Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

variegated \VAIR-ee-uh-gay-tid\, adjective:
1. Having marks or patches of different colors; as, "variegated leaves or flowers."
2. Varied; distinguished or characterized by variety; diversified.

I'm trying a little experiement today since the photo upload facility for this blog is horribly slow. I have included links to photos which are already uploaded to the web instead. This way you can see more images and I can spend less time uploading them. You will need to enter a username and passwword if you are not already a member but that is it and you get to see many more photos. Let me know what you think of this new method.

Surprise, surprise. It was another scorcher today registering 35C. I do love the warm weather but my family is less enthralled with the rather extreme temperatures we have been experiencing. So, how did we spend our one full day in the Toon? I’m glad you asked.
We started off with a visit to the Wanuskewin Heritage Park to find out more about the native people of this area. To our disappointment, there were no tour guides available but fortunately the exhibition inside, as well as the highlights along the hiking trails, where very well documented and it gave us a pretty good overview of the life of the native American Indians that inhabited this area. Probably the most exciting and memorable part of the lifestyle of these people was the way in which they hunted buffalo. In a nutshell, they would trick them into thinking that one of their young was in danger by having one of the Indians disguise themselves as a baby buffalo and another dress like a wolf. Then they would pretend that they wolf is chasing the young buffalo. The buffalo instinctively try to protect their young and would then run after these two trying to scare of the “wolf”. The whole time the two Indians would be running toward a cliff. Although we are out in the prairies, they do have rather sudden valleys crop up typically carved out by streams and rivers. Now, as you might have already guessd, it turns out that buffalo have very poor eye sight so they usually would not notice the cliff coming until it was too late. And even if they did, often there would be a pack of them running together so when the first ones stopped for the cliff, the ones behind would bump into them from behind and knock them over the cliff anyway! Then there would be other Indians waiting at the bottom of the cliff to kill the buffalo which might only be wounded. Very clever! However, I should mention that this was not always easy. In many cases it took days to find and sneak up on the buffalo and then lure them back to the cliff area.
When we were in Winnipeg, I heard a guide telling a group about another way that Indians would catch buffalo in the winter. The Indians would once again take advantage of one of the buffalo’s natural tendency. When they sense danger or a threat, the male buffalo, to forfend their young and the females, will form a circle facing outward with the females and young in the centre. So what the Indians would do is chase the buffalo out onto the ice of a frozen river or lake. I’m not sure how much you know about the concept of pressure but let’s just say that if you are out on a frozen lake in the winter, it is NOT a good idea to have everyone you are with group together in one spot. The ice might be strong enough to hold a buffalo on its own but when they gather in a circle, the inevitable would happen and they would all fall through the ice. Many would die from drowning or freezing. Instant frozen dinner! After hearing about these methods I get the feeling that either these Indians must ahve sat around doing a lot of strategic thinking … or … over the years these incidents happened coincidentally and suddenly a light bulb appeared over the heads of those Indians (anachronism?) watching and a tradition was born. Either way, for these native people to survive the hot, scorching summers and bleak, freezing winters of the prairies, they must have been plenty clever.
Another nice thing about this place is that it is a park. A heritage park. So they had a selection of hiking trails you could take to see the actual places where these people would live and hunt. We took one of the trails that went down through a valley along the river and back up again. Quite interesting and picturesque however I think we ended up sweating about three times our own body weight! For photos check the link below:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=j625qcn.6e63am1b&x=1&y=ht6ff6

Then it was off to downtown Saskatoon to go for a bike ride. We heard that there were some nice bike trails along the aptly named, Saskatchewan River and, sure enough, there was the Meewasin Valley Trail. It was a nice little ride along the water and we even managed to have a swim. Well, the kids did since they were in their bathing suits already (lucky dogs!). Along the way I learned a new term today, weir. I did not realize that Canada’s most famous golfer was named after a concrete dam used to control the flow of a river or stream. The Toon installed a weir back in 1939 in order to maintain the water level at the minimum required for their water treatment plant. I guess that sounds important enough to put in the time and effort required to build a weir. I would imagine it could get rather ugly otherwise. The water flowing over the weir has a rather mesmerizing beauty but it does make navigating the river by boat a little tricky. Anyway, the ride was fun but I think we all came close to learning the meaning of yet another new word: dehydration. We depleated the water in our bottles by the halfway mark but luckily we found a water fountain on the way back. Maybe we should be using camels instead of bikes until this weather cools down a bit. For photos check this link:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=j625qcn.boweqwb3&x=1&y=-2ruujj

Another interesting fact about the Toon is that the singer Joni Mitchell grew up here and considers it her hometown. For those of you old enough to remember, probably her biggest hit was “Big Yellow Taxi” which I read was written by her while sitting in a café right here in the Toon. I was surprised to find out that she also wrote the song “Both Sides Now” and has received 5 Grammy awards along with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Not too shabby. As usual, for more info, check Wikipedia! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_Mitchell )

That evening when we had returned to the campsite we ended up striking up a conversation with some fellow MoHo-ers, if I may use that term. We got talking with them because they were driving the exact same type of MoHo as us (a Glendale Royal Classic) except that it was 6 years newer (2003). I must admit that it looked very nice and had numerous little improvements to many of the things that I find rather irritating or what I might term “under-engineered”. It was fun comparing the differences. However, while we were talking, Marvin mentioned in interesting point. He said that he liked staying in a MoHo, rather than a hotel, when he travels because it is so easy to meet people. It is a fact that I had not considered when making our decision to embark on our MoHo tour but I must admit that it certainly has proven to not only be true and but also rewarding.