel/motel accommodations. We'll visit museums and historic sites, enjoy the beautiful parkland scenery and the company of 50 other cyclists, and sample the cuisine in communities along our route. On Day 6 cyclists who welcome a challenge will have an opportunity to ride an Imperial Century (100 miles or 161 km).

GASP 2006 is a recreational event open to cyclists of varying ages, abilities, and experience levels. Overnight stops will be in Prince Albert, Blaine Lake, Rosthern, Waskesiu, Nipawin, and Melfort.

Make this family-friendly cycling tour the highlight of your summer!

Registration is now open, and only the first 50 applicants will be guaranteed a spot on the tour. For more information, please telephone the SCA at 306-780-9299 or email to cycling@accesscomm.ca. On the SCA website (www.saskcycling.ca) -- a link that will provide detailed tour information and a registration form.