The Beginning and the End – tt A Summer Holiday Experience By Tjarda Barra

y husband Rob and I, when Saskatchewan border and ventured a then just before the confluence, a moose watching the Red Deer River few miles into Saskatchewan where the crossed the river right in front of our flow by our home at the eastern Red Deer joins the South Saskatchewan canoes. It was a perfect Canadian scene: endM of Red Deer County, asked ourselves River. From a high lookout we gazed out water, moose, migrating geese overhead where the water comes from and where it at the confluence. What a magnificent and the glorious expanse of nature. is going. Hence, as a summer project, we sight: open rolling land divided by these We beached our canoes on a muddy decided to search out the beginning and two great rivers – the brownish shallow bank at the V-shaped confluence of the end of the Red Deer River. waters of the Red Deer meeting and the rivers for picture taking and then In late July last year we went on a mixing with the blue-green of the wider, continued for another 10 km on the much three-day hike in Banff National Park and deeper South Saskatchewan. There was deeper, wider and faster moving South stayed at Skoki Lodge. On the second not a soul to be seen. Our only witnesses Saskatchewan to Estuary Ferry, our end day we set out for the five kilometre hike were the prairie wind, waving grasses, point of the day. to the headwaters of the Red Deer River. and some grazing cattle nearby. We We fully recommend this wonderful The weather gods ignored the calendar decided then and there to come back in summer activity: two wilderness and delivered a heavy dump of wet snow late September with canoes and friends in experiences, two rivers and one early that morning that made for difficult tow. watershed! going. Finally we got to the crystal clear When the fall colours had just meandering streams and shallow gravel appeared, we dropped our canoes in the braids and we knew that we had found river at Empress Bridge and paddled the Our thanks to Phil French the headwaters. The actual source of last 20 km of the Red Deer River. With (“Red Deer River Journey”) for the river is at Oyster Lake, just a short its wide sweeping bends, oxbows and his advice, the staff at Skoki scramble up the hill, but it was too tricky sandbars, the river seemed reluctant to Lodge, the invaluable help of to attempt because of the wet snow and accept its imminent merger with its big Pat and Ross at “Empressive” rain. I could not resist cupping the crystal brother the South Saskatchewan. At one Restaurant/store, Helen of clear water in my hands, let it fall through of the oxbows, for example, the river Forksview Hotel for helping with my fingers and send it on its way with a has only 40 metres to cut through to the logistics, Brad for showing little piece of advice: “whatever happens, form an oxbow lake and rob the riparian us around his land that is go with the flow.” Seeing this pristine landowner of a good chunk of grazing straddled by both rivers, and sight, I became aware of the challenges land. all the local people who had a the river faces further downstream. We paddled for several hours in the story to tell about their eight days later we drove to the slow moving river passing cottonwood- Red Deer River. village of Empress on the Alberta/ lined banks and white sandy beaches, and

“In” the headwaters of the Red Deer River. photo: © R. BARRATT

Confluence of the South Saskatchewan and Red Deer Rivers (Red Deer entering at the An unexpected delight. top right of the photo ). photo: © L. TOWNELL photo: © R. BARRATT

10 WLA | June 2012 | Vol. 20, No. 3 | features