Real-time post, photo at the end.
Today I arrived in Regina, Saskatchewan, the capital of the province.
I have confirmed that the locals pronounce it re-JYE-na (sounds like a sensitive part of the female anatomy). I worked with someone in Pennsylvania who pronounced it re-GEE-na. Today I was even presented with a conflict between Google Maps and my “sometimes trusty” GPS 4.0. The GPS unit correctly pronounced it as the people who live here do, whereas Google Maps used the other pronunciation. I didn’t even bother to put in my two cents since neither device pays any attention to what I tell them.
This is as far east as I will be going in Canada on this trip. Regina is just west of the Montana/North Dakota border vertically, and is due north of Cheyenne, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado. When I entered the province two days ago on my way to Moose Jaw (which I can confirm IS two words) I crossed into the Central Time Zone. Almost all of British Columbia is in the Pacific Time Zone, save for Golden and Cranbrook, two towns I stayed in, and a strip of land west of the southernmost Canadian Rockies, which slant from NW to SE. Alberta province is in the Mountain Time Zone, and Saskatchewan is in Central. I also learned today that Sask (as the locals call it) does not play the Daylight Savings Time game. I was confused the two days I was in Moose Jaw because the time on my phone never changed, which it normally does automatically when I am in the US. Lo and behold, I should have just left Mountain time alone and not told my car that I was in CDT. MDT = CST.
I will be in Regina two nights, then head northwest to Saskatoon for two nights. I almost eliminated Saskatchewan from my itinerary altogether due to air quality issues from the wildfires in the northern part of the province. I checked the numbers every day before committing to reserving my Airbnb’s past Banff. About two weeks ago the numbers dropped to safe levels in all of the towns I was planning to stay in except one, presumably because they received a fair amount of rain which washed the smoke particles out of the air. I haven’t noticed any of the smoke “haze” the three days I have been in the province.
The only casualty from my original schedule is Prince Albert National Park, which is pretty far north from Regina, and which was very close to the fires and had very bad air quality numbers. So I am adjusting my itinerary, eliminating multiple nights from many small towns, which will free up time to reallocate elsewhere.
I will end this post with a photo I took from my bedroom window early this morning in Moose Jaw, SK. This was taken at 506 local time, about an hour before sunrise. The 3 bright spots in the photo are, the Moon (lower center), Venus (above it and to the right) and Saturn (further above and to the right). I darkened the photo a bit so it would look exactly like what I was seeing. The Moon appears as a thin crescent. It was really an amazing sight.
johnboystravelblog 