Canada by Bike

I couldn't ride today, my body was so sore from yesterday's ride plus the wind was so strong that pushing against it was hard. I was only able to make it to the border of Saskatchewan, 40 km or so. After that, I packed the bike and went to a motel in the nearby town of Maple Creek. I needed to rest.

When I woke up I realized it was very foggy outside but the fog was not clearing by the afternoon and I thought that was strange. Later I learned it was not fog at all, but it was smoke. Yes, there were fires happening in northern Saskatchewan and the wind was blowing them south. The air was heavy, smelly and the visibility was low. I would be riding in this smoke tomorrow unless it magically clears up.

Despite heavy smoke, I was able to cover a lot of ground and made it all the way to Swift Current. That's a 170km ride. The prairies are not as boring as I once thought. They are definitely not as flat as I believed, there are ups and downs, small lakes and grasslands. I spotted a pronghorn, a native species of ariodactyl mammal indigenous to interior western and central America.<br>They look like antelopes. I also saw so many different kinds of flowers I have never seen before, that were all in bloom and the smell was quite sweet.

I'm moving fast. Today I covered 235km and I am in Pense, near Regina. The smoke is still pretty heavy. My lungs are starting to burn. Yuck! On a good note, I rode by Reed Lake and stopped to watch the wild life. There are so many different types of birds living there, different type of ducks and grebes. This one duck I saw had a blue beak and I later learned it was a ruddy duck. How awesome is that? Here is a picture of me and my boy right next to Reed Lake.<br>After Reed Lake there is another interesting lake called Chaplin. It's salty due to sodium sulphate! It provides a unique habitat for shorebirds which feed on brine shrimp living in the lake. This lake also provides a nesting habitat for endangered piping plover.

Despite smoke and then rain I made it to Whitewood near the border with Manitoba. It was another big day with me covering 175km. I don't have many pictures from today as it was pretty uneventful. In Whitewood, we got invited to spend one night with Dean and his wife. Dean told us he was volunteering at Red Cross to help with the fires. That year Saskatchewan lost 1.8 million hectares of forest to wildfires.