Amongst the many reasons I moved back to Saskatchewan during the Pandemic was to tend to my roots before I move to the United Kingdom for school. Part of this journey included a trip to Grasslands National Park. My mom, who can’t remember the last time she went camping, joined me for a two night car camping trip. With my sister’s tent, and a blow-up air mattress for my mom, we packed the car and started the four hour trip straight south to Val Marie.

My dad was born and raised on a farm near Val Marie, Saskatchewan, the gateway to the Grasslands National Park. My great grandma Violet, whom I was close to as a little girl, is buried in a small graveyard off of Highway 4 with my great grandpa. My mom and I passed through Swift Current, grabbed a bouquet of flowers from Safeway, and drove on to find the graveyard, which was 12 miles south a small town called Cadillac.

Southern Saskatchewan is literally wide open prairie; swaths, oceans, vast open prairies. A tree is a landmark. We drove down the highway twice and somehow did not see the graveyard, that is located on the right hand side. We found a dirt road that had the same lat/long and a patch of bushes that may have obscured small gravestones, but within two minutes my mom’s car was all but stuck in the mud and we had to back out. Flowers in hand, and utterly confused as to how we could not find a graveyard in the wide open prairies, we continued to Grasslands.

After a little over four hours on the road, headed towards Grasslands Information Centre in Val Marie, I typed Rock Creek into Google, and had to break the news to my mom that the East Block was still another 2 hours away. I may have cracked a road pop to ease my nerves for my terrible planning, and continued driving into the prairies, down dirt roads jumping with deer and prairie dogs.

Following the dirt grid across the northern portion of the park would have been better suited for a tractor, or a truck, or anything but my mom’s little silver car. The two hour drive turned into a three hour drive, with the roads ravaged by rain. Hawks, gophers, and deer pranced and played chicken with our Hyundai. Cows and pretty ponies grazed, stared and napped. As dusk began, we arrived at our campsite nestled in a shallow valley. The skies were beautiful, and the night was calm. We discovered that there was no running water and a fire ban, and so we made due with blankets, my light-weight camping stove, and boxed wine. Coyotes howled as the sun set, and we talked until one in the morning.

The next morning we woke up, a little bit groggy after conversations over boxed wine, and I attempted to make coffee. Bad planning #2; I did not bring the right cookware for my camp stove. We literally had to hold the pot over the stove with an oven mitt for about 20 minutes until the water boiled enough for coffee (as an aside, right now I am very broken hearted, and apparently cannot plan well when I’m in this state). With my little stove, we made coffee, and toasted some bagels, and read in our camping chairs revelling in the sunshine. Our plan for the day was to do the little hike close the camp (my mom is scared the coyotes will get her, despite me trying to convince her otherwise), and then do the 11 km drive through the Badlands.

Our hike was cute. It was a little 2 km loop in the grasslands, full of wild flowers and dried bison chip. The hummocky landscape was endless, and smelled sweet from sage and wild grasses. After our walk, we returned to the car and started our drive through the Badlands.

I’m not sure what I expected from the East Block of the Grasslands National Park, but the desolation, subtle beauty, and the not-so-subtle beauty took my breath away. The winds climbed to be > 60 km/ hour, which is maybe what actually took my breath away. The 11 km drive was like something out of a fairy tale. It was lined with bright yellow canola. The bison poop literally had golden mushrooms growing out of it. Amidst the dangers of quick sand and rattle snakes were buttressing sedimentary peaks, oxidized clays, cracking mud, and cacti with large tissue-paper flowers. Echinacea, yarrow, daisies, canola and blue bells competed with the grass to carpet the upper portions of the valley. I knew this existed in Saskatchewan, but I didn’t understand its remoteness and beauty until I saw it in real life. I kept thinking, ‘this is near my great grandparent’s farm?’ We stopped at every view point and did multiple little hikes all afternoon.

As the sun started to drop, we left for a nearby town to buy supper because of my bad-stove planning. We were the only people in the restaurant, and my mom ordered a wine (a healthy pour of wine, my goodness) and pizza, and I ordered a Pilsner adorned with a Roughriders flag, and fried chicken. We chatted and read our books and eventually headed back to our campsite, to discover our tent, which was pitched and staked, had blown over in the crazy winds. My great-grandma’s flowers were scattered over the picnic table.

The wind was almost unbearable. It is the type of wind where you can’t sit outside, and tests your sanity with its relentless howl. I went to a spot where I could get wifi to check my Wind app to see if the windstorm could be seen. All of my weather apps just said +24 and sunny - no rain, no storms, no wind. I looked around and saw some pretty intimidating clouds, and it was windy as all hell. The wind abided for a while, and my mom and I sat outside in relief, until we saw those giant clouds come for us accompanied with the smell of rain. We sat and watched the sunset with an eye on the sky. The skies were incredible. There were multiple rainbows, and flamingo pink clouds. The sunset helped me forgive the wind, as my mom and I had a little nightcap and eventually crawled into the tent.

At around 11:00, lightening started to strike. I counted 30 seconds between lightening and thunder, hoping it would pass somewhere to the east of us where the lightening was at work. But within a half hour, the storm rolled in with such force that we literally had to hold up the tent from the inside. I was on a little ground mat, squished up against my mom’s blowup mattress, laughing hysterically but also semi-terrified that we’d get struck by lightening. The tent came unpegged in two corners, lop-siding our entire lodging and exposing the western wall. Hail and rain pounded down, sneaking under the fly. It was all over in twenty minutes, and my mom and I didn’t even bother fixing our tent, we just passed out, thanking the tent for holding on. After the storm went through, all of the coyotes rejoiced, singing their hearts out in the middle of the night, maybe making sure their families in other dens were alright.

The next day was gorgeous, holding no memory of the previous night’s wild storm. We packed up our stuff, and headed to Limerick, Saskatchewan, to get coffee and gas. We were greeted by a coyote skirting the side of the road; the first one I've seen in the wild. We drove through Assiniboia, stopping by an art gallery with overly-sweet coffees, and stunning paintings of the prairies. The hummocky ranch and farmland of the south turned into more level plains sweeping with yellow canola and blue flax. Listening to Bob Dylan and numerous podcasts, we talked about the storm and made our way back home to Saskatoon.

My grandpa called when we were about an hour away asking if we were able to find the graveyard. I said we still have the flowers for grandma’s grave, but we were unable to find the graveyard. He laughed when I told him about the storm, and was proud of my mom for camping in the wild west of the prairies. He told me he used to take his horse to camp in the Badlands when they farmed down there. Images of my grandpa horse-camping in the Badlands when he was young helped make sense of my strong desire to go down there. Connecting with my grandpa, dad, and great grandma, through place, as my mother and I weathered the craziest storm I have encountered while camping.