Our Adventure Continues, Alaska and Beyond

Left Moose Jaw this morning, and across Trans Canada 1 again as we have been traveling, GREAT highway, and Friendly folks all along the way again - stopped at the Alberta Visitor's Center and got my Alberta hat pin - I have Manitoba, Saskatchewan and now Alberta! As we were driving West, we began to see what looked like a BLIZZARD had dumped several feet of snow in the low spot on the highway - found out later it was SALT, as the area is rich in salt deposits and is shipped all over Canada. Here is what we saw:

Got to our campground in Medicine Hat, settled in and took off for the Medalta Pottery Company, and took the tour. Very informative and interesting! The old beehive kilns are still there (though no longer used) and making of the crockery, jugs and lamp bases with basically the same methods as when the company was established in 1912. They make the different pieces with "pressed clay method", slip pouring into molds, and turned wheel method (throwing).
The beehive kilns, which are no longer used.

A Crockery Butter Churn. I had NEVER seen a crockery one, in all of my years of antiquing and collecting.

One of the interesting points: During WW2, German Officers taken prisoner, were brought into Canada and put to work in this pottery plant - however THEY were fed meat sandwiches, and made the same wages as the workers AND were given Housing for their work... This did not sit well with the locals working there - they perhaps made that same money, but had to bring mustard sandwiches and pay for their OWN housing...

Off to explore again tomorrow!
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June 1 - but wifi was so poor that it took till today to get these pix loaded!

Forgot to mention: When we got into Moose Jaw, we were trying to find our campground, and Den had the Magellan all programmed, we could not find it (a city park showed up???), so turned onto a street to try to get back to Main Street, and everyone was waving at us! I thought to myself: This Sure is a FRIENDLY town and THEN I saw a BIG RED TRUCK headed right for us!! We were going the WRONG way on a One way street!!! Holy Cow! Well, we turned at the next intersection and, discovered we were on ANOTHER one way street! The Street signs in Moose Jaw are very small and most are on the overhead stop light poles. AND the "ONE WAY" street signs are way off to the right or to the Left, NOT in front of you and are also very small..... Sure hope it is not like that all over Canada..... FYI: the Mascot for MOOSE JAW! LOL! Outside the Visitor's Center.

Finally got our our campground, Prairie Oasis, and set up... concrete pads, not too bad, and very close to town to go exploring. Spent Saturday morning, June 2, going through the Transportation Museum... Very interesting with Planes, Trains, and Automobiles from several decades back.. We found out the Rail Road system could travel from Chicago, to Minneapolis to Moose Jaw as early as 1882, bringing settlers, equipment, immigrants looking for work AND prosperity to many...

Shown here is a replica being worked on, by volunteers at the Museum... There are none complete examples to go by, as the only one known is rather like "driftwood"... so the volunteers are using the original plans to painstakingly replicate it.. Not nearly finished, but looking like a great job of woodworking so far..

Also at the Visitor's Center, was a "Snowbird" on display - which is comparable to our Blue Angels..

In the afternoon on Sunday, we into town to the "Tunnels", an exhibit below the old Land Management building.. There are 2 'interactive' tours you can take (we took both) and no photos are allowed.. one tour was about how this small Saskatchewan town in early 1900, became the new home of Chinese immigrants, who had come here seeking a better life.. The lived and worked in the tunnels, in the laundry, to pay back the cost of their passage.. They were paid pitifully small wages, and some never did make enough to pay for family members to be brought over.. and a "Head Tax'' was an additional fee, as much as $500.00 no matter what age they were. The Immigration laws finally changed and the tunnels were no longer used as 'laundry workers' after about 1910..

The second tour was the story of how the Railroad was very influential in the ''Career'' of Al Capone - he decided that since the 'heat was on' in New York and Chicago, his Bootlegging was threatened, so he took to the rails, as the Canadian Pacific Railroad ran from Chicago to Minneapolis to Moose Jaw, and decided to set up his bootlegging from Moose Jaw.... He used the tunnels to make the whiskey, barrel it, and move it underground to the rails to be loaded and shipped to where ever he wanted.. This went on till the Depression ended the operations...

Downtown Moose Jaw - very easy town to navigate, big enough to have just about anything you want or need.

The City is also known for it's many Murals - and a nice pamphlet of the walking tour shows exactly where each one is - in an easy walking distance... Some examples: