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Waskesiu in Autumn
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Prince Albert National Park
October 7, 2015
by: Timothy W. Shire
images by: Judy and Timothy Shire
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Summer is a wondrous thing but then so is autumn and when we made our first visit to Prince Albert National Park in early June we decided that we would end our season back here in this beautiful place. Actually, to call Prince Albert National Park beautiful needs some qualification, it is Canada’s typical boreal forest with a mix of trees and shrubs and a variety of wild life that are accessible while still in their own setting. With this in mind it just makes good sense to visit the place at the beginning of summer and at summer’s end. The end of summer is actually the winner when the two visits were compared.

In June we had the delights of insects that seemed to lesson the quality of the experience and then with the end of summer we had the opportunity to view the forest in transition with the mix of conifers and coloured, trees the visual experience was often so inspiring, that we really wanted just to soak it up, rather then be distracted attempting to document the scene with photographs.
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Waskesiu has two very large campgrounds. Beaver Creek has smaller sites and is more suited to tents and small camper trailers but, it has the added plus of having fire pits and provided you buy a fire permit, you can have campfires in that part of the park. Beaver Creek has more than 200 sites and all the washrooms and showers needed for so many campers. The RV park is Red Deer and accommodates 168 large rigs, be they trailers, or motorhomes. The sites all are near level and include water, sewer and electricity but no campfires.

We drove up from Tisdale in absolutely perfect late summer weather with glorious sunshine and calm winds on Thursday, September 24. In our pictures,
on the picture page, the first two images show the Saskatchewan River at the Muskoday and a few pictures of the trip up to the park from Prince Albert.

We had anticipate that we would be almost alone this late in the season but we were wrong. At least twenty other rigs were parked in the Red Deer campground with us including families and people who obviously were appreciating the awesome environment with us. Many of the businesses in the town site were closed but a surprising number were operating and there was a sizeable population in the cabin village that is part of the Waskesiu town site.
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Most of the seventy pictures were taken on Friday, September 25 when the weather was far beyond expectation and it was truly a joy to be there. Saturday was not as pleasant a day with a little rain, but being in a warm motorhome, a day of poor weather, is hardly worth mentioning.

On Sunday we took down the awning disconnected and were out of the campground a minute or two after eleven. Though it was sunny, there was a formidable wind blasting in from the west south west that made our trip toward Prince Albert a challenge. Motorhomes and large trailers have a lot of surface area for winds to make travel pretty uncomfortable. With a tow behind, the effects of a cross wind are amplified as changes affect the two vehicles differently and that adds to the dynamics. However, we made it to Prince Albert, had lunch and had a boisterous tail wind to push us home to Tisdale.

The seventy pictures on the picture page were taken with three cameras; an ageing Canon Rebel, a 20 mp Sony point and shoot, and a 16 mp Canon point and shoot. About half of the pictures were taken by Judy.
Click here or on the menu on the left to view the pictures either as a gallery or as a slideshow.
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