 | This is grain
country with grain fields as far as the eye can see. Harvesting had taken
place but here the bales had yet to be collected. |
| Here the bales have been gathered but the view does help to show
the vastness of the area under cultivation. |  |
 | Grain isn't
universal since from time to time we did find some cattle but there were not
huge numbers of animals. We also saw a few sheep. |
| There are fewer trees up here. But it is common to protect a farm
with a stand of trees. At this time of year the leaves are changing and as
the sun catches them you get a wonderful golden glow. However they don't
have the sugar maples which are the ones which turn that fantastic shade of
red. |  |
 | No, this is not
New York but a rather drab warehouse converted into a nightclub in Regina
with a jazzed up front. It was all done with tiles. |
| There was not much to excite us in Regina but we felt we ought to
visit the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) museum. In actual fact this
headquarters building is for the Royal North West Mounted Police, one of
several names in the force's evolution. This building faces on to the parade
ground which is hallowed ground. Don't park there, or even walk across it! |  |
 | The oldest
building in Regina, this is now the RCMP chapel. We had a guided tour and
this was one of the buildings we could look round. It is much in demand for
weddings and baptisms but you have to be connected to the force. There are
currently about 23,000 in the force. This site also houses the training
school. There are several buildings which have had different uses over the
years. However these days they only use horses for ceremony. |
 | The church has a
number of stained glass windows of which these were the most striking. One
represents the end with the head bowed in prayer and the rifle reversed. The
other celebrates the beginning with the bugler sounding the start of day. |  |
| This was their cenotaph with all the names of the officers killed
on duty since their inception. |  |
 | It perhaps is
not widely known that they had their own air wing because of the extent of
the territories they needed (and still need) to cover. There are models of
several aircraft which had been used over the years in the museum. You have
to look at a map of these provinces to comprehend how vast and inaccessible
most of Canada is. They have a twelfth of the earth's landmass yet the
population virtually all lives in the bottom 100 miles. |
| It was a very military organisation in its early years and the
uniforms in the museum reflect that. Each one has a story but you would need
to understand all the history to follow that. |  |
 | We did have a
quick look in the shop. The RCMP is a very potent marketing symbol, as they
have now realised, and you cannot use their name without permission. They
had a case of merchandise from the past - most (including Barbie) were
distinctly tacky. |
| We moved on and camped just down the road (well 30 miles away) in
Moose Jaw, otherwise known as Gas City. It specialises in the production of
asphalt mostly in this plant just across the river from our camp site. |  |
|