Saskatoon to Wishart Day Trip

In today’s blog post, I am going to talk about a recent day trip that my wife, Denise, and I took. This trip was planned after I had finished watching a YouTube video called “Ghost Towns Saskatchewan – The North & Eastern Areas of The Province” by Chris Attrell. Chris did a nice walking tour of some of the buildings while sharing his thoughts. I was particularly interested in Wishart and Bankend, since they seemed a reasonable distance from home, so I planned the route based on those being the most distant places we would go to on the trip.

August 25, 2024, was the day of the trip. The weather wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but we had been putting it off for far too long waiting for better conditions. This summer has been bad for Saskatchewan forest fires, and the blowing wind blankets much of the province with smoke, or haze.

Denise suggested that we go to the furthest planned point to begin looking at towns so we sort of did that. Because we were unfamiliar with the further places, we ended up stopping at Elfros first, since it was right off the highway. Just to set the stage, the route looked like this: Saskatoon to Elfros, Bankend, Wishart, Mozart, Wynyard, Kandahar, Dafoe, Jansen, Lanigan, Guernsey, Plunkett, Viscount, Colonsay, and back to Saskatoon.

Google Map Route – Screen Capture by Don Cheke

I should mention that Denise and I had planned to take pictures on this trip. As you know, Denise has Parkinson’s disease which has been causing her much grief this year. She is finding difficulty doing things she has enjoyed in the past and it has been causing much sadness and even some depression. As her husband and friend, I find it hard to see her struggle and I always want to find things to help her survive and deal with her ever-changing physical landscape. Quilting has been a love of hers for many years and the last quilt she had been working on became too much for her and she just stopped quilting. Whenever she forced herself to take a stab at it again, she would just get disgusted and pack it in almost immediately. In a moment before approaching Denise, in what she teasingly calls an intervention, I watched a couple videos on making a quilted coaster and I took the idea of doing a small quicky project to Denise, suggesting that we work through it together. All the while hoping she would feel some success again, in a short span of time. She allowed the project to proceed, so I guided her along one step at a time, while encouraging her and offering gentle guidance. She was able to get through to the end and had a new coaster to show for her efforts. She is quick to say that it is not as good as she is capable of, but that it was manageable, and maybe did offer that glimmer of hope. Note that she would not let me include a picture of said coaster. 😊

One other thing that Denise had been missing since her Parkinson’s had gotten so bad, was her love of picture taking. With shaking hands, that she has no control over, picture taking looked like another thing she would have to give up completely. Again, I thought that if I could get Denise past her depressed state enough to try something new, I would show her that she could still find some joy in picture taking. We discussed two things. The first was to talk about and set up the voice capture command on her phone camera. The second was to talk about using a tripod. I showed Denise my setup, which I have used for a while and I had her give it a try. She would roll her eyes if it was her who told you how this went. Basically, we did a trial one day, me doing it first, and then her doing it the next time. When we were done, I said that in a day or two, I would surprise her when she wasn’t expecting it and ask her to take a picture, thus having her find the tripod, attach the camera, set the scene, and take the picture. When she balked a bit, I just reassured her that, yes, it’s not the spontaneous process it used to be, but that I thought she would appreciate the results. Of course, she took up the task and had great success. She still finds much of the setup process difficult, due to her Parkinson’s, but she sees the value in at least trying and in the success she can achieve. I can see her glow in her successes, so I know it is of value to keep trying things, despite the health issues. This reminds me of a time when I had lost a number of fingers on one hand and my sister-in-law saw me screw nail clippers to a 4”x4” board which I was then able to hold and cut my own fingernails on the non-injured hand utilizing my thumb stump to press the lever. I remember her saying to Denise, “Yep, he’ll be alright,” meaning that I wouldn’t let the disability keep me from tasks, or something like that.

The image below is the 3D printed tripod mount that I designed, after seeing something similar while Google searching mounts.

3D Printed Quick-Release Tripod Attachment – Designed, Printed & Photographed by Don Cheke

Here we can see the camera in the mount affixed to the tripod. It works really well!

Camera on Tripod – Photo by Don Cheke

I won’t inundate you with pictures, but here are a few I took on this trip and edited with Affinity Photo to make them a bit better (IMHO). I usually adjust levels, sometimes the shadows and highlights, and occasionally I add an Unsharp Mask (1-to-3-pixel radius).

Our first stop was at Elfros. Here we can see a smiling Denise with her tripod mounted camera in hand. Both she and I took a few pictures at this location. I didn’t feel that anything more than this one was worth sharing on my part.

Denise at Vatnabyggd Memorial – Elfros SK – Photo by Don Cheke

Our next stop was at Bankend which was right on the edge of a secondary highway, something that was typical decades back, so travellers were encouraged to stop for gas and food, and other such things. I took a few pictures, but the sky is so gray that the pictures are not worth sharing.

Wishart was our next stop. It was quite fascinating with the whole main street pretty much abandoned. What a sad site to see; to see what was likely a thriving little farm community go the way of the dodo bird. Below is a picture I took of a building on the end of the main street with the smalltown store or café façade, although this one doesn’t quite hide the pitched roof behind. I imagine that they constructed these facades to make the building look more commercial, and to allow more space for signage.

Abandoned Building – Wishart SK – Photo by Don Cheke

A couple of blocks behind the main street we found an old, abandoned school. Obviously, it doesn’t look like the typical abandoned school one might picture in their mind, but this was still abandoned. I would guess it would have been built 20 or 30 years ago but could not be sustained with the town dying. If you look closely, you can see that one of the large tree trunks has fallen and left a huge dent in the roof and fascia.

Abandoned School – Wishart SK – Photo by Don Cheke

Here is a fuller view of the school. It looks like it might have been a nice place in its day. Note the gray hazy sky, not the nicest look for photographers. I just love how crisp one’s photos can be when utilizing a tripod and self-timer. The phone camera is nice because one can use voice capture and the self-timer is not needed at all, not like the old point and shoot I used to have.

Abandoned School – Wishart SK – Photo by Don Cheke

It was at this point that I decided to use our old Garmin GPS device to find our way over to Mozart, our next stop. Wouldn’t you know it, just as we were starting to think that the device was leading us astray it was confirmed that we were when it told us to turn left at the entry to a farmer’s field – no road at all! That is when we shut the device off. I am directionally challenged, so navigator DeeDee pointed out the way to go from there, and we found Mozart without issue, although at a more distant time because of the stupid route the GPS had initially sent us on. I’ve never used Google Maps on the phone to direct my travels, but I thought I should ask my daughter to teach me how to do that when I get a chance, since it doesn’t seem obvious to me at this time. Maybe I should ask my 10-year-old granddaughter! I bet she could teach me. 😊

Although we stopped in Mozart, Wynyard, Kandahar, Dafoe, Jansen, Lanigan, and Guernsey to tour around, we did not take any pictures, with one caveat, which I will mention later. All these towns, with the exception of Wynyard (population 1732 in 2016) and Lanigan (population 1233 in 2006), were, in my opinion, definitely on the edge of extinction.

Next up was Plunkett. It boasts a population of 75 (in 2006), and it looks quite deserted in spots. The main street, where a few businesses were located, is next to the railway, like many towns were set up in years gone by. This house was on the same business street, but just in the next block toward the edge of town. I thought it was an interesting place, not terribly old, with a more modern awning over the front door, but abandoned, nonetheless.

Abandoned House – Plunkett SK – Photo by Don Cheke

This abandoned building was on the same street but just one block over. It looks like it could have been a service station in its former days. The building is for sale, if you are interested. 😊 Note that the sun made a bit of an appearance by this point in the day, and some of the haze cleared. It lasted for one more town before more smoke blew in and obscured the little blue there was.

Abandoned Building – Plunkett SK – Photo by Don Cheke

Earlier I mentioned a caveat. Well, at one point between Wynyard and Plunkett, I took this picture and the next, but I have no idea where we were at the time. Even the time on the image file did not help narrow it down. I thought that it might be in Jansen or Guernsey, but Google street view coverage was spotty at best, so I couldn’t find it when trying that way. I looked at the EXIF data for the image, but since I didn’t have geo location turned on for my phone camera options, there was nothing to help there. I have now ensured that geo location is always on when using my phone camera, so this should not be an issue on future trips.

At any rate, the images of this house garage are my favorites from the trip. The sky had cleared a bit more and the sun was coming from the most optimal direction. I just love the weathered look of this place; it is so artistic. Based on what I could see, both the garage and the house next to it were abandoned.

Abandoned House & Garage – Saskatchewan – Photo by Don Cheke

Here is a fuller image of the yard with both house and garage. Note in the background the old truck, and some buildings that don’t look too bad at all. I thought that those distant buildings might help with identification in the Google Street view, but they were no use in that regard. I guess the true location of this garage will remain a mystery. I could always drive the route again and maybe find it, but our next trips will take us in other directions first.

Abandoned House & Garage – Saskatchewan – Photo by Don Cheke

Denise and I arrived back in Saskatoon and treated ourselves to a pizza at Venice House on Central Ave. It was a great way to wrap up a wonderful day.

One last note. Today, July 27, 2024, the day I wrote this blog post, I installed Affinity Photo on Denise’s laptop and showed her a few of the photo editing functions. Although using the laptop is challenging for her, due to the Parkinson’s, Denise feels like she wants to try and play around with some of her photos. She suggested that if she found it to be too much for her, that perhaps I could make the tweaks based on her direction, and still get some satisfaction from the process. Of course, I said that I would help in any way I can. 💖

Donald B. Cheke – September 2, 2024