Our trip to Edmonton is not a sight-seeing one, this time. We travelled the northern route, Highway 11, for the first since 1972. Many more fuel stations than the last time; it was great to see that the North is just as beautiful as I remember. The Palisades, near Nipigon are an interesting rock formation. Vertical striations in the rock are caused by the glacier action pushing up from below. Formed 1.2 billion years ago through water and ice erosion and columnar jointing, the Palisades of the Pijitawabik (pronounced pidg-i-ta-wa-bik) are one the oldest and most remarkable geological formations Northwestern Ontario has to offer! Several hiking trails take one back to many beautiful spring waterfalls and there is a glacier to which rock climbers from around the world, gravitate.
A familiar sight of the prairies is fast disappearing and being replaced by more modern, silo type grain elevators. It is quite a sight to see these in many small prairie towns; of course, they are not as busy now as they will be in August during harvest.
The old and the new!
These giants work up the land, fertilize and plant, all in one pass. One farmer we met, said it takes a week to plant all his land, a far cry from our little Neufield tractor, plough, disc, seeder and harrows that we used on our farm in the 80's. It's seeding time on the Prairie!
