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Our trip to Biggar
Tisdale - Tuesday, August 6, 2013
by:Timothy W. Shire

Though planning is an outstanding thing, it has never been one of my strong points but improvisation, awe, that is more like it. Our plans for late July had been established in the summer of 2012 when we were going to attend Candace and Shane’s wedding which was reported on in the last edition of Ensign.

We actually reserved our campsite at Gordon Howe park in April. At the time we were assured that we could have a full hook up and drive through for our unit. Gordon Howe park is stunning in its beauty, but it sucks as a campground. For some reason the city of Saskatoon not only doesn’t remove snow in the winter but in summer, they take no precaution to deal with mosquito infestation. Beside the campground not having sewer hook up at all, even though they say they have “full hookups,” the mosquitoes were so brutal, just going from the motor home to the Escape resulted in many bites.

With the wedding over we spend two nights out at Highway 16 West RV campground which is just an outstanding place, pleasant surroundings, few if any bugs and full hook up, good wifi and just a little less money than Gordon Howe.

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Our plan had been to head off to Batoche for the Back to Batoche days but our Good Sam group pulled out of that project and so after checking out the map, I proposed we head for Biggar. Though I am sure I have driven through there sometime, I really don’t remember the place, so let’s go take a look. It was raining a bit, but the four lane highway was just outstanding and we were hustling along expecting a 93 km trip. After about forty-five minutes there was a look out point to see the Saskatchewan River Valley. Hmmm! That seems odd, as I recall Biggar is not close to the North Saskatchewan River, even if it floods a bit. Judy checked the map and then with a sly grin pointed out we were on the wrong road. We were at that point, just over half an hour from the Battlefords.

Heah, the boys had played hockey in Battleford, but other than seeing the arena and a hotel room, I was not familiar with the place.

We called ahead, got the only campsite available at the David Laird Campground, just east of the Western Development Museum and everything fit into place. The campground is very nice (above right) with full services and acceptable wifi, but the rain made sure that no time was spent outside, because it too, was home to millions of mosquitoes.

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The David Laird Campground was fully booked for the next night, so we drove over to the spacious and really great campground in Battleford the Eiling Kramer Campground. Though I had been in North Battleford before, this is my first visit to Battleford and it is a great town. The Town Hall is seen at the top of this page and the post office at the bottom of the page. The town operates the campground ,which is located right beside Fort Battleford.

On our first day, I was not feeling well and Judy set off to explore the Fred Light Museum located in a former convent. You can check out the pictures she took of some of the exhibits. That evening there was a parade starting and ending at Fort Battleford and you can see Judy’s pictures of the parade. Late that evening we were watching television and were surprised to see a great fireworks display lasting nearly half an hour, right from the window in the motor home.

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North Battleford really has great shopping and we were able to spend some time as consumers. The people we encountered were friendly and pretty easy going, greatly enhancing the shopping experience. On Friday, Canadian Tire had three insect foggers on hand, but no chemical, so I thought we would look around for the chemical. Big mistake, we did not run down any chemical and before we left town on Monday morning, I went back to pick up a fogger and they were sold out. By the way, Melfort Canadian Tire had all kinds of the chemical, but the foggers are on back order and I am on the waiting list.

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Saturday, we thoroughly enjoyed the tour of Fort Battleford. Though I know the story of the rebellion and we have visited Batoche more than once, this look at the event through the eyes of the Metis and the First Nations people here, really brought home the incredible tragedy and made us feel pretty upset about the current situation that seems only a modest degree different from the broken promises of 1885.

Sunday afternoon, we went through the Western Development Museum and decided that we would have to do it again to really let all the stuff settle in to our consciousness. The main building has a room with the events of the province written on the walls, with each premier and some artefacts of each era. Utterly fascinating and needs much more time. The village display is really excellent, although somethings are puzzling. For example the signal arms on the station are missing and the loading platform is really abbreviated. But the houses are really great.

After the museum tour we had supper at Boston Pizza and watched the Rider game. Truly, Boston Pizzas everywhere are pretty annoying, loud music and over priced food, especially the pizza, which is definitely not acceptable, but great place to watch the game.

So that’s our trip to Biggar and we really had a good time.

This page links to the pictures for the museums and the parade.

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