The GPS said in 659 km, turn left off Trans-Canada Highway. You hardly can go wrong travelling from Regina to Calgary on a bitterly cold day just before Christmas.
Just as everywhere, CBC Radio was describing how cold it was outside. Having left the Fort a day earlier, Marnie and I were crossing the prairies for the first time in winter.
It also was the first time that we were going to enjoy Christmas in our son’s home. Neither Marnie nor myself had ever envisioned the scenario that we would spend Christmas with one of our children, but here we were excitedly heading to Calgary with our car stuffed to the roof with Christmas presents.
Completing the load were my mother’s Doulton dishes and a painting that hung prominently in her living room. The painting done by my artist mother now fills a wall in front of Brendan and Eleni’s dining room table.
The winter prairie skyline constantly is changing and offering new vistas, whether you are travelling east to west or in the opposite direction. The sun barely broke the horizon until after 9 a.m. around Regina, but the wide vista of orange and pink that ran from as far north as one could see to as far south as the eye could fathom was breathtaking.
On two successive mornings heading east, ice crystal rainbows adjoined the rising sun. It was a sight that neither Marnie nor I had ever seen before.
The cold prairies with only stubble rising out of the ground was catching all the snow that had fallen. It was less than an inch and in many instances west of Regina, no snow covered the fields.
Canada is a large country. It takes almost 20 hours to travel from the Fort to reach the Quebec border and in that same time, you can travel across three complete provinces to reach British Columbia.
The landscape in winter is much different than in summer. Our travels west in summer and fall have shown the prairies filled with the green and brown of wheat, oats and barley, the fluorescent yellow of canola, and the purple blue of flax.
Travelling east across the Canadian Shield, we enjoy the beauty of our lakes, rivers, and trees that move from pine forests into a much different Carolina forest and the colours of fall that have inspired hundreds of painters.
Yet in winter, the rolling hills of Saskatchewan have a myriad of colours reflecting off the sun. The foothills of the Rockies, with the sun glistening down, shine like diamonds with their sharp snow-covered peaks.
One might think that the prairies might be dull in winter but, in fact, I was surprised at all the colour that we saw on the bright sunny drive.
It was a wonderful drive.
