8/23 TransCanada Highway from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

 In the last few days, I have driven 842 miles from Thunder Bay to Moose Jaw, and crossed a confusing time zone situation.  Ontario is on Eastern Daylight Time, and Manitoba is on Central Daylight Time, but Saskatchewan, where I am now, is on Central Standard Time.  This means it does not recognize daylight savings time.  This means that here in Moose Jaw, it is now two hours from the time in Thunder Bay.  

Now, to make things even more confusing, Expedia says that Saskatchewan is actually "geographically" in Mountain Standard Time, and each town in the province can decide if it wants to be on Mountain or Central Standard time.  I am here in Moose Jaw for two nights, and then will be spending the next two nights in Medicine Hat, which is over the border in Alberta, which is definitely on Mountain Daylight Time.  

Also, I am getting my satellite TV from Dish, which thinks I am in North Dakota.  I will reset things to pretend I am in Glacier National Park in Montana when I get to Alberta, so I can get locals from there.  And in the meantime, I will go by local time here in Moose Jaw.  Luckily, I will be spending most of the next few weeks in Calgary, Banff, and Jasper, which are all on Mountain Daylight Time!!!  

If you want to read the history of why Saskatchewan is so confusing time-wise, check out these articles:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Saskatchewan
• https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/municipal-administration/tools-guides-and-resources/saskatchewan-time-system

Anyway, glad I am here for only two nights!  The point of this posting was actually to show you how the scenery has changed from the trees to plains on my drive from Thunder Bay.

Trees, trees, and more trees for about 300 miles after Thunder Bay. 

 

 

I drove past this sign and was determined to get a photo, but it took me driving seven miles down the road before I found a place to turn around.  We usually think of streams flowing east or west at the point of the Continental Divide, but this is another type of divide.  Streams here, empty into the Arctic Ocean, not the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans.   

 

I spent a night near Winnipeg, Manitoba, about 200 miles west of Thunder Bay, and right after that city, the scenery changed from trees and an occasional farm, to a lot of farms, and then much bigger fields with almost no patches of trees.  The really nice part was that after Winnipeg, the TransCanada Highway became a four-lane, divided highway. 

Interestingly, even though I have been given numerous warnings about long stretches of highway without gas stations, I have found gas about every 20-25 miles, and those stations are nearly always accompanied by a Tim Horton's.   

Did you know that each honey-dip Timbit has 50 calories??   Enough said.