» photo album 2010/0728 ~ Motorhoming! Duck Mountain Provincial Park, SK
Duck Mountain was high on our wish list and finally we made it there! There is something so exciting about getting to a park in the boreal forest – the wilderness, the scenery, the wildlife. Even though we didn’t see any bears or moose (not even deer), we were very impressed by the park and the campsites.
Wednesday July 28
On Wednesday we drove to Madge Lake (around 3.5 hrs). I was having a migraine and wasn’t able to get some sleep in the motorhome, but the thought of camping and fresh forest air coming up got me through it 🙂 Also, a nice shopping stop in Yorkton gave some distraction. At the Pickerel Point campground we had site #93, which was close to the general store and the beach. All we did for the rest of the day was relax, eat a really good burger at the concession and have a look at the beach.
Thursday July 29
We spent all day in the campground area. Relax, read, relax, walk around the campground and deserted group camping areas, relax, BBQ, relax and watched the sunset on the beach. When we called to make reservations a week before going, we were only able to get an electric site for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday because of the busy August long weekend. So we were advised to ask the staff in the campground office every day if there was a cancellation for the Saturday night (for an electric site) and today we already got lucky!
Friday July 30
We finally became more active and biked the beautiful bike path to Ministik Beach (parts of the Woodlands trail). WOW!! Wide enough, good quality, through different kinds of forest: sometimes fairly open so you could scan the forest for possible bears, sometimes with high bushes right by the trail so you wouldn’t know what would be around the corner. We regularly rang our bell, called out and sang, and luckily we didn’t bump eh… bike into any bears 🙂 We had an ice cream by the Lakeside Service and went back pretty quick, because there was a storm coming our way. We got back just in time and for hours we had clouds and some light rain, but we could still sit outside underneath our awning.
Saturday July 31
Today we had to switch sites to #39, also a very beautiful and shady site. We took the opportunity to drive into the wilderness before going to our new site, and we were advised to take the well maintained gravel road to Batka Lake and the ski hill (about 12 km one way). It was truly beautiful, we passed many different sorts of forest, lakes/ponds and bogs until we came to the closed gate by the ski hill. We turned around and stopped at the Batka Lake picnic area for a bit on our way back. We also drove to Kamsack to get some booze for the night 🙂
Once we got settled on our new campsite and listened to the Riders game on (the neighbour’s) radio, we also saw our friends Michelle and Boyd, who had let us know that they were also coming to Madge Lake with family. They were staying 4 sites away from us, so after our BBQ we ended up spending the evening there! They fed us (Nico mostly) quite a bit of Black Russians, so we had lots of fun until the early hours! Thanks Ryan, Tracy, Michelle, Boyd & kids!
Sunday August 1
We slept in, had a quick breakfast and left around noon… although we didn’t WANT to leave!! Duck Mountain is another park that stole our hearts! We STILL have to see our first Saskatchewanian bear or moose though…
Duck Mountain Provincial Park – Pickerel Point Campground (Birch Campground)
Birch is one part of the Pickerel Point Campground, situated in a beautiful boreal forest setting by Madge Lake. The campgrounds are about 6 km away from the core area, but there’s a store, concession and small beach. Electric site is $22, we had a year pass for the PP. There was a service centre with showers, but also small toilet buildings that had flush toilets (clean enough) or pit toilets (smelly). One of our favourite parks!