Highway 23 (starting with # 3 and using # 10)
From Oak Bluff (which has a 24 hour Petrocan Gas Station), take # 3 Highway to Carman. The farms in this area have become large and therefore the farmyards are quite a distance from each other. You are driving on the bottom of what was Lake Agassiz thousands of years ago. Geographers refer to this area as the First Prairie Level because it is the lowest (in elevation) agricultural area on the Prairies. You’ll notice there are few native grassed or wooded areas and no wetlands. Farmers have been encouraged to drain the wet areas. Consequently you will not see many animals, domestic or wild, along this stretch.
At Sanford you’ll come across the La Salle River, a welcome change to the scenery. This stream gathers water from as far as Portage la Prairie and deposits it into the Red River just south of Wpg. You might notice how the smaller towns differ in character. Some, like Sanford and Sperling a little farther along, just happen to be beside the highway. We don’t have to slow down for them and so we see little of them unless we deliberately turn in. Others like Brunkild require us to slow down and invite us to stop or at least check out what the place has to offer. Semi truck drivers and some commuters don’t like this inconvenience. They lobby the province to build bypasses around these small centres. Those of us who depend on services in our small towns, counter-lobby to keep the roads as they are, so as to attract visitors and their business.
You’ll go past Homewood where my mother’s parents (The Klassens) farmed. Of the 15 children and 100 (or so) grand and great grandchildren born as a result of that union only 3 families are still farming in the area.
Carman has been built up along the woodlands of the Boyne River. At the stop sign you can either: turn right to go to the business section, go straight to the beautiful Roseisle area or turn left to stay on the main tour route.
The Roseisle option. When you’re at the stop sign in Carman, you might consider going straight and head towards Graysville / Roseisle on Provincial Road # 245. You’ll be traveling along the Boyne River system most of the way that makes for curving roads with more trees. About 15 k’s past Roseisle you’ll come to a stop sign. Take PR # 244 south along the top of the ‘escarpment’ which separates the first and second prairie levels. When you get to # 23 Highway, turn right/west towards Somerset, Swan Lake, etc.
If you decided to turn left at Carman, you’re now traveling south on # 3 Highway – through farmland that sports a few more trees and farmsteads. There’s a large U-pick farm on the left along here. Stay alert for the railway crossing beside a solitary grain elevator. This is where you turn right onto #23 Highway – toward Miami. (If you choose to stay on # 3 you will eventually get to our place but it’s longer.) Take a look at the restored train station along the highway in Miami.
Looking ahead you’ll see the poker straight road rise up to the second prairie level – essentially moving up out of the Agassiz lake bed into a mixed farming, parkland area. It’s a long slow, delicious climb with wetlands, ducks and cattle farms coming into view. Although there are large treeless areas here and there, for the most part native tree and shrub areas are accepted as part of the essential landscape.
You’re now traveling along the highland between the Cypress and Pembina river systems. The farms are closer together and more numerous in this area. In contrast, though, with the flat lands around Winnipeg, you’ll see abandoned farms here and there. Back on the Lake Agassiz flats, any farm site that is abandoned is quickly flattened and incorporated into the surrounding fields. Land is worth so much more on flat land. It’s not allowed to remain unproductive for long. There is more hay land here which means more mice, gophers and rabbits. It also means more birds of prey like the red tail and the marsh hawk and the owls you may see sitting on large round bales and fence posts. Bald Eagles migrate through these hills in early Spring and late Fall, stopping for a few days when they find a carcass to feed on.
A wonderful distraction along this route is seeing the 60 or so huge wind turbines generating electric power over the crop land around Somerset and St. Leon.
At the junction of #23 and #34 you come to a stop sign. This is the beginning of the Swan Lake First Nation. (The lake is a few k’s to the south on the Pembina River.) Swan Lake is an Anishinabe community within Treaty #1. Their website is www.swanlakefirstnation.ca. Look up the dates for their big competition Pow Wow held each summer. This event brings in dancers and drummers from across the Great Plains and is open to the public.
More mixed farm land and river valleys grace the road – and then you’re treated to a wonderful decent into the Pelican Lake valley and the town of Ninette. You’re now less than an hour from our place. When you get up out of the valley you’ll need to decide whether to keep going along #23 to the #10 and south through Boissevain or to turn left onto #18 and go through Killarney. Either of these towns offer decent food and refreshment shopping.
If you go through Killarney you’ll need to get onto #3 Highway west at an intersection just South of the town. This is a cool road because you can see the Turtle Mountains (they’re mountains to us!) to the south and you’ll drive across and along a couple ravines that take water down from the hills to the Pembina river system. These ravines are a distinctive feature of this Highway. Most are fenced and provide native pasture and wildlife habitat. Keep your eyes open for beaver and muskrat huts, white tail deer and coyotes.
If you choose to go through Boissevain just carry on #23 until you reach # 10 Hwy. Turn south/left at the stop sign. In Boissevain you’ll find a scattering of fine outdoor murals on the sides of our larger buildings. There is also a wonderful First Peoples museum called the Moncur Gallery (after a local, self-taught archeologist) in the Library building. The liquor commission is in Hazelwood’s Pharmacy on South Railway Street. Beer is bought behind the Red Coat Inn which is on # 10 Hwy. Groceries are found at the Co-op on South Railway Street. Gasoline can be found at the Co-op Station along # 10 (as modern as it gets around here) or from Gord’s Service on South Railway Street (if you prefer an old time, owner run gas station).
Five k’s south of Boissevain (or 25 k’s west of Killarney), you’ll come to the corner of #3 and #10. Go west toward Deloraine from this intersection. (About 5 k’s along you’ll go past what used to be our family farm – where I grew up – on the left/south of the road.) 6 k’s along you’ll see a sign for Lake Max. Turn south along the gravel road and move up into the treed parkland. The snow or water you see in the creeks and wetlands eventually reaches Winnipeg via Cherry Creek, Pembina River and Red River. Just past the cultivated prairie (a bit more than 5 k’s from # 3 Hwy.) you’ll see our sign ‘Room To Grow’. Turn right. The Straw House is on your left when you’re on the yard.
Welcome.