Today we went to Saskatchewan, Canada. We went north out of Williston north to Weyburn where we ate dinner. The country remained pretty much the same as down south here at Williston. It is also over the Balkan oil reserve and lots of oil drilling going on. Talked to an older farmer and his wife at lunch and found out as much as I could about farming and oil. They have had oil for quite some time but it was shallow and low production. Now they are going deeper and lots more oil volume. The farming is wheat, canola, peas, mustard, safflour, flax, some corn and I can't remember what else. We came east to Estevan and south. Estevan claims to be the energy capital of Saskatchewan. The coal must be pretty shallow and not to thick a vein as the huge open pit drag lines drug the soil up and deposited it in rows like we see in Idaho in dredge mining and then they take out the coal and move over. Leaves the ground in huge mounds that stretches for miles. Sorry I did not get a picture of it as it would have been impressive. Have let to get a picture of the oil drilling rigs and the pumps. Sometimes there are as many as 6 pump jacks at one site. Lots and lots of tankers, both rail and truck so they are moving lots of oil.
Weather today has been cooler. There is a thick haze pretty much everywhere. The gentleman farmer said that there was a huge fire way north and west by Edmonton, Alberta, nearly 1000 miles away that was funneling smoke down this way.
On our way north this morning we went by a historic Lutheran church and cemetery. It's name is Bethesda. It was started in 1915. Here are some pictures. One of the interesting pictures is of the outhouse. It is cute as they have a place for little kids to go.
