Week ending Jun 18, 2015 High Prairie

Friday we appreciated having cell phone service so were able to have a Skype visit with John's parents. We didn't do much for the rest of the day as it was a cold windy day. Falher is the honey bee capital of Canada.

 

The campground host gave us a neat honeybee pin as a momento of our visit.  

Saturday we went to the Falher hotel for breakfast. There are only 3 restaurants in town and that was the one that was most busy. After a nice breakfast we wandered around downtown Falher.  Joan was looking for a hairdresser. Neither of the 2 hairdressers work on Saturday, which seems odd to us. We then decided it was time to check the neighbourhood. Our first stop was at Kimiwan birdwalk, next door to a Northern Alberta Railway museum in McLennan.

We had a short walk on the boardwalk looking at numerous birds. But we cut our walk short due to the plethora of mosquitoes.  Joan is still looking for a haircut, so we checked for a hairdresser. No luck.  Where do people get their hair cut here? Our next stop was High Prairie. Our first stop was the Elks RV Park, a perfect place, no trees and full service, with a very hospitable host. On our way back to Falher we wanted to stop at Little Smokey River Recreation area. It exists on our map, but there were no signs to it from the highway.

Sunday we spent most of the day at Gary and Jan's farm.   Gary was a fellow metallurgical engineering student with John in university and has farmed up in this area since graduation. We had a wonderful visit and Jan cooked us a great roast beef supper. Nothing beats eating someone else's cooking. Thanks Jan.

Monday was moving day. We arrived at the Elk's RV park in High Prairie before noon. We had a visit with the host, a perfect person for the job, very friendly and with a great sense of humor. We  went into High Prairie in the afternoon to find a hairdresser. Surely we can find someone here. Most paces seem to be closed on Monday, the one place that was open was too busy to take drop-ins, and when I asked about an appointment for tomorrow I was told yeah we could do that, but I don't know how much it will cost. Hmmm. Back to the trailer to bowl and golf on the Wii. Too wet and cold for anything else today.  After dinner we watched a number of horse riders practicing in the neighbouring rodeo grounds. Looked like it might have been a rodeo parade practice.

Tuesday John got a haircut, his hairdresser/barber works when she gets fed up looking at his hair. About 10:00 A.M. Joan finally got hold of the other hairdresser in town and got an appointment at 1:30. Yahoo! After lunch Joan went for a haircut and John took the truck for a bath. After 3 days of trying Joan finally got a haircut.  The local farmers can thank John for the rain that started just as he finished washing the truck.


Wednesday was a perfect exploration day. On the way to Hillard's Bay Provincial Park we drove through Enilda, looking for the historic site advertised on the highway. We drove on all the streets of the town to no avail. We then carried on to Hillard's Bay on the north shore of Great Slave Lake. The park has a very nice beach area and numerous hiking trails.

We came back to the trailer park via Prairie Echo and Heart River, communities whose only evidence of their existence is abandoned churches. We walked downtown mid-afternoon to the farmers market. Its very early in the season, so not much available. John had a hotdog and then we walked back to the trailer via the walking trail along the creek.


Thursday we headed out to explore a couple of places we had noticed on our map. The first place was Banana Belt. We could not pass up finding out what existed at the community of Banana Belt. All that is there is a rather run down community hall.

View from Banana Belt Hall

We then stopped at Snipe Lake Community Campground. Snipe Lake is quite large and a nice looking lake, which is overflowing its banks at this time.

The campground had its attractions, but the road into it (a private oil company road) was not one of them. Our next stop was South Shore Resort on Snipe Lake. We had seen numerous signs advertising this resort on the highways in the area. The signs are really attractive and lead one to believe the resort is well appointed. We thought we may stop for a coffee break.The resort is obviously the figment of someones imagination and whoever is developing it spent all their money on signs. So much for a late morning snack, so back to the trailer for a late lunch.  We noticed the final statement on the sign along the highway at Sunset House.