Author: Kimberly Chester

We are travelling with some friends and lots of dogs on this trek. Lovely weather, but so sad to see Jasper after the fires though. We did see rebuilding in the town, the park itself will have years of regeneration ahead..

My vision of an October trip to Saskatchewan was of golden cropped fields, warm fall sunshine and chilly nights. We arrived in Dafoe, Sask. at the Prairie Rose Outfitters as they received their first hit of winter. 0 degrees and snow blowing sideways as we got the trailers set up.

The first mornings hunt due to the weather, changed from ducks to geese. Off went Peter and our golden retriever Cypher. The spaniels and I stayed warm in the Camper.

We had to drive north to find the vistas I was expecting to see. If I were to live in Saskatchewan I would choose the central/northern area. We are in Meadow Lake, the last large community before the northern bush land, it is a beautiful part of this province.

We are being hosted by Friesen’s Outfitters, owned and run by a wonderful family. Their focus is on big game hunts but we are hunting birds. The spaniels did a great job at what they are meant to do. Young Goose is busting thick, punishing cover right along with the older dogs.

We discovered how difficult it is to hunt the skittish Sharp Tail Grouse and Hungarian Partridge. Even with hunters and dogs being as quiet as possible, they somehow knew we were there. We did get some Ruffled Grouse though.

March 26, 2025

My spring trip away is to Winnipeg where my cousin and I have decided to have our own one week writing retreat. Winnipeg in March, cousins have said “no need for boots” and indeed upon arrival it was a sunny day, ice here and there and only remnants of snow with a high of 10 degrees. By 4pm the situation changed, here comes the snow, I have no boots!

March 27

The next day, after settling in at my cousins lovely 10th floor condo in the city, we went to the Canadian Mennonite University. We explored the book store and had a latte at the coffee house. From what I can determine this is the only Mennonite University in Canada, fully accredited with a focus on the liberal arts and social sciences. It is a lovely campus of old stone buildings and newer buildings. I found a couple of books to read that will help me with my exploration of my Mennonite heritage. This university houses the Mennonite historical archives where my great grandfathers letters were discovered.

The university is open to all students, people watching at the coffee house proved that point. I saw a group of young Hutterite women amongst young people that you would see in any university setting. Laptops were out writing, studying and discussing. It was a progressive, inclusive atmosphere. If I was a young person, I could imagine attending school here, learning the finer points of writing instead of stumbling through on my own.

March 28

A visit to “The Leaf” was a nice break from snowy Winnipeg. It is an exhibit at the Assiniboine Zoo and Park. The Leaf is an indoor horticultural exhibit with distinct biomes, tropical, Mediterranean, and a butterfly section. The scent of rosemary in the Mediterranean biome took me right back to our time in Italy. The Leaf includes 30 outside acres of 6 gardens including indigenous plants, kitchen gardens, sensory gardens and more. They were of course frozen and covered with snow, to be discovered on a not winter time visit.

We can see the dome of the Leaf from Joc’s balcony window.

Enjoy the tropical gardens, mmmm, inspires me for our own gardens soon!!

The butterfly garden was not as active as it is on a sunny day but still magical.

March 29

I was so glad that the sun came out and the highways cleared so that we could do the drive to Steinbach to visit the Gerhard Ens Mennonite Heritage Village & Museum. This was definitely on my list of to do’s and did not disappoint.

The outside village does not open until May because of the weather but I was still able to walk around the buildings and get a sense of the traditional village setup of the Mennonites. The grounds are 60 acres which of course was covered in snow, the Canada geese were the only inhabitants.

I found the Mennonite house barn fascinating, the building style was what the people had back in Russia/Ukraine and suited the Manitoba prairie environment perfectly. What a smart thing to do, animals still need to be cared for in a blizzard and the heat from the animals in the barn helped to heat the house. There was also a covered breeze way to the summer kitchen where all the hot cooking and preserving could be done without heating the house in the summer.

My cousin told me that her mother had grown up in a house barn, back then unless you lived in town this is the style of home most had. She remembers going to visit her grandparents there. She also told me a story about her mother, my Auntie Kay. Auntie Kay’s best friend had lived next door, also in a house barn. She had been visiting her friend and stayed too late so that it was dark when she went home. She had to walk through her barn to get into her house, there were no lights so pitch black, she walked right into the back end of a horse. She would laugh and laugh when telling this story in later years.

The museum and galleries were well worth spending time in. I learned more about the women’s role and contributions to art and to settling in the prairies. There was a style of art that reminded me of the Metis bead work, I assumed they had been inspired by the bead work but what I discovered was an example of this art called Fractur painted by a Mennonite in 1830 in Russia. The Mennonites did not arrive in Canada until 1874, so my assumption must then be the opposite..

The hand work of these women was so fine, I can’t imagine when they had time to such work but they did.

There was a display for the book and movie ‘Woman Talking’. Menonnite women had been consulted in many aspects of the story in the effort to be authentic. This is the dress and shoes that Rooney Mara wore in the movie.

There was a strong acknowledgement of the fact that Mennonites settled on the land of the indigenous people and the Metis. The Canadian government told them that the land was empty but that was not the truth. The Metis were instrumental in their success, helping them to plan and survey the villages and move their belongings in their Red River Carts.

There was also a strong honoring of the Mennonite women, who are rarely mentioned in written history other than around births, marriages and deaths. But we know that they worked side by side with the men settling their new land, they were usually pregnant, there were no daycares. There is a monument that I found outside, dedicated to their contribution that moved me. It is big and solid, reminding me of a loaf of sourdough bread, it can’t be overlooked like those pioneer women.

March 31

Today was a trip back 50 years to where I lived with my family during Junior and Highschool days in Winnipeg. There is something about revisiting in person, a place held only by photo albums for so many years. There was a flood of long forgotten memories. My cousin Joc had been a part of our family life in those days and we had fun reminiscing.

This was our house on the Air Base. All the homes are there but no longer military housing, they are civilian homes now. I wonder if the tree in front yard is the same one or a new one, it has been 50 years..

We drove to both my junior high and senior high schools. I only attended grade 10 at the high school as we were transferred that summer. It was a very progressive school for it’s time, offering the full academics program as well as daily vocational classes. Students could graduate grade 12 with their first year apprentice designation for many skilled jobs, welding, mechanics, hairstyling. I took graphic design, learning to type set for the big printing presses and developing photography in the dark room. These skills would progress through the high school years saving students so much in tuition. I had a look at their current list of vocational courses and it has grown and evolved with the times.

When I was 15, I got my first real job, doing laundry at a seniors home that was just down the road from our house. It I think would be illegal to hire a 15 year old for this job these days but one the weekends there I was, going room to room collecting soiled sheets and operating the big commercial washing machines. I remember being sad for a little lady that would show me all her family photos on their wall, telling me her family was coming to visit, but every week, no family came.

The highlight of this day was finding the skating rink. So many hours of my life were spent on that rink’s ice. Several times a week I would catch an early bus on bitter cold mornings, have an hour practice skate with my skating friends with music blaring from the rinks speakers, we would then get changed and bus from the rink directly to school. After school I would teach the kids group skating program to pay for ice time.

April 1

This last day in Winnipeg we spent the afternoon at the Canadian Human Rights Museum. The exhibit that I was expecting to be my focus was only a small display. We found many exhibits to explore and contemplate about, but the one most memorable, was the first nations cedar blanket. The artist is Coast Salish, Carey Newman, from Vancouver Island. I have never seen a piece of art or writing that has portrayed the Residential School experience in such a tragic but beautiful way.

This poem by an Innu woman resonated. The last two lines speak of the strength of hope and determination.

It’s been a good trip filled with writing, cousin time and exploration of what Winnipeg has to offer, even in March without my boots!

December 1-12 2024

We will be fulfilling one of Peter’s bucket list items with this trip. Being an ardent history buff and scholar, the Caribbean islands hold a great deal of history to be explored.

We will be flying from Vancouver to Miami then boarding the “Norwegian Getaway”. With its guest capacity of 3903 and a crew of 1657, I will be exceeding my maximum tolerance dose of humanity on this trip, but armed with good books, a stateroom with outside balcony and my favourite travel partner I will be okay. Oh and there is a Starbucks on board so Peter will bring me my morning Latte!

November 30 Miami
We and our luggage landed in Miami after an uneventful flight, which these days uneventful is a bonus. Note to self, flying into the US on a holiday weekend makes for very long lineups through security and customs. People are so interesting, our third in our row of seats was a woman, I greeted her and she scowled at me saying nothing, not that I wanted a big conversation, just being polite to a fellow traveller. At some point I noticed the title of the book she was reading. “How to talk to strangers”, I nearly burst out laughing.

Christmas palms in Miami on our walk to find some dinner.

December 1,2 at sea

Getting on board went smoothly, they use facial recognition and as long as you look like the photo you submitted they waved you through. This was an at sea day we settled in and explored the ship. I don’t see us using the pool area, so hot, noisy and crowded, must be getting old :))

December 3 St Felipe, Dominican Republic, province of Puerto Plata

We explored Puerto Plata today. I’ll let the photos give an idea of the town of St Filipe, our tour guide was good, full of humour and knowledge.

Part of our tour was a Rum production factory, Amber jewelry workshop, cigar production, the fort that protected the harbour and an old city centre tour. The pink building was the first hotel, it was a converted house. The woman owner died of breast cancer thus the color pink. The alley with umbrellas was made even prettier with the pink bougainvillea. The city had areas of low, middle and high class housing, some of the houses more like shacks, lots of barbed wire around the courtyards.

December 4 San Juan Porta Rico

We learned a lot about Porta Rico from our tour guide today, old and current history. He talked about his personal experience after hurricane Maria hit in 2017. The government did not warn people well about things like getting prepared with cash, water, food. Where he lives there was no power for four months and no banking service for two months. He was lucky as he lived on cash tips and had cash hidden under his mattress so he could buy food for his family.
The tour of the San Christabal fort that protected the harbour, it was immense, built in 1634 – 1790. They used no animals such as horse or oxen, for fear of contamination of the water supply, so it was all built by men, many of which were Africans brought by the Spaniards as slaves. Peter was in his glory seeing what he had studied. There were charcoal drawings of ships on the dungeon walls drawn by soldiers locked in the dungeon. Early graffiti!

Scenes from our walk around parts of the city, that’s our ship you can see in the photo above. We had a fantastic lunch at a Caribbean restaurant. We may have to plan a Caribbean style dinner! We stopped in to a cathedral and I found this sweet statue tucked into an old stone wall. Francis of Assisi, the Patron Saint of animals.

December 5 St Thomas Virgin Islands

Our neighbours in harbour, this yacht belongs to the owner of Walmart, I wonder if employees of the month ever get to sail.

We took a very hot walk into town s for Peter to see the fort, unfortunately it was closed.

The shopping in St Thomas is great. There was one street completely filled with jewelry stores. Even a non shopper like me bought a few things, Peter bought this hat, I haven’t decided if he looks dapper or like a gangster, either way I like it :))

December 6 St John. Antigua

This island showed the extreme disparity between the wealthy and the poor. It is an independent island catering to the rich and famous and cruise ship people.

We were to do a kayak and snorkeling day on Antigua. Well, we arrived at the beach and the area that we were to be kayaking in, had excavators on the beach digging trenches with a long line of pipe above the water being pulled out by a work ship, the pipe then would be sunk and would pipe water from the ocean to a desalination plant for water for the rich houses up on the hill. Most of the work was done during the night but they didn’t get finished fast enough, it wasn’t legal, it’s a protected beach. All this being done amongst swimmers and beach goers. The locals working the excursions were upset by not only the unexpected disruption but by the damage to their beach. We chose to take a taxi back to the ship.

We did go into the beautiful Caribbean water but I was wondering if it would be staying that way after what we witnessed.

December 7. Basseterre, St Kitts

This independent island was a struggle to appreciate in a positive way. It is very poor, I could feel a sense of desperation in the people, even the tourist shopping area was only a step away from being an area not safe to be in without the ever present security and police.

We walked further away and it got worse, but we found in the middle of it all a small community park being cared for by the locals, there was a sense of peace in that small corner of nature.

December 8. Philipsburg, St. Maarten

This island is divided into two, one side owned by France and the other owned by the Dutch. We were on the Dutch side. What a difference, St Maarten is well taken care of and the local people were so much happier, lots of joking amongst themselves and the tourists.

The water taxi back to the ship was fun, those guys know how to get tips! Music was playing, they were singing, everyone was singing, loved it. I got video but can post here. This couple fascinated me, he had so much biker bling on, his wife didn’t look like a biker chick? :))

We have decided to travel this year to Manitoba, fuel prices are still high but sticker shock has worn off and seems to be the new reality. The trip will be nearly a month with a combination of family visits, spaniel trials and retriever hunt tests. It’s an ambitious plan with 2 golden retrievers and 2 English cocker spaniels as our travel companions, we will not be bored!

May 25th; Revelstoke

We headed out in the evening to Nanaimo’s Duke Point ferry as we have done in the past, we pull in after the last ferry has departed and sleep in the parking lot which makes catching that 5:15 am ferry easier. This time though a semi truck pulled in behind us to do the same thing, he left this truck running the whole night, not much sleep for us with our bed backing onto his engine!

Our destination was Revelstoke’s Lamplighter Campground. This is a very nice spot, so well taken care of with mature trees to give shade. It has a brand new shower/laundry/camp kitchen building. We had a relaxing evening and a much better night’s sleep.

Our morning began with a sad happening; in the camper next to us were a mother & daughter on their way to a family reunion, we got up to sirens, fire truck and 2 ambulance arriving, long story short the daughter had an apparent heart attack leaving her elderly mother alone, Peter sat with her while the EMT’s did their best for the daughter but she did not survive. The RCMP arrived shortly after, a victim assistance person came and at that time we felt we could leave the lady. A stark reminder to cherish every moment in our precious lives.

May 26th Hoodoo Campground, Drumheller

Our plan for the next stop was Hanna, we had booked a campsite at Hanna Paradise Corner Campground. The directions were ” give me a call, I’ll meet you in the Tim Horton’s gravel parking lot and you can follow me”, the more we thought about, the sketchier it felt, after the morning’s start we really didn’t need anymore drama, so change of plans and on to Hoodoo Campground at Drumheller. This is another great spot, especially for families. There is a large center green area with all the camping spots on the perimeter. Lots of playground equipment and soccer nets, after supper kids from all over the campground played a pickup game of soccer, kids from 14 to 4, racing around. This campground also had a 5 Acre! field dedicated to dogs, we took our 4 over for a much needed run and practiced some stays and recalls.

There is a section of this campground for permanent RV sites, each had quite elaborate additions on to the sides of their RV’s with lawns and gardens. No shanty town here!

The drive through the hoodoos was as always spectacular.

May 26,27 Saskatchewan

Not surprising the drive today was boring – flat straight highways that go on forever it seems. I amused myself by trying to capture the town’s signs, always either on a grain elevator or a water tower. Calli the spaniel was bored too 🙂

Our next stop is to Muenster to have a visit with Peter’s relatives. We had booked the Humboldt Heritage Campground as it was only a 15 min drive from Muenster. This is not a campground that I would recommend, it used to be run by the Town but recently was off loaded to the Heritage committee, it is not cared for and we will be glad to be busy with family and only sleeping there.

We will be going to see the family farm today, a place that Peter has many fond memories of growing up.

The dogs got to really stretch their legs and even got in a swim in one of the holding ponds! It’s a beautiful 6000 acre working farm that is clearly a labor of love.

After our visit to the farm, we went to the family’s church, I was so surprised to see this church appear up a farm road with farm fields around it. I learned that Peter and his brother had served as alter boys at this church for a family wedding! The family is proud to share their church and have contributed to it’s maintenance and art work.

It was a wonderful couple of days filled with family and outstanding prairie hospitality!

May 29th Manitoba

Back on the road as we make the final travel leg to Manitoba, as expected it was a long straight highway drive, I continue to amuse my self with grain elevator town signage. I had forgotten what heavy pockets of rain Manitoba has, we were reminded a few times on this travel day, the windshield wipers had no chance of keeping up!

May 29, 30,31

We arrived at Peter’s brother and wife’s home in Grande Pointe, it was wonderful to reconnect. It is an acreage so again the dogs lucked out with big spaces to run after a long drive.

We went to see a heritage site in Grande Pointe the Riel House. The Riel Historic Site commemorates the life of the Metis politician and activist Louis Riel and the daily life of Metis families in the Red River settlement. Peter’s family are descendants of Louis Riel through his Lavallee side which made seeing this site quite personal.

June 1,2,3

We carried on to Portage La Prairie to visit my Enns family. My cousin Jocelyn has a permanent RV campsite along the Assiniboine River and booked us into a guest RV spot. While visiting with cousins and their families I wanted to go to Gretna where our parents grew up to visit my Enns grandparent’s graves and to find the family home in Gretna. We visited the grave yard and found my grandparents as well as an aunt and uncle.

Before going to the graveyard we stopped in Altona to have my other wish of some authentic Mennonite food. I got my wish! At least 1000 calories but I did not care! My Altona cousin found for me packages of the Mennonite farmers sausage to take home!

Visiting the Enns family home will become a funny story for the next family reunion. We drove into Greta from the grave yard and quickly found the family home. It was beautiful, we met the current owner who told us that is now deemed a heritage home so protected for generations to come. She invited us in to look around, pictures were taken. That evening when we got back to the RV I sent photos to my mother, she replied to be “why are you taking pictures of the Smith house”? We had the wrong house! Another cousin sent me a photo of the right house and Mom gave directions, all things I would have done but I assumed my local cousins would know the house. While not as grand as the heritage house it is a lovely solid family home and I know now where my mother grew up.

Our family time was finished off with a cousins gathering at the campground, thanks Joc for making this happen!

June 5-8

Moving away from family visits and into the dog training world. We travelled to stay with Manitoba spaniel friends that we have met at the Alberta trials. They have a 1/4 section of amazing land and have built a home there aptly named “The Lodge”. We had a wonderful time of visits filled with dog talk. Training was morning retriever work for the goldens and late afternoon into the evening spaniel training. It was darned hot so laid low in the mid day. So much fun and so much learning for us!

One hot afternoon we made a trip into Gimli, Peter had a pickerel burger which was outstanding, on our way back we found the mosquito statue, the area’s claim to fame is the mosquito capital of the world. We lucked in as we were a bit early for the first hatch so no bites for us! But, ticks oh my, were glad to have treated the dogs with tick medication ahead of time.

June 9-12

We now turned our truck and trailer west, crossing Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the Spaniel Trials in Picture Butte Alberta. The Country Side RV park was just as good as ever, this is our 3rd time camping here. Our friends Dave and Brenda and Brant and Linda camped for the weekend here as well. Lots of shared dinners and conversation.

The ESSA Trials at the McVinnie Reservoir were great. Calli made it through to the 3rd series in the Open trial, competing with the pros, so big achievement and progress for us. The 3rd series was very challenging ground with 5 long rows of thick cover for the dogs to work. I think I could have handled her better, I have more to learn! Peter and 9 month old Ricochet placed 4th in the puppy trial, so proud of them as puppy can be up to 2 years of age, he was the youngest pup there.